moving my virtual machines from vmware workstation to vmware vsphere

[Logax]

Hello,

i would like to know how to move or migrate my openstack environemment from vmware workstation to a real hypervisor such as vmware vsphere (3 virtual machines total). can someone help ?

And another thing, can i install or deploy vmware vsphere next to my windows 10, since type 1 hypervisors need to be installed on top of hardware as far as i know ?? (i don't want to lose my data).

Thank you,

[mhampto]

This may be able to move the VM's: VMware vCenter Converter: P2V Virtual Machine Converter

There may be issues using converter due to the changes in the hardware that is presented to the VM (MAC address comes to mind). Migrating the VM's treating them as P2V may have better results.

For the second question, is this a dual boot setup you are looking to implement?

[Logax]

hey, thank you for the reply.

yes i'm looking to dual boot, is it ok ?

[continuum]

A Dualboot setup with ESXi and Windows 10 on one host is possible but makes no real sense at all.
There is no chance to share a filesystem between both bootoptions other than Fat32 - which is not suitable to store VMs.

[Logax]

why not ? since i'm going to install esxi on a second partition !

and why the FAT32 ?

[continuum]

Scenario 1:
requires 1 host:
To do any work you need to have an OS with a decent graphical user interface (browsing internet, read emails , operate VMs .....)
So in a dualboot setup you MUST boot into Windows.

Scenario 2:

requires 1 host
If you boot this host into ESXi you cant work with a graphical interface as ESXi has none.
So effectively you cant do anything but learn and experiment with ESXi commandline.

Scenario 3:
requires 2 or more hosts:
Now you would use the host with the better graphical user interface to work with.
You would use the  host with the most disk space and memory to run ESXi.?

Conclusion:
If you have only one host available dualboot windows10 / esxi makes no sense.
To learn ESXi commandline operation it is more than enough to run ESXi as a VM inside Workstation.
If you have more than one host it is best to dedicate the hosts that are suitable for ESXi to run ESXi exclusively and use the ones that are Laptop-class or Gaming-class to Windows.

> why Fat32 ?
Because that is the only filesystem that can be used for reading and writing by both ESXi and Windows.
Windows cant write VMFS and only has experimental read support for old VMFS versions.
ESXi cant read NTFS.
With Fat32 you are limited to a filesize max of 2GB - which is not sufficient to exchange virtual machine files.
Fat32 also is to fragile for modern usage habbits.
So effectively you have no good option to exchange files with between your 2 operating systems.

Ulli

[Logax]

So, i need 2 hosts to be able to use esxi with a webbrowser ? damn it.

thx for clarifying this, appreciate it.

[continuum]

Well there is one more option but it requires a special quite expensive videocard.
ESXi allows to pass a small list of enterprise class hardware to be passed through to the guests.
I dont remember which videocards are on this list but if you have one of these cards you can setup a ESXi host that actually really allows to use the same host as a Workstation.
So you would start ESXi and then start a Windows VM with the physical video card in passthru mode via commandline.
Once the VM is up it will use the monitor to display its desktop in 32bit colour with a good / modern resolution.
Read Paul Braren What fits in any home virtualization lab, has 8 Xeon cores, 6 drives, 128 GB memory, and 3 4K output...
Check it out - it sounds like you may like it.
Ulli