Deep Intro to VMware, Part 7: VMware Converter

When you are looking for a solution to virtualise your servers to a VMware ESX server there are several ways to go.

One of the methods that I used a lot before is to take an image of the server and deploy that with Altiris Deployment Solution to a Virtual machine.

This worked very well, but requires some good timing. The server needs to be shutdown and brought into PXE boot to take the image. After you have that image you can use the same method to bring it into a Virtual machine.

When you have finished that then you can clean out the machine or leave it like it is.

VMware has a free to use tool named VMware converter. This tool can do the job very well and even helps you in deleting system restore points in the VM.

So let's take a look at the process.

VMware converter can be downloaded from the official VMware website (http://www.VMware.com) and then you install it on windows XP or Vista computer. After you have installed it, you double click the shortcut on the desktop.

Select the option Convert machine.

Now a wizard will start that guides you through the steps you need to make to get the desired result.

Click next to start the steps.

First we need to select the source we want. Click next to select the desired source.

As you can see in the above picture you now have four options that you can select.

• Physical computer
• VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine
• Virtual Appliance
• Other

When you select a Physical computer you will be asked to give the name or the IP address of that computer and a username and password with administration privileges on that machine. VMware Converter will install a little agent on that computer and then the computer will be virtualised as a Virtual Machine. The virtual machine will be identical on the physical machine except for some of the drivers. You will be asked to install VMware tools automatically and VMware adds the system drivers it needs to let the Virtual machine run.

You also can choose to delete the system restore points.

When you select VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine, you can select a VMware Virtual Center or a VMware ESX server. On that machine or Virtual Center client you can select one of the virtual machines that you want to use for the converter. This is not really a convert but an enhanced method to clone the machine if you have no Virtual Center client running.

I use this functionality quit often to migrate virtual machines from one infrastructure to another one when you do not want them to be in the same network.

Virtual Appliances are complete machines that you can easily download. In one of the next articles I will come back to this.

Other are standard virtual machines that you have running on VMware server or VMware Workstation. The biggest benefit of this function is that you are able to convert machines from VMware workstation that can not be used in ESX without the conversion. Be aware that if you have a virtual machine in Workstation where the disks are idle disks can not be used on ESX. VMware ESX does not support IDe drives. If this is the case you can do it in a way I explained before on Connect. Take a look at: How to Convert Vmware Windows XP IDE Disk to LSILogic

In this example I choose to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine.

Choose physical machine and click next.

Now you can choose a different machine or like I do my own local computer. Click next to continue.

NOTE: if you select a different machine make sure the username and password that you supply has administrative privileges and the machine needs to be running.

Now you can select the disks that you want in your virtual machine. As you see in the picture above you are able to change the size of the disk. Make sure you understand that if you select a greater size this does not mean that the c disk will be larger. This only means that you have separate space that can be used to create a new partition on that disk.

Click next after you have selected the disk or disks that you want to convert and you have selected the desired size.

Next you need to select the destination of the files. Click next to continue.

Now you see that you can select again one of the four options as the location of your virtual machine.

In this case I select VMware infrastructure Virtual machine. This will build my own machine as a virtual machine on ESX.

Click next to set the various options.

Give the IP address of the ESx server and also add the correct username and password with enough permissions to build the machine on the ESX server.

Now you have to give the new Virtual Machine a name. Click next to continue.

In the next phase you can select a resourcepool where you want your computer to run. Click next to go to the next step.

Select the storage where you want the Virtual Machine to run. Click next to continue.

Select the number of Network interface cards you want the machine to have. Click next to continue.

It is a very good task to automatically install the VMware tools on the virtualised client. Also I marked the option to remove all system restore checkpoints. If you leave them in and you restore to a previous checkpoint the virtual machine will crash because it will no longer recognise the drivers added during the conversion. Be aware of this if you do not remove the system checkpoints.

Now you see an overview of all the options that selected.

Final step is to click next and then have between half an hour and several hours time to let the action complete.

After the whole process is done you see a virtual machine on your Virtual Infrastructure client. When you browse to the resourcepool you selected you can see the virtual machine. Test it thoroughly to make sure that the process is done correctly.

I hope this guide helps you understand and perform the tasks of converting Physical machines into Virtual Machines.

If you are thinking about a complete virtual infrastructure this can save you a lot of time.