Some P2V actions need more time than expected. Start-up problems by changed HD from IDE to SCSI. Problems with booting the VM. The UltimateP2V disc based on BartsPe has some nice features. Plugin the drivers. Start and run. When yoe have not much time to migrate like me, you must find out diverend way’s to migrate. I use VMware Converter, UltimateP2V (Mike Laverick), Cold bootCD from VMware and Leostream P2V.
Over a 100 Mb network a migration off 10 Gb takes about 30 min. When migrate a Windows2000 server, you need another 15 min to configure the network and reboots. P2V action creates a big disc with more partitions.Wen you have more time, split and copy these partitions to separate discs. I use BootIt. Works really fast.
Today 3 servers are migrated to VI3. One developmentserver must be roll-backed: PDA simulation software doesn’t work well. Connection to serial port not working. (I don’t will use it anyway, because Vmotion (and DRS) is useless).
Some P2V tips:
- Check local admin account on W2k servers. After P2V no domain is available. First the drivers must first be installed.
- Take some extra time to trouble shoot.
- Live migration of WindowsNT4 with Leostream. No reboot or downtime.
- After created the VMX file you can directly remove no necessary hardware from VM: serial ports, parallelport, etc.