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Oracle Ditches Virtual Iron & VMware offering ‘safe passage’ to Virtual Iron users

July 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Only after a bit over a month of Oracle acquiring Virutal Iron, they have to ditches the product. That mean customers who had already bought Virtual Iron or planning to buy it will be left in the dark waiting for a savior. It seems VMware has been well aware of the situation & prepared to be these customers savior. VMware has already even released a full guide on how to move from the Virtual Iron platform to VMware vSphere without a lot of hassle. They had been as well pushing their sales forces to educate Virtual Iron customer on making the decision of moving to VMware & how to facilatate the movement. If you are a Virtual Iron customer & planning to move to VMware, so you might be curious on how to do so below is the exact instructions as listed by VMware guide & hope it will safe some one from getting fired for the wrong decision in the current bad economy:

Using VMware Converter to convert Virtual Iron Machines to VMware virtual machines

Purpose

This article provides details for converting Virtual Iron virtual machines to VMware virtual machines.
Virtual Iron virtual machines can be converted to VMware vSphere virtual machines using VMware Converter, enabling Virtual Iron migrations to VMware technology. This article details the two supported approaches to converting Virtual Iron virtual machines to VMware vSphere virtual machines using VMware Converter, Cold Cloning and Hot Cloning.
Additional information can be found in the documentation for VMware Converter, Virtual Iron, and VMware vSphere.

Resolution

Technical Specifications

The following technologies were used to create this article:

  • Virtual Iron v4.2
  • VMware vCenter Converter Standalone v4.01 (for hot cloning)
  • VMware Converter Enterprise for vCenter 2.5 (for cold cloning)
  • VMware ESX/ESXi v4.0.0 build 164009

Guest Operating Systems Supported

All Windows and Linux guests supported by Virtual Iron and Converter.

Prerequisites

  1. The source virtual machine must not be para-virtualized. Normally none of the previously listed guest operating systems are para-virtualized.
  2. Within the source Virtual Iron virtual machine you must disable the VS Tools Installed setting on the Configuration tab prior to starting these steps.

Methods of Conversion

Cold Cloning Process

With the Cold Cloning process, the VMware Converter Boot CD is used to boot the source Virtual Iron virtual machine and launch the conversion process. This approach requires the source virtual machine to be offline during the cloning process.

Note: VMware vCenter Converter 4.x does not support cold cloning, however VMware Converter Enterprise for vCenter 2.5 does. The VMware vCenter Converter Boot CD image, part of VMware Converter Enterprise for vCenter 2.5 is available at http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=VC250U4.
For Virtual Iron virtual machines, this CD image must be burned to a physical CD-ROM and used to boot the Virtual Iron virtual machine using the physical CD-ROM drive in the Virtual Iron Host.

To cold clone the Virtual Iron virtual machine:

  1. Insert the burned VMware Converter Boot CD into the physical Virtual Iron host. Use the Virtual Iron GUI to associate the physical CD-ROM drive with the virtual machine to be converted. Before starting the virtual machine, ensure the setting for Are VS Tools installed is disabled to ensure the VMware Converter Boot CD starts correctly. After starting the virtual machine, if the VMware Converter Boot CD does not boot, verify the virtual machine’s boot order is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive first.

  2. When the virtual machine has booted VMware Converter Standalone, follow the steps on screen to clone and convert the system to a VMware vSphere virtual machine hosted by VMware ESX/ESXi.

    1. Under step 3: Customize, select Install VMware Tools to install the VMware Tools after conversion.
    2. Select Customize the identity of the virtual machine if you need to modify the converted system’s Name, Network Settings, and Time Zone. If the virtual machine is running Microsoft Windows, a new System ID (SID) can also be generated. This option requires the Microsoft Sysprep files to be provided.
    3. You can also select Remove all System Restore checkpoints (recommended) to reduce the amount of data to be cloned and the time required to perform the clone accordingly.

Refer to the VMware Converter Enterprise for vCenter 2.5 Release Notes and User’s Manual for more information.

Hot Cloning Process

Virtual Iron virtual machines running supported guest operating systems can also be hot cloned and converted. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.01 provides broad guest operating system support for hot cloning as detailed in the release notes.

To Hot Clone the Virtual Machine:

  1. Launch VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.01 either directly on the Virtual Iron virtual machine to be converted or on a supported remote system with network connectivity to the Virtual Iron host, the Virtual Iron virtual machine to be converted, and the VMware vSphere vCenter and/or VMware ESX/ESXi hosts to receive the converted virtual machine(s).

  2. Choose the option to Convert Machine and select Source Type: Powered-on machine.Specify whether the powered-on machine is the local machine or a remote machine providing system address, credentials and guest operating system details as required.

  3. Under Options / Advanced Options:

    1. Select Install VMware Tools on the imported virtual machine to install the VMware Tools after conversion.
    2. Select Configure guest preferences for the virtual machine if you need to modify the converted system’s Name, Network Settings, OS license, and Time Zone. If the virtual machine is running Microsoft Windows, a new System ID (SID) can also be generated. This option requires the Microsoft Sysprep files to be provided.
    3. You can also select Remove System Restore checkpoints on destination to reduce the amount of data to be cloned and the time required to perform the clone accordingly.
    4. Leave Reconfigure destination virtual machine selected, otherwise the selected conversion options are not applied.

Refer to the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 4.01 Release Notes and User’s Manual for more information.

Post Conversion

After the cloning and conversion process has completed, boot and test the converted virtual machine. VMware recommends all converted virtual machines be tested before decommissioning the original source virtual machines.

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