Fortunately, when you need to migrate your workloads from a physical server to a VMware virtual machine VM , you are not required to create and configure a new VM from scratch because you can use VMware vCenter Converter Standalone to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is a free application that can be downloaded from the VMware website and installed on Windows for converting supported types of machines to VMware virtual machines.
The VMware vCenter Converter Standalone featured in this blog post is called Standalone because it can be installed on the operating system of a custom machine.
There are two other types of VMware Converter which are not currently supported:. You can select the components to install when you run the installer of VMware Converter. There are two available options:. Only VMware vCenter Converter Standalone is considered in this blog post and sometimes can be referred to simply as VMware Converter for more convenience.
Hot migration is the process of converting a machine that is in the powered-on state. Hot migration is not recommended for converting Active Directory Domain Controllers. It is highly recommended that you stop all possible applications and services that write data on disks before starting hot migration. Cold migration is the migration of a source machine that is in the powered-off state.
Cold migration is recommended for converting MS Exchange servers, database servers such as Oracle or MS SQL, and other servers on which data is dynamically changed when a server is powered on to preserve the data consistency. If the data on disks remains static, you can perform hot migration. Cold migration of physical servers can be performed if you boot from the live CD and run the process of converting a physical machine including disks drives and the operating system.
In the current example, VMware Converter 6. The source physical machine is running Windows Server Step 1: Source System. Select a source machine. Since a physical Windows Server must be converted, select Powered on , select Remote Windows machine as the source type, and specify the IP address or DNS name, the user name, and password.
Then, hit View source details. VMware vCenter Converter Standalone agent must be deployed on the remote Windows machine in this case. You should select whether to uninstall the agent files when import succeeds automatically or not. Then, hit Yes to continue. Once the agent is installed, you can view source details. Notice that VMware Converter 6. Hit Close , then hit Next in the Source System window. Step 2: Destination System. As a physical machine running Windows Server used in this example must be converted to a VM running on an ESXi host, VMware Infrastructure virtual machine must be selected in VMware Converter for this step; select the destination server.
Step 3: Destination Virtual Machine. Step 4: Destination Location. Select the ESXi host, cluster or resource pool that is connected to the selected Datacenter and select the datastore available on that ESXi host.
There must be enough free space on the selected datastore. If the modern operating system is installed on a source machine, you can select the latest available virtual machine version hardware version for the destination VM.
The virtual machine version that can be selected also depends on a version of the destination ESXi host. Step 5: Options. This step allows you to select the following options for the destination VM:. Data to copy. Select which disks and volumes you want to copy. You can select thick or thin provisioning type for destination virtual disks you should select advanced view and resize volumes if needed. In this example, a physical disk that contains two volumes is converted to a thin provisioned virtual disk.
It is recommended that you tick the checkboxes:. You can select the number of virtual processors, processor cores, virtual disk controllers, and memory size. Select networks to which virtual network adapters of the VM must be connected. On the Source Services tab, you can select which running services on the source Windows machine to stop before starting P2V conversion with VMware Converter. On the Destination Services tab, you can select the startup mode for services on the destination VM.
Advanced options. There are two tabs — Synchronize and Post-conversion. In the Post-conversion tab, you can set the power state for a source machine and destination machine after P2V conversion is finished. The Post-conversion processing options are:. Throttling allows you to perform your usual tasks during the conversion process.
Admittedly, VMware vCenter Converter Standalone can be relatively complicated since it's a tool for administrators. Don't worry, though, for the process of virtualizing your existing Windows installation can be as easy as following the steps below. After installing and running the application on the PC you want to virtualize, click on the Convert machine button on the top left of its window.
The Conversion window will appear, configured by default to work with remote Windows PCs. Leave Select source type as Powered on , and use the drop-down menu directly underneath to change the type of computer from Remote Windows machine to This local machine. Change the setting in the drop-down menu next to Select destination type from VMware Infrastructure virtual machine to VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine.
Some new settings will show up, among other things allowing you to specify the virtualization solution where you're going to use the produced virtual machine. It's worth choosing the correct solution from the drop-down menu next to Select VMware product for optimal compatibility and performance. Next, click on the Browse button on the right, and choose where you want to store your virtual machine. Select a spot with enough free storage since the results will take up as much space as your actual Windows installation, and then some.
You can tweak many options of the virtualization process, but most users will have to make only a few adjustments to the default settings. So don't be alarmed if an error icon accompanies the first of those: as we'll see, that's normal. While in Options , the first entry under Current settings will demand your attention with a red error icon.
Click on the entry to address the problem. The source of the problem is that, by default, VMware's vCenter Converter Standalone will be trying to include all accessible storage devices into the virtual machine. So, go through the Source volumes list, and disable all storage devices and partitions, apart from a the one with your active Windows installation and b the small boot partition before that.
Leave the rest of the options as they are. Move to Devices, next in the Current settings list. There you will find that the produced virtual machine will be pre-configured to run on a setup similar to your actual hardware.
However, that's not realistic: if you dedicate all your PC's resources to the virtual machine, nothing is left for the host OS. Thus, you should dial down the resources the virtualized clone of your OS will use. Start on the Memory tab, and reduce the number next to Memory allocated for this virtual machine: to something like half your actual PC's RAM. Similarly, move to the Other tab, and reduce the number next to Total number of cores: to around half the actual number of cores of your CPU.
Skip the following sections, but for ease of use, pay a quick visit to Advanced. Leave the rest of the options as they are here, too. Will you use your VM in parallel with other demanding applications or heavily use your network connection while it's active?
Then, make sure to also pay a visit to the Throttling section and change the produced virtual machine's CPU and network priority. Doing so will reduce its responsiveness but also help with multitasking. Alternatively, if you'll primarily work in your new virtual machine, you'll want it to be as responsive as possible.
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