P2V SBS 2003

[StuartLittle]

Hello all,

First time post here.

We are looking to run VMWare Converter on a customers SBS 2003 R2 SP2 Standard Server (Dell PowerEdge SC420) and use ESXi to host the virtual machine in a data centre.

Does anyone have any tech notes, white papers or simple advice regarding this SBS P2V process. Can you do it? Is it 100% successful and are there any caveats to watch out for?

I've read forum posts saying it is possible but sometimes the conversion fails and also if it's an OEM product you cannot boot and relicense the OS ... is this true?

Any advice or help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Stuart.

[hstagner]

Hello StuartLittle,

You can convert the machine as long as it does not have an OEM License. An OEM license cannot be trasferred to new hardware. Also, check out these Converter Best Practices

There is some cleanup to do after the conversion. Pay particular attention if you are converting a multi-cpu machine. When the conversion is done, back the VM back down to single cpu unless it is absolutely necessary to have a multi-cpu VM because the multi-cpu VM could adversely affect the performance of the other VM's on the ESX Host. You will still need to go into the VM once it is booted up and change the HAL driver back to a single cpu driver. Otherwise the Operating System will still be looking for another CPU even though it does not exist. This will waste processor time.

I hope this helps.

Don't forget to use the buttons on the side to award points if you found this useful (you'll get points too).

Regards,

Harley Stagner

[StuartLittle]

Hi Harley,

Thanks for the reply the information is most helpful. The server we will be converting only has a P4 CPU therefore it's single processor with a single core (as far as i know!).

It's bizarre that if you convert a multi cpu or multi core server that you need to change the VM so it only has 1 vCPU (you would think you coudl assign a 2nd vCPU to match the original configuration).

When you say that I would need to change the HAL driver (excuse my ignorance) but is that done in Windows Device Manager? When you say I would need to change the driver back to a single CPU do i get a list/choice to choose from?

Thanks for your advice it's very much appreciated and if anyone else knows further information I would love to hear from you.

PS. I won't forget to assign the points for the helpful answers.

Kind regards,

Stuart.

[hstagner]

Hello StuartLittle,

Here is the quick reason that you should go with single cpu and only do multi-cpu if absolutely necessary. It has to do with the way cpu's are scheduled in ESX.

Example:

You have two dual-core processors on your ESX host. That is 4-cores total. Life is good.

ESX needs to schedule a core to use for each vCPU that a virtual machine has. So, in a single-cpu VM it would schedule a single core to use when that VM needs to process. This leaves three other cores for the other VM's on the system to use. Yay!

What if the VM has two vCPU's? Well, ESX needs to schedule two cores simultaneously for that VM when it needs to process. So, when that VM has its processor time scheduled, the other VM's are left to fight over only two cores.

So, imagine if you start loading up your ESX server with multi-CPU VM's. They would constantly be fighting and waiting for processor time to be scheduled for them. This is where you will see high percentages of the %CPU RDY performance counter in VirtualCenter or esxtop on the host. %CPU RDY is the percentage of time that the VM is waiting for it's processing time to be scheduled.

So, the short answer is you CAN assign 2 vCPU's to a VM after conversion, but you probably don't want to unless it is absolutely necessary.

As for the HAL stuff. Yes, this is done in Windows Device Manager (Windows 2003 only. As far as I know 2000 you can't do this). Click the +sign next to "Computer" to expand it. If the driver is a multi-processor driver it will show up as "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" To change the driver back to a single processor, select "Update Driver". Select "Install from a Specific Location." Select "Don't Search. I will choose the driver to install." Then, select "Show All Compatible Hardware". Choose the appropriate driver. For a single processor VM this will be ACPI PC instead of ACPI Multiprocessor PC.

I hope this helps.

Don't forget to use the buttons on the side to award points if you found this useful (you'll get points too).

Regards,

Harley Stagner

[StuartLittle]

Hi Harley,

Thanks again for the quick response.

Your explaination is perfect and really help clarify things for me. Thanks so much for your time and effort.

Kind regards,

Stuart.

[hstagner]

Hello StuartLittle,

You're Welcome! I am glad that I could help. Good luck on your conversions :smileygrin: .

Regards,

Harley Stagner

[StuartLittle]

Harley,

Sorry one more question: We don't have the VMWare Converter Enterprise version that gives you the Cold Boot CD so we would have to install the converter on the server and perform a "Hot" clone.

Do you know if this is just as good as doing a cold boot clone? Are there any issues doing it this way? I'm not sure if running the converter while the server is operational causes any problems? It didn't for the PC's & Laptops i've hot cloned but not sure if an SBS server would be different?

Thanks again for all your help.

Kind regards,

Stuart.

[hstagner]

Hello StuartLittle,

You should not have any trouble with "Hot" cloning your 2003 machine. I do this all the time. Just keep in mind the cleanup and processor advice that I gave earlier :smileywink: . I hope this helps.

Don't forget to use the buttons on the side to award points if you found this useful (you'll get points too).

Regards,

Harley Stagner

[sahanif]

Hi Stuart,

I also have a SBS 2003 that I want to P2V this month using VMWare Converter 3.0 (hot clone). Could you please share your experience about P2V-ing your SBS 2003. is there any issue with MS exchange database after that process in physical (source) server?

I'm afraid if the exhange database will be corrupted after P2V process.

Any response is appreciated.

Thanks

Sahanif

PS: Is there any tools to convert NTBackup file (all system backup) to Virtual (vmware) file so it can be run in vmware server?