Personal Project: Convert Linux host with VMs to vSphere Hypervisor

[migfx]

Hello

I've been using VMware Workstation for a few years both for personal and professional purposes.

I'd like to convert my Linux host with multiple virtual machines into a vSphere Hypervisor server with all my existing VMs and data.

I currently have an Ubuntu 10.10 desktop on which I run Workstation 8 to host multiple Linux VMs as a WebSphere Portal cluster (LDAP, DB2, ND, 2-Portal nodes). I also use it to host a VortexBox VM which contains my music collection. The audio files are not in a the .vmdk of the VortexBox, but are accessable via a folder share from the host. I also have several years worth of photos and documents on the host system.

The hardware consists of:

Asus M4A785TD-V Motherboard

Corsair XMS3 16GB

Intel PWLA8391GTBLK PRO/1000 GT Desktop Network Adapter

1 x Hitachi 1TB (empty)

1 x Seagate 160GB (photos, videos)

2 x Seagate 300GB (Ubuntu, music, data, VMs)

I'm very new to vSphere. All I've done is install vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 5) to an 8GB USB drive on the above system and created a data store of the 1TB drive.

I've also installed vSphere Client on a Windows XP VM running on my MacBook; which I used to create the data store.

Can anyone provide some high level steps on how to proceed?

I do have an external hard drive on which I can copy the existing VMs to deploy to the vSphere host via Workstation 8.

My main concern is the best way to maintain my music/photo/video collection so that it is accessable by the VortexBox VM.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Miguel

[scottyyyc]

ESXi is its own operating system, so when it's running, you don't have an guest OS to interact with on that box (like VMware workstation, where you can still work in Ubuntu). So for your personal workstation, you wont be able to use the ESXi box. ESXi is solely meant to host VMs, it's not a guest OS that you can use for your personal tasks.

The first basic step is getting all the VMs into the ESXi box. For this, a good starting point would be getting familiar with VMware's Converter tool. It can take existing machines (be it physical or virtual), or raw VMware workstation files, and convert them into a VM on an ESXi host. It's actually a very good, mature tool. That should take care of converting all of your workstation VMs into ESXi.

From there, it would just be a matter of getting your Vortexbox VM to "see" all of your data (eg music files). It's just a simply media server, so there's 2 generic options:

1. Import the data into the Vortexbox VM.

2. Store the data elsewhere (eg your personal workstation, a NAS, a fileserver VM, etc), and share it to guest OS (samba, cifs, etc) inside the VM. Seems like the vortexbox app fully supports this (as do most media servers, like xbmc, boxee, etc).

Conceptually, it wouldn't really be any different than how your Vortexbox VM is set up right now - how is it accessing your music files right now? VMware workstation does have the ability to share files between your guest OS and the VM, but that's generally not a consideration with ESXi, since it's a bare metal hypervisor, and doesn't have a guest OS.

How you store your actual data (music files, etc), is completely up to you. Most people will either store it on their personal workstation, or on a NAS.

Hope this helps.

[migfx]

I understand I will be relegating my system's use to only host VMs. I will

hence forth use my MacBook or my work laptop to access the VMs on the ESXi

box.

I took a look at the VMware Converter product page and it sounds like a

good idea. If I do the conversions of my existing VMs, I'm assuming I'll

have to shutdown my ESXi box and boot back into it using Ubuntu and do the

conversion there, they will exist on a hard drive of the ESXi box, but one

that is not the datastore.

Do I copy the converted VMs to another system so that I can deploy them

into the ESXi box?

Or is there a way to locate the converted VMs from the ESXi host (using

vSphere Client) and deploy them?

What's the benefit of using VMware Converter as opposed to using the VMware

Workstation 8 to upload the VMs to the ESXi host?

Currently I am using the Sharing Folders option of VMware Workstation and I

understand that is not possible from within ESXi.

I like the point you make about a fileserver VM. If I decide to implement

this option, would I be able to connect it to the existing hard disks on

the ESXi host without having to reformat, thus preserving my data (music,

photos, videos, docs, etc)?

Any recommendations?

I'm assuming that a fileserver VM would be different from a NAS VM, as in

the NAS I would have to format the drive(s) in whatever file system the NAS

prefers ( I saw a YouTube video describing FreeNAS).

Regards,

Miguel

From: scottyyyc <[e-mail]>

To: Miguel Macias/Austin/IBM@IBMUS,

Date: 11/30/2011 04:56 PM

Subject: New message: "Personal Project:

Convert Linux host with VMs to vSphere

Hypervisor"

[scottyyyc]

"Do I copy the converted VMs to another system so that I can deploy them into the ESXi box? Or is there a way to locate the converted VMs from the ESXi host (using vSphere Client) and deploy them?"

ESXi has to be running for the converter to convert them and move them into ESXi. Since this is the same box that VMware Workstation runs on, this would mean that Ubuntu and workstation are powered off. You would have covert the raw workstation files (which the tool supports). This will probably mean temporarily copying the VM files from workstation to a temporary location.

"What's the benefit of using VMware Converter as opposed to using the VMware Workstation 8 to upload the VMs to the ESXi host?"

It ultimately doesn't matter. But keep in mind that since ESXi has to be running, you can't have both ESXi running AND Ubuntu/Workstation at the same time on the same box, so in your case, wouldn't be able to do this. Another option is exporting all of the VMs to OVF templates (to an external HDD), and then once ESXi is running, import the OVFs.

"I like the point you make about a fileserver VM. If I decide to implement this option, would I be able to connect it to the existing hard disks on the ESXi host without having to reformat, thus preserving my data (music, photos, videos, docs, etc)? Any recommendations?"

While it is technically possible to have a linux-formatted hard drive visible to VMs (as an RDM), this is highly unusual, and massively overcomplicates things. The best thing to do would be to temporarily move the data off the hard drive(s), format them as VMFS datastores, and then move the data back ontop the drives within a virtual hard disk. By doing it this way, you get all of the benefits of virtualization (eg. being able to easily move that virtual hard drive onto different volumes, and easily attach it to different VMs, etc). It's a bit of short term pain, but long term gain.

"I'm assuming that a fileserver VM would be different from a NAS VM, as in the NAS I would have to format the drive(s) in whatever file system the NAS prefers ( I saw a YouTube video describing FreeNAS)."

A NAS and a fileserver are essentially the same thing. It's nothing more an operating system that shares data. They all use the same protocols for sharing (samba, CIFS, iSCSI, etc), so it typically doesn't matter. But yes, most NAS' typically run Linux based OSs, so yes, it's ultimately sitting on a Linux (ext2/3/4) file system. That shouldn't matter though, so long as your other machines can see the data. If I were you, I'd either buy a consumer NAS (which will offer more storage and are expandable), or set up a simple VM (like FreeNAS or whatever) and just give it a big virtual hard disk.