VMware’s converter product does an excellent job of converting existing physical servers into Virtual machines.
However those who have read earliier posts will know it’s not perfect,some servers don’t P2V well, so what shouldn’t be P2Vd?
Domain Controllers
First off domain controllers, lots of people have had iossues with P2V of DCs, it’s a better idea to build a new DC in a VM and DCPromo it into the domain. If you must P2V a DC then you should DCPromo it out before the P2V,then after the P2V you can DCPromo it back in. This would occur if you had a DC that had a number of other roles.
Citrix / Terminal servers
You should have an automated build process for these (unless you only have one) so it should be easy to build a new one in a VM using that methodology.
Exchange Servers
An Exchange mailbox server shouldn’t be P2Vd as it is easier and more manageable to build a new server and then migrate mailboxes from the old to the new. P2V is probably fine if you only have a few mailboxes and consequently a small database, but a 2000 mailbox server with a huge database is going to take forever to image.
© 2007, Alastair. All rights reserved.
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