System Center Guide

Just another of my personal experiences with VMM. I just completed a P2V of a Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller. Actually, it was a V2V as I was using my virtual environment. Anyhow, one of the things to be aware of is that after doing the conversion and bringing the other system online it prompted to reactivate Windows due to the "significant hardware changes".

It also required a system restart due to the same newly detected hardware. Not a big deal, so to speak, but certainly a concern for production environments.

Lastly, I have to admit that the conversion process was not seamless. Because you’re transferring a live server to a virtualised version of the same, there are additional concerns that you have to tend to. Probably the most important of these is the need to properly reconfigure your network settings on the VM. While I updated my virtual machine settings to include the proper IP configuration settings, it actually took yet another restart for those settings to take effect. While I thought this odd, I was too tired and frustrated to try to figure it out.

Regardless of all this, I have to say that the P2V (or V2V as it actually was) is a painless experience. The real issues of the conversion process were updating the converted system to the newly appropriated virtual environment. And, that is the intent of this post. To alert you that the conversion process is not as cut-n-dry as the marketing material may lead you to believe. Conduct your own testing before you are forced to rely on the process.

Good luck and should you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them to the best of my abilities. You can contact me using the link above.

Take care,

Duncan

P.S. If you’re actually reading this blog, I’d really appreciate hearing from you. I realise I blog a lot of content for my selfish purposes of keeping a single-point-of-reference for my own self-serving purposes. But, if you’re reading this as well, I could use the encouragement to keep on keeping on.

Thanks!