If the physical machine is a linux virtual machine, vcenter converter will really do not support that configuration, see. How to convert a physical disk to a vmware vmdk image jas tech. Now that we have the perccli utility installed on our vmware esxi host, lets take a look at the available commands and how we can manage dell raid in vmware esxi 6. Often the creation of an it environment is planned without a hardware raid controller. I use it on a dl20 g9 with mirrored enterprise ssds and it works great.
Vmware vcenter converter refers to a vital program for various vmware administrators, which comes at no cost. Going to the datacenter and staying there is not an option. Breaking a linux software raid 1 for import using vmware. Amazing tips for employing vmware vcenter converter. Only thing i had to do with the ssd is tell the host to id the raid 0 drive for the ssd which is a simple thing to do in an esxi host and reboot after that i installed the lsi providers vib so i can remote into the hosts and control the raid without rebooting the host all the time. On top of this, the mirrored disks are split into two logical partitions, c. One can employ various software utilities available out there for your v2v, p2v, or disk resizing tasks. The converter works inside the machine so has no idea about the raid and doesnt care. Vmware vcenter converter alternatives and similar software. On the old system, i had a raid volume set up to hold all my media for my network, tv shows, movies, software, etc. It is installed with 2 x sata disks without a sata raid controller, runs windows server 2003 and uses software raid 1 mirror over the two disks which are set as dynamic. Alternatives to vmware vcenter converter for windows, software as a service saas, mac, linux, web and more. If you have been working with the vmware products before, there is a good possibility that you have used this tool before. This list contains a total of 10 apps similar to vmware vcenter converter.
I would go back to the customer and revise the buildrequirements. Centralized management console allows users to queue up and monitor multiple simultaneous remote, as well as local, conversions. The only purpose for this raid volume was media storage. Vmware converter is a software which permits you to convert physical server or pc into virtual machine. The sas 6ir is not a true hardware raid controller. Besides that, the linux emulation layer in esxi loads after vmkernel, which raises questions as to whether you could actually get esxi booted correctly with a software raid. I consider things like software zfs raid much safer than. Converter is a pretty well made tool for being free.
Vmdk2phys also supports converting vmdks to physical drives open disk2vhd and untick all volumes except the one you want to virtualize and pick a location to output the file to, then click the create button. Virtualizing old centos 5 server with software raid disks. How to remove sw raid for vmware converter to work david hrbac. Ubuntu software raid server and vmware conversion tool. And check scsi and raid controllers if there is storage disks and fc adapters. Thats a fake raid setup, iow the raid software is in the firmware and handled by the cpu instead of by special raid hardware. However, you can also create preallocated disks that start at their maximum size.
I am using the converter to hotclone physical machines to vpss. Adding an old software raid array to a software raid installation boot problems. Converter standalone supports all types of basic and dynamic disks for diskbased conversions except for gptmbr hybrid disks converter standalone supports source and destination disk drives with 512b 512e and 512n disk sector size only. Ive recently found vmdk2phys which is still in beta and doesnt look the best but is more straightforward then following the guide below. Even after so many years of physical to virtual conversion p2v in various enterprises have over. As a user of vmware products this makes me very happy, meaning i do not have to be booting the windows machine just to use vmware converter. May 10, 2012 hi dont use dns names, use ip, for connections between converter and vmware source and destination. Filter by license to discover only free or open source alternatives. Its quite easy to make p2v of windows base servers. Breaking a linux software raid 1 for import using vmware converter truk rambles. Converter and software raid linux vmware communities. While vmware converter 5 does a good job livecloning the existing linux servers, sometimes you have to use the cold clone boot cd if the physical server uses software raid and then boot vm from the broken mirror side, or sometimes the. Vmware validated design for softwaredefined data center. Esxi itself doesnt support any software raid implementation in any way, shape or form.
To see all the commands and parameters available, we can simply run the. As for converter supporting software raid, that is a very complex problem that not a lot of conversion tools dont support. Vmware vconverter p2v for windows servers experts exchange. Explore 10 apps like vmware vcenter converter, all suggested and ranked by the alternativeto user community. Converter standalone does not recognize source volumes that reside on linux software raid configurations during cloning of powered on linux machines, converter standalone does not recognize source volumes that are part of a software raid configuration also referred to as multiple disk, or md, configurations. Vmware vcenter converter is a free program, which has been there on the market for a while now. When you create a guest vm create 2 identitcal vmfs volumes and attach it to the guest vm. Vmware validated design for software defined data center. Nov 10, 2014 the converter works inside the machine so has no idea about the raid and doesnt care. What theyre talking about are raided windows volumes i. I plan to use the vmware converter, rather than the acronis vm recovery. Sep 29, 2009 a customer has a noncritical hp server that they would like to p2v.
Vmware converter installation on ubuntu linux linux users will be pleased to discover that vmware converter is now available on linux free of charge. Applications and drivers that may not convert with virtual machines. Vmware vcenter converter standalone provides an easytouse solution. Adding an old softwareraid array to a softwareraid installation boot problems.
The vmware firmware does not have fake raid software in there, so as a result it is not possible to imitate it like that. It also supports conversion of thirdparty virtual machines like hyperv and kvm. Vmware vsphere hypervisor is an operating system designed for pure virtualization and supports neither nat nor routing. Troubleshooting checklist for vmware converter 1016330. The esxi hosts have all the drives connected through hba or raid controller in hba mode. Vmware vcenter converter does not only perform p2v but even v2v virtual to virtual conversions. Aug 12, 2014 5 comments on breaking a linux software raid 1 for import using vmware converter i rarely post supergeeky stuff on here, but since i couldnt find any good instructions to do this important and critical activity on the internet, and my coworkers had to piece together a set of steps that worked for us, i wanted to share what we learned. I know and understand that this is not supported by the vmware converter. Other than that, no, its not possible to do what you want. Mar 19, 20 at first, vmware converter 5 is a software which permits you to convert physical server or pc into virtual machine. The version of vmware vcenter converter bundled with vsphere 4.
Vmware vcenter converter standalone provides an easytouse solution that automates the process of creating vmware virtual machines from physical machines running windows and linux and other virtual machine formats. Converter standalone does not recognize source volumes that reside on linux software raid configurations during cloning of powered on linux machines, converter standalone does not recognize source volumes that are part of a software raid configuration also referred to as multiple disk, or. And you can revert this all very easily by restoring the backups of fstab and menu. Physicalraid 1 to virtual using vmware standalone converter. Nov 19, 2014 only thing i had to do with the ssd is tell the host to id the raid 0 drive for the ssd which is a simple thing to do in an esxi host and reboot after that i installed the lsi providers vib so i can remote into the hosts and control the raid without rebooting the host all the time. Could someone please tell me what the best way is to downgrade the software raid to single disk remotely. Vmware vcenter converter standalone release notes but, see that workaround. At first, vmware converter 5 is a software which permits you to convert physical server or pc into virtual machine. I downloaded vmwares vcenter converter standalone version 6. This is only an option in vmware vcenter converter standalone. How to remove linux software raid1 md raid onthefly so that. Before starting if you want to convert your existing domain. Adding software raid support to esxi would take a good deal of work theres a lot of kernel support that would need to be added, plus quite a few userspace utilities. Using starwind vsan, the process of deploying vms, providing faulttolerant storage, connecting it to hypervisor, and creating highly available vms becomes a piece o cake.
Dynamic disks that also have a windows raid 10 or raid5 array ontop of them. Are raid disks really universally unsupported for vmware converter. Vmware converter best practices virtualization blog. Vmware converter does not support software raid on linux. Starwind virtual san for vsphere linux software raid.
Starwind virtual san for vsphere is installed on the esxi server. Vmware normally creates growable disks, which start small and grow over time as you add data. Vmware is expanding the capabilities of virtual san as a platform and is introducing better data efficiency features by delivering deduplication and compression of data as well as providing raid 5 raid 6 support for all flash virtual san environment. I really dont get why such arbitary limitation is in place. I downloaded vmware s vcenter converter standalone version 6.
There is a variety of choices between software raids e. Make sure that the prerequisites for deploying software raid with starwind virtual san are met. I agree with your statement in regards to the perc controllers. Use the rescue media cd of acronis true image 10 or acronis true image 11 to convert the raid array to a single. See reconfigure storage on an esxi host the new raid appears on the host as a new storage device that you can add as an extent to the hosts local vmfs datastore. Guest os will have redundancy in this case, but not for esxi hypervisor. A quick stroll with vmwares software manager for downloading and managing software repositories. You cant get the hba to see you existing data since the ondisk format is different, and even if you could magically do that, then youd be presenting a file system that esxi doesnt support. Vmware vcenter converter converts local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any downtime. Vmware converter best practices esx virtualization.
If you havent done so before the conversion, you should uninstall raid management tools, network teaming or management software, wireless. Install new storage disks and create a new raid set using the disks. If your question has been resolved please mark the answers as helpful or correct. Starwind virtual san for vsphere linux software raid configuration. I have a hosted virtual private ubuntu server that i have no physical access to. Once disk2vhd finishes open starwind v2v converter select local file and click next when it asks for the source image location select the source image then click next select the format you want to convert to the 1st and 3rd option are probably the most compatible option with vmware workstation player.
Are raid disks really universally unsupported for vmware. It really doesnt matter if physical server used raid, software or not, because. Virtualizing old centos 5 server with software raid disks vmware converter does decent job converting old physical servers to virtual machines, but it refuses to do anything to servers using software raid. The v2v migration could be interesting while we talk about resizing, optimizing, or migrating. Stop any software mirroring, break the mirror but not the data since vmware converter does not support software mirrors. Software raid underneath esxi datastore server fault. The raid is an abstraction layer outside of the os as long as you are using hardware raid and the raid is truly just a single disk to the os. The last versions of vmware converter claim to support p2v of linux based servers. Resolving linux boot issues after p2v with vmware converter. Vmware converter is very powerful tool to provide physical to virtual conversion. How to convert between preallocated and growable disks in. For more details of installing smis, refer to the vmware esxi 5.
I have been reading through its documentation though, and found something surprising. Make a vmware copy of a live linux server cedric walter home. Feb 10, 2012 while vmware converter 5 does a good job livecloning the existing linux servers, sometimes you have to use the cold clone boot cd if the physical server uses software raid and then boot vm from the broken mirror side, or sometimes the resulting vm does not boot because of issues with bootloader. Ok so vmware answered me about this error message and it seems vcenter converter doesnt support raid software. Popular alternatives to vmware vcenter converter for windows, software as a service saas, mac, linux, web and more. Hi dont use dns names, use ip, for connections between converter and vmwaresource and destination. After converting a physical machine using vmware converter, you experience these. Software raid support exists in esxi for the hpe dynamic smart array controller.
Reference documentation, the vmware vcenter converter standalone api reference guide, which provides languageneutral descriptive information object type definitions, properties, and method signatures, for example for the vmware vcenter converter standalone 6. Raid drives are listed as unsupported source volumes for all formats. Its fakeraid, essentially propriatery software raid. Get a free download of vmware vcenter converter to automate and simplify physical to virtual machine conversions as well as conversions between virtual machine formats. Several discussion group participants recommend doing the following workaround for doing p2v for a raid array.
How to install and use the vmware software manager youtube. I am going to install two hosts with vmware esx version 4. Some server brands use dedicated partitions to hold the restore raid point. You can use many software utilities on the market for your p2v, v2v, and disk resizing operations, but the use of the vmware converter standalone tool is advised and in most cases is troublefree. A guide to converting hyperv vms to vmware by nakivo. This magical piece of this free software can at the same time align properly the destination vms virtual disks in order to get the best possible performance. You can plug an external non raid usb disk into the server. Dec 20, 2014 vmware converter does decent job converting old physical servers to virtual machines, but it refuses to do anything to servers using software raid. Top tips for using vmware vcenter converter 4sysops.
Todays blog post explores how to convert hyperv to vmware vm with vmware vcenter converter. How to remove sw raid for vmware converter to work david. The best method to convert hyperv to vmware vm is using vmware vcenter converter standalone, which is a special free utility designed for v2v virtual to virtual conversion and p2v physical to virtual conversion. Vmware converter is the free utility from vmware which helps to convert your windows and linux based physical machines and thirdparty image formats such as backup images, also other virtual machines to vmware virtual machines.
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