By VSM News Staff published: Wednesday, March 17 2004
Abstract: For sysadmins and managers who have gone past the psychological barriers of virtualization, the next question may be HOW best to move physical servers into virtual machines. Do we have to labor with configuration file after configuration file, for the next few weeks on end? Or is there a smart and automated way to do it?
That is the question. Here are some particulars to help you decide.
VMware
P2V tools automate the process of moving physical servers into virtual machines. VMware’s P2V Assistant has been around for a few years, and in the fourth quarter of 2003 was released as a standalone product rather than only a service product.
As VMware describes it, “P2V Assistant takes a snapshot of an existing physical system and transforms it into a VMware virtual machine, eliminating the need to reinstall and reconfigure complex application environments. Virtual machines created by the P2V Assistant will run on VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server and VMware Workstation.”
P2V Assistant has often been used by enterprise clients, many in the Fortune 500, but it is also suitable for large and medium sized businesses.
It will run on Windows 2000 or Windows XP in a physical or virtual machine, and can transform machines running Windows NT Server 4.0 Service Pack 4 and higher, or Windows 2000 SP 1 and higher. It uses an imaging tool as the way to capture the source. Virtual machines created by P2V Assistant will run on VMware ESX Server, VMware GSX Server and VMware Workstation. Does the hardware need to be the same? Not at all.
VMware’s P2V Assistant tool will only transform machines running Microsoft operating systems, only onto VMware virtual servers. But there are products in the market today that will move other operating systems onto other kinds of virtual machines.
Tools That Convert Into VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server: Leostream and PlateSpin
Leostream’s Virtual Machine Controller does P2V conversions from Microsoft Windows NT4 or 2000 to VMware for Windows. And they also do conversions from IDE based machines to Microsoft Virtual Server based virtual machines.
Leostream claims that their P2V tool is “twice as fast as the VMware solution because the server image is moved directly from physical to virtual, and does not pass via an intermediate server. This removes the intermediate server as a bottleneck in the process and hence enables more conversions to be conducted in parallel.” Since the Leostream P2V tool will also work with Microsoft Virtual Server (MSVS is still in beta as of February 11, 2004) LeoStream may have a creative solution for those needing Microsoft support.
Some larger firms are using IBM and HP for their VMware and Microsoft application support. Microsoft has said that it will not support issues that occur with a Microsoft product running under a VMware virtual machine. Leostream's P2V tool may solve potential support problems with Microsoft and VMware by moving a VMware virtual machine and converting it into a Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machine, which should be eligible for Microsoft Support.
According to Leostream CEO David Crosbie, “Not only does Leostream manage all the different virtualization products, but it also converts between the different formats, so that a system set up and debugged under Microsoft Virtual Server can be run on VMware ESX.”
LeoStream’s Crosbie added, “A good P2V tool should hide the complexity of the process rather like an automatic car removes the need to learn about gear shifting, clutches, and matching engines revs. A P2V tool is just that - a vital component in your tool box.”
Leostream's P2V tool solves this problem and significantly reduces these support issues by also enabling a VMware VM to be quickly and easily converted into a Microsoft Virtual Server VM, and hence eligible for Microsoft Support.
Not only does Leostream manage all the different virtualization products, but it also converts between the different formats, so that a system setup and debugged under Microsoft Virtual Server can be run on VMware ESX.
Tools That Can Take a Snapshot of Linux: PlateSpin
Toronto-based PlateSpin Ltd. Offers what some call the most sophisticated P2V tool available. PlateSpin Operations Management Center P2V offers desktop P2V conversions and the ability to do multiple concurrent conversions on any VMware ESX/GSX Server host. You can drag a physical server to a virtual machine server to create an identical virtual machine, and optionally reconfigure networking, host name and more in the process.
PlateSpin P2V can automatically discover and analyze the resources used on your existing servers. From the central console, you get a complete hardware and operating system inventory as well as a summary of memory, disk and CPU usage for the previous 30 days. Conversions can be completely automated and centrally managed, so you can configure conversions during the day, then run them all simultaneously later.
A differentiating feature of PlateSpin is the ability to remotely install VMware ESX and GSX. If you aren’t familiar with Linux and you have to install ESX (or GSX on Linux), it is built into the product to install it for you, then do the P2V straight away. PlateSpin can also remotely apply updates to VMware, which is very helpful when you start to have several VMware servers.
One of the strengths of PlateSpin P2V is that the P2V is an integrated feature of the virtualization management center. It’s not just about server consolidation, but about the ability to move environments around flexibly.
And companies with the need to do internal user charge-backs will find PlateSpin P2V can, PlateSpin CEO Stephen Pollack tells us,
“Enable the IT person to look at a VM, know what client that VM belongs to, look through the history of that VM to find out everything that’s happened to it, and if there are billable items. That’s all in the database, it can all be reported. If they do the configuration then it will track resources, and also track historically resource utilization, so at any given time you could run a report that says this VM used 70% of the allocated CPU resources, and you can charge based on usage.”
CEO Stephen Pollack, describing the company’s view to the product’s future, says:
“There is a big gap in overall data center technology to make it easy to migrate from one data center architecture to another. A big focus for us is to build out a general multi-purpose conversion technology that can support all the needs of the CIO, not just adoption of virtual machine technology. For example, it would do V2P and P2P and V2V, a very rich delivery vehicle for the same level of automation that we provide in our current solution.”
A Recommendation
Virtual Digest suggests that those who need the security of limiting the number of vendors supporting their virtual machines and who intend to stay an “all VMware” shop give the nod to VMware, although without the automation, it may be costly to scale if you are migrating more than a few servers. If you are looking to bring in Microsoft Virtual Server, serious consideration should be given to Leostream and PlateSpin. Both offer the best value in that they offer unlimited P2V conversions with their controller software. PlateSpin hits the high end with unique features that include fully automated conversions as well as support for the physical side of the network.
1. From David Levy, former lead on VMware ESX deployment at Pfizer Corp.
Q: How many P2Vs have you done?
A: 60.
Q: When was the first one?
A: May 2003.
Q: What tools have you used?
A: Ghost, qimage, PowerQuest Drive Image.
Q: How do you determine what systems to P2V?
A: Mostly based on hardware that is end of life.
Q: What was the easiest P2V and describe what was converted?
A: I find that most P2V's are easy. What makes them hard are NICs that are not supported by the P2V tool and network speeds. When this happens, I slip a 3C905 nic in the server. This card is the most supported card of all time. Also, depending on the RAID card that is installed. Some are not supported, so when this happens, I ghost the machine, it makes life easier.
Q: Have you ever had to call the maker of the P2V for help and how was that?
A: I have actually emailed VMware regarding their P2V tool. Their support is great.
Q: Have you ever had to call the OS maker or app for help or support on a P2V?
A: No, if it worked on the physical server, it WILL work on the virtual server.
Q: Toughest P2V and describe what was converted?
A: I think I went over this in the easiest one.
Q: Recommendations for newbies to P2V's?
A: Make sure you shut down the physical machine gracefully and that you know the local administrative password.
Q: Has every one been successful?
A: Every one of my P2V’s has been totally successful. Everyone has been different, and that is where I have come up with the solutions that I use to get the job done.
2. From Mark Ewert, Principal Systems Architect, Integrated Healthcare Information Services, www.ihcis.com
ME: The P2V process is revolutionary, as is virtualization in itself. The product, while immature, is path forging, so it’s expected to need more features – more hands-on, more people using it. Combined with virtualization itself being very new. It’s been around for a few years, but not a lot of people in industry know about it still, or use it still. So it’s a cutting edge technology that is thrilling.
In the background, I found P2V to be – for a highly experienced systems engineer – easy to use. I would be concerned that a less experienced engineer, or one who was more of a support staff, might find it very difficult to use if they did not know some of the concepts behind hard drives. Young engineers didn’t grow up with a lot of SCSI hard drive or the underlying low-level Windows knowledge that I had to use to revive the P2Vs that I did. It’s a product that requires, at the moment, because of what it’s doing, and because of the virtualization of the computer as a whole, a high level of systems engineering knowledge.
VSM: Can you explain in more detail why that’s so?
ME: There’s a high level of knowledge required to understand SCSI disk subsystems, partitions, the Windows operating system (unfortunately it doesn’t do Linux yet), how Windows assigns drive letters, manufacturers’ server hardware. You need quite a bit of experience with that under your belt, and also the whole concept of cloning a machine from one to the other. Now this is the next step. Instead of ghosting, we’re using P2V to take it from a physical machine to a virtual machine. And so it requires a lot of server hardware knowledge, a lot of Windows knowledge, and to know why you would do it and how you would go about it in order to, for example, identify the partitions that you want to P2V. That’s critical. You get a glimpse of the different drives identified in the remote system, and you have to know which partitions you want to bring over.
VSM: So you need a good systems understanding to be able to use the product?
ME: Right, and that’s true of all the VMware products. They’re focused on being utilized by varying levels of system engineers, depending on the product.
VSM: Then training is a critical component of this process?
ME: Yes. One of our many business functions is we’re an ASP of Healthcare products. When I did P2Vs, we needed virtual copies of our live infrastructure, so that I could work on planning the upgrades of the live infrastructure, and on expanding that infrastructure with new products and making sure everything integrated. That’s what I’ve been using VMware for, for more than two years.
When I got into VMware it was very early on with the Workstation product, the GSX servers, and now ESX server. I have built over 100 virtual machines. We use VMware to prototype all of our infrastructure and get it right before we then go on to build it for real. In the past we would use hardware for that, and it was not nearly as easy as what we can do now virtually. The next natural progression is keeping it virtual, or looking at other products like PlateSpin that can take the virtual machine and bring it back to bare-metal hardware. So we’re very excited about this technology.
I needed to make copies of our live hosting infrastructure, and be able to bring them online to do upgrade testing safely, and make a project plan, then do the upgrade. Then take P2Vs again of the upgrade infrastructure and plan the implementation of new products around it.
In our initial P2V experience, I did four P2Vs and created virtual machines with them. To do that, people also have to have knowledge about the specific VMWare product (GSX, ESX, or VMWare Workstation) with which they intend to use the disk files P2V creates during its process. They simply need to build a virtual machine using these disk files, which is very easy with a basic understanding of the VMWare products. Depending on the purpose of the P2V’s the virtual machines can have the same specs as their live server, making it very easy to determine the correct system configuration for the virtual copy.
After creating the virtual machines using the disk files created by P2V, they booted, and then crashed. So I took a recovery tool, Winternal Systems AdminPack, used the Emergency System Rescue Disk ISO file to boot the virtual machine, and started poking around the registry. I noticed that all references to the system drive were pointing to drive E:. So I went into the part of the registry where the logical drive letters are assigned, switched C: to H:, switched E: to C: and then H: back to E:. I rebooted, and they all came up. That illustrates how quite a bit of systems engineering and OS knowledge is required. If the P2Vs had failed, based on the licensing model you could get easily frustrated, especially if you didn’t buy the unlimited migrations, because you would be burning up your per-usage licenses. But if you had the advanced Windows knowledge you could likely often resurrect many assumed failed attempts.
When I started using P2V I didn’t test it on test hardware at all. We bought the 25-migration license, and I did it on live hardware to begin with so that if it worked I hadn’t lost licenses. Fortunately all were successful. I was able to get them to work fully without having to re-P2V it all.
VSM: Is there something that ought to be changed in the product?
ME: I was talking to VMware about this. It may be particular to our very standard Compaq servers, or it may be a problem with the product, where it has trouble doing the drive letter assignment. I haven’t used it on any hardware aside from our Compaq servers, so I can’t say for certain. Compaq servers have a special little 39MB system partition they stick on the drive, in addition to the other partitions you might have, so that may be throwing P2V off.
I needed to take two different partitions on that drive, and I wanted the drives to be of identical size as they were in the real machine, as identical as possible for testing upgrades, so I did identical P2Vs as opposed to modifying them in progress. Maybe if I had modified them, there would have been a way to work around it. I can try that when I do more P2Vs.
I wasn’t taking the data volume. The drives I was taking were a mirror set that contains the C: drive system volume, then the D: drive where all the application files were stored, but not all the data drives. I needed to take both of those partitions instead of just C: and that may have been another contributing factor.
I thought the process as a whole was very cool. The Linux boot CD worked great. I didn’t do the ghost option. I have a couple of servers with RAID controllers that aren’t supported by the Linux boot disk so I’ll probably try the ghost route with those. You can evidently use the ghost cloning tool to ghost an image of the server and feed the cloned image through P2V. I understand that would be the strategy to tackling one without the Linux boot CD RAID controller support.
Again, the Linux boot CD worked great, and it’s a great approach: having it boot, simply asking for some information and then doing the P2V over the network. You need to have some basic Windows networking knowledge to use the boot CD and Windows P2V program that controls the process because they ask for details like IP addresses, subnet masks, gateways. The Windows P2V software then examines the host computer and identifies the system partition, which it did successfully in all the P2Vs.
Then it checks to see if it needs Service Packs and certain hot fixes that it has identified in the system’s OS. One of the best things about P2V is that it provides links within the program for where to get those Service Packs from Microsoft. You click on the links, grab them and put them somewhere, you don’t have to unzip or decompress and expand them, P2V will go inside them and fetch the files. The danger is that if Microsoft redesigns their site VMWare will have to release a patch for P2V to relink that, so I can understand why other companies don’t do it. But I thought that was excellent. It made what might have been, for a less experienced person, having gotten through some rather nervous moments in P2V, very simple.
And the process was also surprisingly quick. These were 19GB drives, maybe 8GB used; it was still really quick over the network. So when the P2Ving got started it didn’t take an excessive amount of time.
What the product really needs is support for more hardware; support for more RAID controllers; the ability to do Linux, which is coming; and the pricing is totally out of whack. It’s very, very expensive, even for what it does. For unlimited migrations, it’s a lot to get a company to pay, depending on the size of the company, especially for a product that’s kind of revolutionary and that people are uncertain about. And the training is very expensive but I understand it goes into great detail about partitions and drives and that sort of thing. .
The difficulty for VMware is that there are competitive products that are much cheaper now. So there will likely be changes in the pricing structure due to competition.
VSM: Have you given any thought to looking at Microsoft’s Virtual Server or Leostream or PlateSpin?
ME: We’re excited about PlateSpin. I want to look at VMware’s Virtual Center and PlateSpin and see if one or the other is superior, or perhaps for my needs I may want both. They don’t do exactly the same thing. The exciting thing about PlateSpin is the ability to drop the virtual machine images onto bare-metal hardware, and its current support for Linux today, because we are both a Windows and Linux infrastructure. I find the two operating systems to be overwhelmingly complementary. And PlateSpin has combined their P2V and virtual management system into an overall virtual environment management package. P2V hasn’t been brought into Virtual Center and VMotion yet; I think VMware needs to catch up with that.
With all that said, I’ve only seen a demo of PlateSpin, I haven’t used it – so of course I need to get my hands on it to verify it works the way we need it to. Leostream, I’ve only looked at the website, I haven’t tried their products. I like the price.
I’m an MSDN developer, so I’ve got the Microsoft virtualization product, and I’ve played with it a little bit. But it’s still migrating from being basically a way to run Windows apps on the Mac into what Microsoft wants to do, which is either to bundle virtualization into the core OS or compete with ESX server by offering a Windows kernel ESX-type product with virtualization. It has a lot of development to go, but Microsoft usually leaves the gate late and still wins. I installed it, looked at it a little, found it lacking, and went back to VMware. Microsoft definitely sees the virtues of the technology and will certainly be aggressive in this market.
