Moving VMWare Virtual Servers into the Windows Hyper-V Environment.
By: Allan Snodgrass
The introduction of Windows Server 2008 R2 was the first real Windows OS version where server virtualization was an honest reality. Sure it could be done in previous versions of Windows Server, but not until 2008 R2 did it really hit mainstream usability. Well, with the introduction of Windows Server 2012, server virtualization takes another leap forward and if you are not looking at virtualization for your ERP software and buisness yet, you will be in the coming months. Or, if your business was an early adopter of virtualization and went with VMWare to create and manage virtuals, the licensing and feature sets will get you thinking about a move into Hyper-V instead.
With that in mind, Microsoft has released a tool that makes it pretty straight forward to convert VMWare Virtual Servers into Hyper-V Virtual Servers. The Microsoft tool converts the virtual disks attached to the source server and migrates configuration settings like memory configuration, processor settings, and network adapters from the VMware server to the Hyper-V server.
Here are some of the features of the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC).
- Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) Conversion
- GUI Wizard Conversion Process
- Command Line Special Ops Interface for unique requirements
- Removes VMware tools
- Guest Operating System Conversion
- Windows Client (Windows 7) Conversion
- Installs Integration Services if the Guest OS is Windows 2003 R2
Supported VMware:
- vSphere 4.0
- vCenter 4.1
- vCenter 5.0
Microsoft's MVMC conversion tool makes it straight forward to move out of VMware and into Microsoft Hyper-V where today's enterprise can take advantage of the benefits Hyper-V and fully integrated solutions instead of 3rd party solutions that might be great in the right scenario, will no longer be necessary in many circumstances.
Allan Snodgrass
www.TekoaSoftware.com
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