This is the last part of the article on the Migration of physical machines to the VMware virtual environment.

In the first part of the series, we looked at the basics that need to be understood before migrating your workloads from physical to virtual. In the second part, we looked at VMware’s free migration tool – VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, and how to perform P2V migration using it.

In this last & third part of the series, we’ll look at a powerful solution – Vembu BDR Suite that offers data protection as well as ensures seamless cross-platform migration.

Vembu BDR Suite Overview:

Vembu BDR Suite is a comprehensive backup & DR solution designed to protect the data across physical, virtual and cloud workloads.

Vembu BDR Suite offers:

• Agentless Backup & Replication for VMware VMs
• Host-level backups for Hyper-V VMs on the cluster, SMB & CSV
• Disk-Image Backup for Physical Windows Servers & Workstations
• FIle & Application Backup for Windows, Linux & Mac
• Disaster Recovery – Backup to offsite, cloud & tape

Vembu BDR Suite is available in different editions (Free/Standard/Enterprise) to make it ideal for businesses of all sizes and types.

Vembu BDR Suite Free Edition, exclusively for businesses that couldn’t spend on data protection expenses due to budgetary constraints. This edition contains all the basic features that are necessary for complete data protection and is free forever.

Vembu also offers an exclusive package – Vembu BDR Essentials, specifically for small & medium businesses who wish to protect their data with enterprise-level features but don’t want to spend extravagantly. This package is suitable for businesses with VMware & Hyper-V environments having upto 10 Sockets or 100 VMs.

Along with Backup & Disaster Recovery features, Vembu BDR Suite also supports the migration of your workloads across different hypervisors and platforms. The best thing is, cross-platform (P2V, V2P) and cross-hypervisor (V2V) migration feature is available in all the editions of Vembu BDR Suite.

Now, let’s look at the step by step process of how to perform P2V migration (Physical to VMware environment) using Vembu BDR Suite.

P2V migration with Vembu BDR Suite

Using Vembu BDR Suite, you can download the image of your backed up physical machines in different virtual formats – VHD, VHDX, VMDK, Flat-VMDK and RAW. These file formats are used to convert a physical as a virtual machine.

I’ve tested this by converting one of my physical 2012 SQL servers to VMware Platform and it worked perfectly.

Let’s look at this process in a detailed manner:

Step 1: Download and Install Vembu BDR Suite

Step 2: Perform the image-backup of your physical machine

• Add your physical host providing administrative credentials
• Choose disk/volumes
• Enable App-Aware process, if you have any VSS aware applications – Exchange, SQL.
• Set the scheduling & retention Policies

Check out this video tutorial for a detailed backup configuration.

Step 3: Once the backup is complete, navigate to the Recovery tab, Here you can view the available backups.

Click on the restore icon alongside the physical machine backup that you would like to convert as a VM.

Step 4: Select the restore option – Download and Click Next

Step 5: Choose the version of backup data you want to download for the migration from the listed restore points and Choose the disks that you want to download, then Click Next

Step 6: Choose the virtual format based on the target hypervisor where you are going to migrate your physical machine. Also, provide the restore location where to download the virtual disk format and Click Next

Note: Here we are migrating to VMware vSphere platform, so choose the Flat-VMDK format

Step 7: Review the restore configuration and Click Restore Now

Step 8: Click OK to confirm and start the download

Step 9: From the recovery option, you can monitor the progress of the restore by clicking the Job Status option

Also, you can verify the downloaded file from the path you have provided earlier.

Step 10: Next, Browse the Datastore on the ESXi host and Upload the Flat-VMDK and VMDK file.

Step 11: Login to the ESXi host. From Virtual Machines option, click on create/register VM for new VM creation

Note: If your ESXi host is part of vCenter you can perform this from vCenter Server also.

Step 12: Select the Creation type – Create a new virtual machine and Click Next

Step 13: Provide a Name to the Virtual Machine, Select Guest OS compatibility, OS Family, Guest OS version and Click Next

Step 14: Select the Datastore and click Next

Step 15: From here you can remove the default 40 GB Hard Disk1 and add the downloaded vmdk file using add hard disk.

After Removal of Default Hard Disk 1Step 16: Click on Add hard disk and select the Existing hard disk

Step 17: Browse the uploaded file and Select

Once the Drive is attached, Click Save

Step 18: Verify all the details and click on Finish

Step 19: Now the physical server is migrated as a virtual machine and you can Power ON.

After powering on the server it will be the same as your physical server, IP, Hostname and the application will be running perfectly.

Step 20: Open the Console and Login now to the server.

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In the first part of the series, we looked at the basics that need to be understood before migrating your workloads from physical to virtual – the difference between Physical and Virtual infrastructure, Pros and Cons of Virtual environment, and considerations that need to be checked before migration.

In this second part, we will take a look at the overview of the VMware free migration tool – VMware vCenter Converter Standalone, and how to perform P2V migration using it.

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone

VMware’s vCenter Converter Standalone is a free tool that lets you easily automate the process of creating VMware virtual machines from physical machines (running Windows and Linux) and other virtual machine formats.

vCenter Server Converter has a centralized management console where you can perform multiple simultaneous conversions quickly, consistently without any interruptions or downtime and monitor the progress from the same console.

vCenter Server Converter Standalone Components

vCenter Server Converter Standalone consists of four components:

1. Converter Standalone server
2. Converter Standalone worker
3. Converter Standalone client
4. Converter Standalone agent

Converter Standalone server

The standalone server enables and performs the import and export of virtual machines.
The Converter Standalone worker service is always installed with the Converter
Standalone server service.

Converter Standalone agent

The Converter Standalone server installs the agent on Windows source machines to import
them as virtual machines. There are two options available, you may choose to remove
the Converter Standalone agent from the source machine automatically or manually after the
import is complete.

Converter Standalone client

The Converter Standalone server works with the Converter Standalone client. The client
component consists of the Converter Standalone user interface, which provides access to
the Conversion and the Configuration wizards and lets you manage the conversion and the
configuration tasks.

VMware vCenter Converter is designed for converting physical machines and virtual machines for use in VMware hosted and managed products. You can use vCenter Converter Standalone to perform various types of conversion tasks.

• Converting a physical machine as a virtual machine to standalone ESXi hosts or to ESXi hosts managed by vCenter Server
• Converting a virtual machine as a virtual machine to standalone ESXi hosts or to ESXi hosts managed by vCenter Server
• Convert a virtual machine from VMware Workstation or Microsoft Hyper-V Server to ESXi hosts managed by vCenter Server
• Export virtual machines managed by vCenter Server hosts to other VMware virtual machine formats
• Configure virtual machines managed by vCenter Server so that they are bootable and install VMware Tools or customize their guest operating systems
• Customize guest operating systems of virtual machines in the vCenter Server inventory
  Migrate legacy servers to new hardware without reinstalling operating systems or application software
• Perform migrations across heterogeneous hardware
• Modify the volume sizes and place volumes on separate virtual disks

VMware vCenter Converter Installation

vCenter Converter Standalone can be installed on a physical or a virtual machine. There are a few methods available to install the VMware vCenter Converter.

Local Installation on Windows

The local setup installs the Converter Standalone server, Converter Standalone agent, and
Converter Standalone client for local use.

Client-Server Installation in Windows

Perform a client-server installation so that you can create and manage conversion tasks
remotely. With this option, you can select the Converter Standalone components that you
want to install on your system.

Command-Line Installation in Windows

Use this option to install Converter Standalone from the Command Prompt or by writing a
Windows batch file (.bat) to automate the installation process.

Refer the VMware Documentation for CLI based installation details

Prerequisites of vCenter Server Installation

• Verify whether your system meets the Converter Standalone system requirements. Refer the VMware Documentation for System Requirements
• Verify that you have Administrator privileges
• If you have an earlier version of Converter Standalone agent on the system, uninstall Converter Standalone agent
• Required Ports are opened in the network for HTTPS, HTTP, Agent services

vCenter Server Installation procedure

Download the vCenter Converter Standalone from the VMware Web site. Double-click/Right Click and run the VMware-converter file you have downloaded.

From the Welcome Screen, click Next.

Read the End-user Patent Agreement and click Next

Select I agree to the terms in the License Agreement and click Next.

From Destination Folder page, select the location to install Converter Standalone and click Next.

On the Setup Type page, choose the required option and Click Next

Note: We have already discussed the components, refer that for planning Client-server installation method

From User Experience Settings page, if you like to join the Customer Experience Improvement Program, select the checkbox else deselect and click Next.

From the Ready to Install page, click on Install.

It will take few minutes to complete installation and you can view the progress over there

On the Installation Completed page, click Finish.

Note: – A prompt might ask you to restart your system. Also there is an option Run Converter Standalone Client now available, select the checkbox if you want to start the application after click Finish. if you like to Run the application later manually, deselect the checkbox and click Finish

VMware vCenter Server Console is opened and you can start the P2v or V2V migration

PHYSICAL TO VIRTUAL (P2V) MIGRATION USING VMWARE vCENTER CONVERTER

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Windows version of the machine is supported form the VMware Docs
• Check the Source Type Support From VMware Docs
• Converter Standalone server machine has network access to the source machine
• Turn off windows firewall /any other firewall application on the source machine
• Disable or Stop anti-virus software temporary on the Source
• Disable simple file sharing on the source machine
• Local Administrator Access
• Windows Vista and later, either use an administrator account for Converter Standalone or Turn off UAC
• For Windows 8 or later the source machine, turn off Remote UAC
• Make sure that no other conversion job is running on the source
• Remove / Uninstall previous installations of vCenter Converter

Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migration

Open the VMware vCenter Converter and Click on Convert Machine

Select the source as Powered on and Remote Machine Windows/Linux or this Local Machine

Here we are selecting the source type as “Powered on” and “Remote Windows Machine. Since we are performing the conversion of Remote windows machine.

Note:– Power Off option for powered off VMware Infrastructure virtual machine, VMware Workstation , VMware Virtual machine backup images and to convert Hyper-V virtual machine to vSphere Virtual Machine

Provide the remote power on machine IP address and Administrator credentials and Click Next

VMware Converter will install the “Converter standalone agent” on the remote windows machine.

Then, you can choose one of the options to uninstall Converter agent. Here we choose “automatically uninstall the files when import succeeds.” Click on Yes

Once converter agent is successfully installed on the remote windows machine, you will get option to choose the destination system.

Select “VMware Infrastructure virtual machine” from the destination type and specify the vCenter Server or ESXi server hostname or IP address along with the admin credentials and Click Next

You may ignore the Certificate Warning by Clicking Ignore.

If you choose the destination as VMware Workstation you will get screen as shown below

Once Converter connected to vCenter Server the current inventory will be visible. Destination VM name will be automatically generated, name will be FQDN as default and you may modify that. Select the data center location or folders to deploy the virtual machine and Click next.

Select the ESXi host or cluster and datastore to place the converted virtual machine. Also, you may choose the virtual machine hardware version from the drop-down.

Click on Next to continue.

Modify the current configuration of the remote machine with available options and settings and click Next. You can click on Edit option to modify the parameters for the conversion task, below are the available options

• Data to Copy – From this option you can copy all disks to the destination or select the volumes to be copied, also you can configure the destinations with multiple datastores
• Devices – To modify the number of processor Sockets, Cores, and Memory for the Destination Virtual Machine. And configure a Disk Controller for the Destination Virtual Machine
• Networks – Modify Network Adapter Type and VLAN settings of the Destination Virtual Machine
• Services – Configure the Source and Destination services status, you can stop the required services form source and destination select startup mode as Manual, Automatic or Disabled
• Advanced Options – You can perform below operation from advanced settings
  • Customize the Windows Guest Operating System with below option
    • Enter the Windows License Information
    • Set the Time Zone for the Destination Virtual Machine
    • Configure the Network Adapters
  • Install VMware Tools on the Destination Virtual Machine
  • Remove System Restore Checkpoints
  • Throttling
  • Configure the Network for the Helper Virtual Machine
• Throttling – Control the CPU resources and network bandwidth

From Summary page review all the conversion parameters and click on Finish to start the P2V conversion.

Once the conversion started, you can monitor the progress from the VMware converter Client. Based on the amount of data and network transfer speed, the client will display the estimated time to convert the virtual machine.

Once the P2V Migration is completed successfully check the conversation status .

As per our migration it took 1 hour 45 minutes and the average transfer rate is 10.7 MB\s.

Now you can shut down your physical server and login to your vCenter Server and power on the converted machines.

Conclusion

Thus, we have successfully converted the physical machine as a virtual machine to a VMware vSphere environment using vCenter Converter.

In our next article – the last part, we’ll look at a powerful solution that offers data protection as well as seamless cross-platform migration across multiple hypervisors (V2V), and across different workloads (P/V).

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This article on the migration of physical machines to the VMware virtual environment will be a three-part series.

In this first part, we will take a look at the following:

• Difference between Physical and Virtual infrastructure
• Benefits of migrating to a virtual environment
• Pros and Cons of Virtual environment
• How to move from physical to virtual
• Considerations to be checked before migration

In the second part, we will take a look at the overview of VMware free migration tool – VMware vCenter Converter, and how to perform P2V migration.

In the third part of this series, we’ll look at a powerful solution that provides data protection and also ensures seamless cross-platform migration across multiple hypervisors (V2V), or across different workloads (P/V).

Difference between the Traditional Physical & Virtual infrastructure

Traditional Physical Infrastructure

In this, the resources and components of a physical server are not shared between multiple users. Each physical server includes own memory, processor, network connection, hard drive, and an operating system (OS) for running programs and applications.

Typically, in the physical infrastructure, the servers don’t have a sufficient amount of resources or they don’t completely utilize the allocated resources such as CPU, RAM, Storage. This is because many of the servers sit idle as the workload is distributed to only a few servers on the network. In addition to that, the physical servers also consume a lot of power and require separate maintenance.

Virtual Infrastructure

Virtualization means the creation of virtual resources such as a server, desktop, operating system, file, storage or network. Virtualization allows you to utilize the computing resources completely by partitioning a physical server into multiple virtual servers, defining each server a specific OS and application. These virtual servers look and act like a physical server but are highly scalable and resources can be used efficiently.

Benefits of migrating to a virtual environment

Infrastructure Footprint Reduction

Consolidation of servers with virtualization will reduce the overall footprint of your infrastructure with minimal energy utilization, efficient utilization of resources, less networking gears and of course only a smaller number of racks is needed. All these valuable points will result in good savings for the company.

Break Hardware Aging

Nowadays technology is evolving much faster and it demands higher infrastructure requirements when it comes to processor speed, energy efficiency, RAM size which often leads to buying new servers or replacing existing. All your applications running need to be based on the current hardware specifications and technology advancements which will obviously be a challenge in your IT budget.

Aging infrastructure brings additional costs as it results in performance degradation, rising maintenance costs, energy inefficiencies, an increase of unplanned downtime and more. Virtualization abstracts the underlying hardware and gives more flexibility, better performance, right resource allocation & utilization when compared to physical servers.

Test and Development Environment

Using virtualization you can easily build an isolated test and dev environment which drastically reduces the investment for building an infrastructure for testing and development purposes. Traditional physical infrastructure to virtual infrastructure migration will free up many servers which you can utilize to build a test and dev environment.

Ease of Management

Comparing to traditional physical infrastructure, virtual infrastructure is very easy to manage. In the traditional way, you must access individual servers to access the operating system and application whereas in a virtual environment from a single logon you can access all virtual machine console. Virtualized environment is not limited to maintenance and access, it has also other great capabilities like disaster recovery, security, server provisioning, monitoring, and automation.

Legacy Applications Support

Legacy Applications will not run in modern operating systems or hardware. Due to hardware failures or any other issues, companies face challenges to run the application. In such a case, moving to VMware Virtualized environment will be the best option to keep running the legacy application. Virtualizing your infrastructure and migrating the application to a virtual environment will extend the use of the application with higher uptime.

Moving to Cloud

From past years, we all know about virtualization and many organizations are moving their infrastructure from Physical to Virtual. And Cloud is the next journey of virtualization and moving to a virtualized environment from physical infrastructure is the first step to move into the cloud.

From Virtual infrastructure, you can easily move to a private cloud environment or you can migrate directly to public clouds like Azure, AWS, etc. Organizations should prepare for the new technology and be ready for the transformation, so it’s very important to convert your physical infrastructure to Virtual.

Pros and Cons of Virtualization or Virtual environment

Pros

Lower CAPEX

By virtualizing the Infrastructure, organizations will have great cost savings in the area of 50 percent on hardware, power, and cooling. Consolidating multiple applications by migrating from physical servers to one virtualized host will reduce the hardware cost on the server and its components also. The number of application servers reduced will lead to more savings on server/storage hardware, rack space, power & cooling, network, cables, and parts like keyboard, mouse and finally, your capital expenses will be reduced.

Lower OPEX

Virtualizing the Infrastructure will reduce the number of servers and equipment used, which will help to reduce the OPEX. Also, you can automate several routine tasks such as reporting, applying patches, etc. Finally, it reduces the need for hands-on management and reduces your business’s operational costs. The IT staff can provide high-quality service instead of spending servers hours to keep the systems up to date.

Increase Infrastructure & Application Availability

By utilizing Virtualization, organizations can manage their infrastructure easily and efficiently with increased uptime. Virtualization allows to take regular backup and replicate all your servers as a complete virtualized image into separate storage or location. If any failure occurs, the backup virtual server can be used instantly.

Business Continuity

Another benefit of moving to virtualization is disaster recovery. Using solutions like VMware vSphere replication, Site Recovery Manager you can execute the fastest and most reliable recovery of the entire production infrastructure to a secondary site. Also, all data can be encrypted and kept safe on your secondary site with inbuilt encryption mechanisms.

Green IT with Energy Savings

As we mentioned earlier, lowering the size of the infrastructure there will be huge savings on energy because of less consumption. Energy efficiency and the reduction of a company’s carbon footprint is one of the significant benefits of using Virtualization.

Right Resource Utilization

Hosting an application to a physical server is really wasting almost 80 % of the resources of the server. With virtualization, you can consolidate multiple servers to a single server which helps the right utilization of the resources. And your business is getting the most out of your hardware and resource investments with efficient resource management.

Flexible and Scalable

Virtualized infrastructure is easy to manage, it provides a centralized view and access to Infrastructure. The same way you can scale up the infrastructure by adding new hosts or upgrade the resources without impacting any business operations. And, if there is a new application requirement you don’t need to buy a complete physical server and wait for the normal long process; you can provision in virtualized infrastructure easily.

Cons

Upfront Cost

You have to invest in the virtualization software and maybe new hardware required for the virtualization platform. Most organizations have enough resources to move to virtualization without demanding more money. If you have an infrastructure that is very old and not compatible with virtualization software, then you must consider an initial budget that may be a pain area.

Application Compatibility

There are some applications that are not supported in virtualized environments. So, we need to perform an assessment of existing physical infrastructure before migration.

Expert Virtualization Skill

To manage a virtualized environment, need virtualization expert engineers in an organization. For the application team or end-user, the virtualized environment is like a traditional physical environment.

How to move from Physical Infrastructure to Virtual Infrastructure?

You can easily migrate your physical Infrastructure to VMware Virtual environment using VMware free tools and other third-party tools.

P2V conversion

You can turn your Windows and Linux physical machines into VMware virtual machines which act as a physical machine with all your saved data hosted application without any issue. This migration process generally referred to as physical to virtual (P2V) conversion.

VMware has its own VMware vCenter Converter to perform this migration, which is free of cost. vCenter Converter supports many source physical machines, including Windows and Linux desktop and server editions. It also supports the conversion of third-party virtual machines like Hyper-V and KVM. VMware vCenter Converter converts local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any downtime.

Considerations to be checked before migration

When planning to migrate to virtual infrastructure, the first thing to do is migration assessment.

Migration assessment is collecting complete infrastructure details of the existing environment which includes Network, Servers, Storage, Operating System, and Applications.

Check the below points before starting the migration:

1. 1. Create a checklist for collecting the existing infrastructure details, you may collect the details to an excel sheet based on category for easy management

Server Details

1. 1. • Fully Qualified Server Name
      • Operating System Type
      • Server Make and Model
      • Number of CPU sockets
      • Number of CPU cores
      • Amount of physical memory installed
      • Current CPU & Memory usage
      • Any hardware dongles connected to server and details
      • Any server application licenses are binding to a MAC or IP address?
      • Prior to migration, any defragmentation performed
      • Antivirus Installed on the Server or not
      • Antivirus Name and Version
      • Any Network Share configured, collect the details (Share Name & Path )

Network

1. 1. • Number of Network Interface Cards
      • VLAN’s associated with each NIC including trunk or access mode
      • Complete IP address which can obtain from ipconfig or all for each NIC
      • Remote Management IP Address for the server (ILO /iDRAC etc.)

Storage

1. 1. • Physical disk capacity with Driver Letters, Raid, and Disk Type
      • Current physical disk usage with a drive letter
      • Storage Make and Model
      • Storage Management IP Address
      • Any NFS or CIFS Configured and details
      • iSCSI or SAN storage Connected with Server
      • iSCSI Server IP Addresses
      • IQN (iSCSI qualified name) of Physical Server and associated IP Address
      • iSCSI LUN Name, Size, type, and configured server details
      • iSCSI LUN is shared with more than one server or not
      • iSCSI shared servers Name
      • FC Storage Make and Model
      • FC Storage management IP address
      • FC Switch Name and IP address
      • FC LUN Name, Size, type, and configured server details
      • FC LUN is shared with more than one server or not
      • LUN shared servers Name
      • WWN Number of Server HBA’s
      • WWN Number of Storage HBA’s
      • Zoning Information

Operating System

1. 1. • Server Operating System
      • Operating System Licensed or Not
      • Operating System has full Updates

Application

1. 1. • Application Name
      • Serve Name where Application installed
      • Application installed on which Drive of Server (Driver Letter)
      • Application is Clustered or not
      • Any Shared Storage is Presented for the Application
      • Any Dependency with additional Hardware devices like USB dongles
      • Any application licenses are binding to the MAC or IP address of the server?
      • Server Name / IP and MAC binding details of the Application
      • Application Owner Information
      • Compatibility of the Application in Virtualized Environment
      • Application Downtime

License

Necessary License details of Operating System and Application, which is very much required for licensing compliance.

Access Details

1. 1. • Local administrator credentials for the server
      • Remote access types like RDP or any other tools
      • Remote management access information (ILO, iDRAC, etc.)
      • Active directory domain admin details

Based on the above details you can plan how resources should be allocated for the servers after migration. For smooth migration, we recommend modifying the resources setting after the migration and verify whether the Operating system and application is working perfectly. The checklist will help you assign resources properly and save the cost of infrastructure.

1. 1. Create a checklist for collecting the VMware vSphere environment details to plan the migration smoothly. We need this information very accurate for configuring the servers and applications in a virtualized environment after migrationM

Virtual Infrastructure

1. 1. • vCenter Name
      • vCenter Access details
      • Datacenter, Cluster and ESXi Name
      • ESXi IP Address
      • Port Group Name and VLAN ID’s
      • Configured (FC / iSCSI) LUN Name, Type and name and IP of connected ESXi hosts
   2. Verify VMware Infrastructure configuration is standard and followed the best practices
      For better performance, proper management and easy maintenance and migrations, virtualized Infrastructure should be configured with standards followed by VMware best practices

Let’s check a few points which help to create standard VMware Infrastructure

1. • VM Name and Guest OS Name should be the same
   • VMware Tools should be updated
   • VM Hardware Version should be Latest
   • Unwanted Virtual Hardware’s can be removed, example – Floppy Drive
   • ESXi and vCenter with N-1 version, where N is the Latest Supported Version for Hardware
   • If there is no IPV6 in the environment, disable in guest OS and ESXi
   • ESXi Local Datastore Naming – ESXI Name_LOCAL, example VMARENA-ESXI-01_LOCAL
   • Shared Storage Naming – Storage Array Model-VMDATASTORE-XX, example VMAX-VMDATASTORE-01 for Dell EMC VMAX Storage LUN
   • For placing some Application in Specific Datastore, better use naming Storage Array Model – APPLICATION NAME DATASTORE-XX, example VMAX-EXGDATASTORE-01 for Exchange
   • Port Group Name – VLAN_VLANID, example VLAN_191
   • Separate vmdk’s for each logical volume in VM, example C-drive, D-drive should be in separate VMDK
   • Virtual Machine Network Card Model – VMXNET3
   • Separate vSwitch for Management, vMotion and VM Network with redundant network adapters, Management Network – 1G, VMotion and Production 10G network will be best options, applicable for Standard and Distributed
   • For SMB Management and vMotion can be on Single vSwitch with 1G connection and VM network in Sperate vSwitch 10G or multiple 1G Connections
   • Separate vSwitch for iSCSI Configuration in ESXi
   • Place the Virtual machines in Separate Folders with application or Department names for better management and Access control
   • Configure LDAP / Active Directory Authentication with vCenter & ESXi hosts
   • NTP Configuration with NTP Server
   • Separate domain accounts for operations like backup, monitor, etc
   • Provision LUN in thin mode from Storage to vSphere environment
   • Create virtual Machine VMDK in such manner Thin – For less write IO and utilization, Thick
   • Lazy – Minimal write IO and Utilization, Thick Eager – High write IO, example – For OS thin, Application and Databases Thick Lazy / Eager based on application type
   • Configure multipathing policy on all Luns, refer Storage Vendor recommendation
   • Configure VAAI Configuration as per vendor guidelines
   • Add the Annotation with required details such as VM creation date, owner, etc. for VM’s
   • Application Cluster Setup Configuration – SCSI bus sharing type define

As an initial setup for physical to virtual migration above-mentioned points will help. Also, there are many more options available that help to create Infrastructure more secure, you can refer to VMware’s best practice guide for the same. After collecting all these details, prepare a migration plan and discuss with respective owners for downtime and other details.

In this article, we looked at the basics that need to be understood before migrating your workloads from physical to virtual as well as its pros & cons.

In our next article, we will look at how the P2V migration is done using VMware vCenter Converter.

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