Basics Of VMware P2V VCenter Converter Standalone

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VMware vCenter Converter Standalone provides an easy-to-use solution that automates the process of creating VMware virtual machines from physical machines running on either Windows or Linux operating system and from other virtual machine formats.

VMware converter basically helps us to convert a physical machine into a virtual machine that further can be used in VMware hosted and managed products. VMware vCenter Converter is free software that can be downloaded from VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.

VMware vCenter Converter use cases and benefits

Performance and Reliability: It converts local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any downtime. Simultaneous conversions enable large-scale virtualization implementations.
Management: It provides a centralized management console that allows you to queue up and monitor many simultaneous conversions, both local and remote, such as in head and branch offices.
Interoperability: 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.
Free: This software comes free of cost and can be downloaded from VMware’s official site.

You can use Converter Standalone to perform various types of conversion tasks.

Import running source physical and virtual machines as virtual machines to standalone ESXi hosts or to ESXi hosts that vCenter Server manages.
Import virtual machines hosted by VMware Workstation or Microsoft Hyper-V Server to ESXi hosts.
Export virtual machines managed by vCenter Server hosts to other VMware virtual machine formats.
Customize guest operating systems of virtual machines in the vCenter Server.
Perform migrations across heterogeneous hardware.
Readjust volume sizes and place volumes on separate virtual disks.

Component of VMware Converter Standalone

The Converter Standalone application consists of mainly three components:

Converter Standalone server: It enables and performs the import and export of virtual machines.
Converter Standalone agent: It installs the agent on Windows source machines to import them as virtual machines.
Converter Standalone client: The Converter Standalone server works with the Converter Standalone client. This is a desktop application that provides capability of import and export via the nice user interface on desktop application.

Types Of Migration on vCenter Converter Standalone

VMware vCenter Converter is capable of accomplishing the migration in two ways:

P2V Hot Migration: The source machine will be in powered state during the migration. But it is not recommended to do a p2v hot migration for AD and DB servers.
P2V Cold Migration: The source machine must be powered off during the migration.

Steps to perform P2V Migration

Open the VMware vCenter Converter Standalone and click on ‘Convert Machine‘
On Source System wizard, Select ‘Powered-on Machine‘ from the drop down
Select “This Local Machine” if you want to migrate the physical machine to where VMware vCenter Conversion is installed. Otherwise, click “A Remote Machine” and then enter the IP address and credentials for the source system. Click “Next.”
Select “VMware Infrastructure Virtual Machine” from the drop-down menu. You need to enter the server address and login credentials for the system running VMware ESXi. Click “Next.”
You need to select the Data Center -> ESXi host where you want to place the new virtual machine.
Once you select the host, there you will get an option to edit the virtual machine virtual hardware configs/settings and click ‘Next‘
Review the configuration and Click ‘Finish‘

You can monitor the task in ‘Task Progress’ tab on Converter Standalone client.

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