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Question about ESXi

phoenix79

phoenix79

Golden Member
I have a Windows 2008 R2 DC that I'm trying to virtualize with ESXi. The problem is that the virtual host is going to have to be on the same hardware that the system is currently running on. This means that I'm going to have to put the DC somewhere temporarily while I build the host. I figured the easiest way to do it would be to do a standard windows backup of the machine and then when the host is back up and running on the hardware, stick the server disk in and do a restore from backup, but I don't know if the virtual hardware will cause problems. Has anyone done anything like this before?
 
i don't think that will work. Someone correct me if i'm wrong but I think the best way to do this is to migrate to a VM on another machine using a physical to virtual machine converter, and i'm guessing VMware has something like that. Then, rebuild the original machine and configure it to run VMs, and migrate it back over.
Although DCs are kind of tricky so i don't know if that would be painless either.
 
phoenix79 said:
I have a Windows 2008 R2 DC that I'm trying to virtualize with ESXi. The problem is that the virtual host is going to have to be on the same hardware that the system is currently running on. This means that I'm going to have to put the DC somewhere temporarily while I build the host. I figured the easiest way to do it would be to do a standard windows backup of the machine and then when the host is back up and running on the hardware, stick the server disk in and do a restore from backup, but I don't know if the virtual hardware will cause problems. Has anyone done anything like this before?
Click to expand...

If I understand what you're doing, it seems like you want to take an OS that is running on the bare metal, 'move it', install ESXi, and put that original OS back in as a guest.. Right?

Since you need to convert the bare metal OS to a VMWare image, what you might want to do is actually install ESXi on a different box. Convert the OS over to that temp ESXi box, then once ESXi is running on the original server, just copy the vhd files over.

If you can afford to take down the DC for a few hours, you dont even need the extra ESXi box, just the VMware client.

I actually converted a MSFT Virtual Server 2005 guest instance (Server 2003) over to VMWare ESXi back in Feb but I did it over the weekend and was able to have the DC offline for a few hours.
 
Whenever you move a Windows OS from one "machine" to another, you need to be concerned about the disk controller. If Windows is set to boot with one disk controller and you present it with a different one, it may not boot.

Server 2008 is supposed to be able to adapt to many such changes by doing a "repair" if it doesn't boot. Personally, I haven't had much luck with that so far.

There are also tricks involving changing disk controllers in Windows before moving it, there are Registry tricks to change the controller settings before the move, there are backup programs that let you do a "hardware independent restore", and there are converter programs offered both by VMWare and Microsoft. None are foolproof.
 
Thanks for the info. I was hoping to be able to avoid a "middle man" system as I don't have any 64-bit systems lying around un-used that I can use as a temp home. I could take the DC off for a while without much issue, it's a back-up DC.
 
phoenix79 said:
Thanks for the info. I was hoping to be able to avoid a "middle man" system as I don't have any 64-bit systems lying around un-used that I can use as a temp home. I could take the DC off for a while without much issue, it's a back-up DC.
Click to expand...

Even though you call it a backup DC, Server 2003(+) has no concept of a BDC.

Just a tip, one problem I ran into was when I did the conversion, and started it up, and everything was fine, except for a configuration setting it did when doing the conversion, so I deleted it and started over. Whoops. AD doesn't like that since it cause sync/rep issues with the other DC. Took me a long time to get that figured out and fixed. It didnt even show any symptoms for a month or so until I could no longer log into the DC. netlogon.exe would just crash.. Yikes.

Silly mistake, but easy enough to make if you dont think through everything.
 
The best method is to not make a physical to virutal (P2V) of an active DC. What you want to look at doing is moving any active roles from the "backup DC" to one of your other DCs. Then remove the "backup DC".
 
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