NEC Express5800 Fault Tolerant Virtual Server Quick Start Guide
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Figure 14: Building a guest machine at the main site and transporting it to the branch office.
The P2V migration of a physical server to a virtual machine enables you to deploy a virtual machine that
replaces a physical server if rebuilding the server from scratch would be difficult because of specific software
installation or configuration. In addition, the P2V process can streamline the creation of multiple virtual
machines and prevent the need to undertake multiple new manual virtual machine builds. The
Virtual Server
Migration Toolkit (VSMT)
describes how to complete the P2V process.
Table 2 summarizes these approaches.
Virtual Machine Deployment
Method
Advantages
Disadvantages
Build new virtual machine and
install all software manually
Enables straightforward creation of
virtual machines.
Time consuming build process.
Remote replication of data.
Identification of software
configuration requirements.
Build the virtual machine on a
remote Virtual Server and copy the
virtual machine files to the local
Virtual Server
Uses a virtual machine template.
Replicates data locally before
deployment.
Must move large virtual machine
files.
Identification of software
configuration requirements.
Migrate a physical server to a
virtual machine by using a P2V
process
Migrates configuration from the
physical server.
Original installation media may not
be required.
Once the infrastructure is in place it
can significantly reduce migration
times.
Intricate process with many steps.
Requires Automated Deployment
Services (ADS) 1.0 and Windows
Server 2003, Enterprise Edition.
All applications are migrated, even
those that may not be required.
Table 2: Creation options for virtual machines.
