computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

. Physical-to-Virtual ("P2V" or "p-to-v" ) involves the process of decoupling and migrating a physical

server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...

's operating system (OS), applications, and data from that physical server to a virtual-machine guest hosted on a virtualized platform.

Methods of P2V migration

Manual P2V

User manually creates a virtual machine in a virtual host environment and copies all the files from OS, applications and data from the source machine.

Semi-automated P2V

Performing a P2V migration using a tool that assists the user in moving the servers from physical state to virtual machine. * Microsoft'
Virtual Server 2005 Migration ToolkitHOWTO: Guideline for use Virtual Server Migration ToolKit (KB555306)
*

VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...

provides a semi-automated tool called VMware vCenter Converter for moving physical servers running Windows or Linux into virtual environments while they are powered on. VMware vCenter Converter replaces two older utilities: Importer (bundled with

VMware Workstation VMware Workstation Pro (known as VMware Workstation until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015) is a hosted (Type 2) hypervisor that runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systemshttps://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/searc ...

) and P2V Assistant. * Oracle's Virtual Bo
has a Linux-based tool
which allows the conversion of a dd image of an existing hard drive * Microsoft provides the SysInternal
disk2vhd
utility for making images from Windows XP or later systems to be used with

Windows Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a Hardware virtualization, virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version f ...

Microsoft Virtual Server Microsoft Virtual Server was a virtualization solution that facilitated the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Originally developed by Connectix, it was acquired by Microsoft pr ...

Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian, and briefly known before its release as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows. Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded Win ...

.
openQRM
an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

datacenter management platform, does P2V (and V2P, V2V or P2P). * Storix's bare-metal recovery product
System Backup Administrator
provides P2V and V2P capabilities for Linux, AIX, and Solaris.

Fully automated P2V

Performing a P2V migration using a tool that migrates the server over the network without any assistance from the user. *

Veritas Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of Honesty, truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: ). The German phi ...

Backup Exec Veritas Backup Exec is a data protection software product designed for customers with mixed physical and virtual environments, and who are moving to public cloud services. Supported platforms include VMware and Hyper-V virtualization, Windows and ...

has Physical to Virtual (P2V) conversion (and V2P) feature build into the backup engine which can be used for migrations or instant recovery * vContinuum vContinuum by InMage systems is an automated P2V data protection/migration tool
Symantec System Recovery
enables fast, automated P2V and V2P conversions * Quest vConverter is an example of a fully automated migration tool for P2V. *

System Center Virtual Machine Manager System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) forms part of Microsoft's System Center line of virtual machine management and reporting tools, alongside previously established tools such as System Center Operations Manager and System Center Confi ...

SCVMM among many other capabilities has P2V capability. *

Leostream Leostream, founded in 2002, is a privately held technology company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Its flagship product is a connection broker for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and resources hosted in the datacenter. Software Leostream d ...

is an example of a fully automated migration tool for P2V. *

PlateSpin PlateSpin is a software suite of Micro Focus International. Originally a standalone software company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, registered in Delaware, US as Platespin Inc. and founded by Robert Reive in 1999 with co-founders added later D ...

Migrate is an example of a fully automated migration tool for P2V (and V2P, V2V or P2P). *

Virtuozzo Virtuozzo is a software company that develops virtualization and cloud management software for cloud computing providers, managed services providers and internet hosting service providers. The company’s software enables service providers to offe ...

contains automatic P2V (and V2P) migration tools. * SanXfer by InQuinox is an automated server and

data migration Data migration is the process of selecting, preparing, extracting, and transforming data and permanently transferring it from one computer storage system to another. Additionally, the validation of migrated data for completeness and the decommis ...

tool for P2V, V2P, and P2P with complete (server and storage) hardware independence. * SureEdge, migrator by sureline systems is fully automated server data migration tool for p2v, V2v

Linux and windows server migration Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

, applications, i.e. Ms SQL server, oracle with complete hardware independence, cloud independent

from any cloud to any cloud migration From may refer to: * From, a preposition * From (SQL), computing language keyword * From: (email message header), field showing the sender of an email * FromSoftware, a Japanese video game company * Full range of motion, the travel in a rang ...

External links

Manual physical-to-virtual migration description for OpenVZ

References