Hey Michael,
I'm just wondering what the licensing reason for moving back to a physical, is
it because the vendor wants to license all of the sockets in the ESX cluster
rather than the virtual CPU's that are assigned to the guest?
If that's the case, I'm just wondering if it might be easier to run the boxes
as standalone ESX servers, it kinda sucks from a virtualization point of view,
but might get you round your issue with as little pain as possible.
If that's not the case, you could get the machine(s) cloned as an initial
step, and then run the sysprep over the clone - at least then you fall back
would be just to power up the original VM.
Mat
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of Michael Leone
Sent: Wednesday, 16 November 2011 1:47 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] OT - migrating a VM to a physical machine
I realize this is a bit (OK, maybe a bit more than a bit ..) OT. But I will be
using Networker in the process, so I thought I'd ask here.
VMware Environment: 6 host EX 4.1 U1 cluster. VM in question - Win2003
Enterprise, 32 bit
My boss tells me that I need to convert this from a VM back onto a physical
machine - for licensing reasons, this needs to be a physical box, apparently.
And there's no budget for software designed for this purpose (of course :-)).
So here's the big rub ... this VM is one of those mission critical VMs.
Ordinarily, what I might have done is do a sysprep of the VM, and - before
shutting it down - do a full backup using Networker. Then, I would do a BMR
(Bare Metal Recovery) of Windows on the new physical hardware. That way, after
the reboot at the end of the BMR, sysprep would run, find the new disk
controller drivers, etc, and not blue screen with inaccessible boot device
errors.
However, my boss has vetoed that idea, since we can't take any chances with the
VM perhaps not working after the sysprep. If that BMR doesn't work, then I
would need to turn the VM back on. and we have no guarantees that it would
continue to work the same after the sysprep, etc.
So my hands are tied that way.
Then I thought - well, we could still do a BMR, but without the sysprep first.
I could install the drivers for the new disk controller, etc, into the running
VM. Do a regular full backup, shutdown the VM, and then do the BMR to the
physical box. It should recognize that the hardware has changed, see the new
hardware, see it has a driver for it, reboot accordingly. Repeat until it's
happy and boots normally. If absolutely necessary, do a Windows Repair
installation.
That way, either the physical box would work, and I'd leave the VM powered off,
or the physical box would fail, and I would power the VM back up.
Since the domain SID never changes, all should be happy.
I think that should work. Anyone ever done anything similar? The BMR should
just be: install same version of Windows onto physical hardware (no need for
updates) with same name and IP address, not as member of domain.
Install NW client (same version as what's in the VM). Do a full restore of
everything except the NW client program files folder. Reboot when prompted.
That should work as a BMR for a 32bit Win2003 box, yes?
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