Next, a bootable image installs on the source system, and the server is rebooted to that image, which is identical to the
image running on the destination VM. With both controllers running on the source and destination servers, the PowerConvert
server steps in the middle and conducts the migration, block by block.
By running limited Windows code on both servers, PowerRecon can modify the OS parameters necessary to ensure that various
hardware devices are removed from the destination VM, paving the way for a clean migration. The big downside is that the process
is relatively long and requires the source server to be brought down for the entire migration.
In the lab, PowerRecon took just less than an hour to complete the migration process and bring up the newly migrated VM. During
this time there was scant output from the tool other than sporadic progress messages, although the job logging provides a
better view of the process.
The migration finished successfully, following several reboots of the destination server and the powering down of the source
server. A little bit of a hiccup occurred here, as I couldn’t use the mouse or keyboard in the new VM’s console, but I could
RDP into the server and verify that it was up and running. A short time later both input devices suddenly became active, and
I was able to use the console normally. At the end of the whole process, the test domain controller was successfully migrated
to a new virtual server with all services up and running.
I ran this same migration using PlateSpin’s new LiveTransfer option, which is similar to Leostream’s P>V in that it doesn’t
require the source server to be taken offline prior to the conversion. Unfortunately this test didn’t end well, as the converted
server booted with several broken AD services, requiring AD restore mode.
PowerRecon does offer plenty of disaster-recovery and imaging features. You may create a disk image of both a physical system
or a virtual server, which can be pushed back to the hardware. PowerRecon can also migrate virtual servers to physical servers,
although I didn’t test this capability.
Leostream P>V 3.0
Leostream’s solution has none of the bells and whistles of PlateSpin’s PowerConvert, and it doesn’t offer anything similar
to PowerRecon, but it does handle P2V migrations well.
P>V consists of an RPM Package Manager that’s installed on a target VMware ESX Server, and an application that runs on the
physical server to be migrated. When I first fired up the application on the physical test server, I was expecting to set
up the app and then determine the steps necessary to migrate the server. Instead, I found a wizard, which walked me through
the migration process. Within five minutes, it was moving the server to its new virtual home. That’s P>V in a nutshell — no
fancy UI, just a simple P2V migration, without the reboots.
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