User guide

vConverter Functional Overview 17

Conversion Process

There are several different types of conversions available with vConverter. Each type of

conversion follows a slightly different process, and offers different options. The main

types of conversions available are:

• Windows P2V

• Linux P2V

• Windows V2P

Windows P2V

The primary use case for vConverter is to migrate a workload from physical Windows

servers to a virtual machine on one of the supported platforms. Due to varying workload

requirements, vConverter offers multiple conversion options:

• Standard “hot” conversions are suitable for basic workloads such as file or print

servers. The VMs created will be crash-consistent. Standard conversions occur

without rebooting the source server or taking it offline.

• For transactional servers (Exchange, SQL, etc), Remote Cold Cloning (RCC)

provides a fully consistent image. Cold cloning requires booting the source server

into vConverter Pre-boot Environment, either remotely via RCC or PXE, or

manually with a boot CD.

• For those wanted to ensure data consistency and minimize the cutover window,

vConverter offers Synchronized Cutover. During Synchronized Cutover, a

standard conversion is performed in advance of the desired cutover date.

Subsequent incremental conversions are run to keep the VM in synch with the

source server. This minimizes the amount of data that has to be transferred on the

final conversion. At the time of the scheduled cutover, vConverter will perform a

final, incremental cold conversion to capture any changes and ensure data

consistency. This final data transfer will be relatively small because the previous

conversions have transferred the bulk of the data.

• vConverter can also be used to provide Disaster Recovery protection to physical

servers. In Continuous Protection mode, physical workloads are copied to

virtual machines using recurring incremental conversions. Continuous Protection

uses “hot” conversions to avoid disrupting the source server.

The standard Windows P2V process follows the basic workflow described below.