Specifications

VMware and BEA WebLogic Solutions Deployment Guide
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8.0 Converting Physical BEA WebLogic Server Instance
to a Virtual Machine Instance
VMware P2V Assistant is an enterprise-class migration tool that transforms an image of an existing physical
system into a VMware virtual machine.
VMware P2V Assistant allows you to:
- Non-intrusively copy and transform physical systems into VMware virtual machines
- Migrate legacy servers to new hardware with no need to reinstall operating systems or application
software
- Perform migrations across heterogeneous hardware
- Proactively readjust disk sizes, types and partitions to maximize utilization of storage resources
P2V will help migrate existing BEA instances on physical servers to BEA WLS VM instances running on the
VMware Infrastructure.
For the purpose of demonstrating P2V, we created a BEA WebLogic Server 9.2 server instance on a
physical system running on Windows Server 2003 SP1EE and added it to an existing BEA WLS 9.2 domain
cluster.
Before installing the P2V tool, check the P2V Platform compatibility guide documentation to ensure that your
hardware and operating system are supported for P2V.
The basic P2V Assistant processes are:
Cloning — The process of creating a cloned disk, where the cloned disk is a virtual disk that is an exact
copy of the source physical disk. This involves copying the data on a physical source machine's hard disk
and transferring that data to a target virtual disk (the new cloned disk). This process can be performed using
the P2V Assistant installed on a helper machine (physical or virtual) or using a third-party disk imaging or
backup/restore tool running in a helper virtual machine. The helper machine is an intermediary machine that
allows the P2V Assistant to interact with the target machine's virtual disks.
System Reconfiguration — The process of adjusting the migrated operating system to enable it to function
on virtual hardware. This adjustment is performed on the target virtual disk after the cloning and enables the
target virtual disk to function as a bootable system disk in a virtual machine. System reconfiguration is not
required if the target virtual disk will not be used as a bootable system disk. This process is performed using
the P2V Assistant installed on a helper machine (physical or virtual). A system reconfiguration does not
change the identity of the new virtual machine.
Creating the Virtual Machine — Using the new virtual disks in a new virtual machine. If the new virtual
machine disk had an operating system and you performed a system reconfiguration on it, the new virtual