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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 11
Chapter 1 Introduction
Cloning and System Reconfiguration of Physical Machines
Cloningistheprocessofcreatingacloneddisk,wherethecloneddiskisavirtualdiskthatisanexactcopyof
thesourcephysicaldisk.Thisinvolvescopyingthedataonaphysicalsourcemachine’sharddiskand
transferringthatdatatoatargetvirtualdisk(thenewcloned
disk).
Systemreconfigurationistheprocessofadjustingthemigratedoperatingsystemtoenableittofunctionon
virtualhardware.Thisadjustmentisperformedonthetargetvirtualdiskaftercloningandenablesthetarget
virtualdisktofunctionasabootablesystemdiskinavirtualmachine.
Convertercreates
anewVMwarevirtualmachinebasedonasourcephysicalmachine.Themigrationprocess
isnondestructive,soyoucancontinuetousetheoriginalsourcemachine.However,torunaconverted
VMwarevirtualmachineonthesamenetworkasthesourcephysicalmachine,youmustmodifythenetwork
nameandIP
addressononeofthemachines,sothephysicalandvirtualmachinescancoexist.
Hot and Cold Cloning
Convertersupportshotcloningandcoldcloning.Hotcloning,alsocalledlivecloningoronlinecloning,entails
cloningthesourcemachinewhileitisrunningitsoperatingsystem.Coldcloning,alsocalledofflinecloning,
entailscloningthesourcemachinewhenitisnotrunningitsoperatingsystem.Incoldcloning,
theuserreboots
thesourcemachinefromaCDthathasitsownoperatingsystem,fromwhichtheVMware Converter
applicationruns.Coldcloningleavesnofootprintonthesourcemachine.
Local and Remote Cloning
Forlocalcloning,migrationisperformedwithConverterrunningonthesourcemachine.Withremotecloning,
thesourcemachinecanbeaccessedwithouthavingtophysicallytouchit,aslongasitisrunning.
Remote Hot Cloning Workflow
Thefollowingworkflowisanexampleofhotcloning,inwhichthephysicalmachinebeingclonedexperiences
nodowntime.YouusetheConverterwizardtosetupamigrationtaskandVMware Converterautomatically
performsallofthecloningtasks.
N
OTEYoucannotmoveOEMmediabetweenphysicalmachines.Thelicenseisattachedtotheserverwhen
purchasedfromtheOEMandcannotbereassigned.OnlyretailandvolumeLicensescanbereassignedtonew
physicalservers.IfyoumigrateanOEMimage,youneedaWindowsServerEnterpriseorDatacenter Edition
licenseontheESXServertorunmultiplevirtualmachines.
NOTEWhenhotcloningdualbootsystems,youcancloneonlythedefaultoperatingsystemtowhich
boot.inipoints.Toclonethenondefaultoperatingsystem,changeboot.initopointtotheotheroperating
systemandreboot.Afteryouarebootedintotheotheroperatingsystem,youcaninstallConverterandhot
cloneit.