Section 6.7. Platespin PowerP2V

6.7. Platespin PowerP2V

Another option for p-to-v'ing servers is a third-party application by a company called Platespin. This tool is called PowerP2V and looks very promising. It provides all of the basic functionalities, along with some very advanced features that some might find useful.

PowerP2V runs from a management console. From there, you can perform drag-and-drop physical-to-virtual migrations. Simply click your physical source server and drag it to your ESX Server to initiate the process. There's a lot you can customize, including keeping the source server turned on or off after the migration is complete. You can also schedule the migrations, which can be very handy for larger servers. Like VMware's P2V Assistant, Platespin handles adding the correct Hal and Ntoskrnl files as part of the migration process. Unlike the VMware's tool, Platespin can migrate Linux servers as well. In addition to basic p-to-v migrations, Platespin offers virtual-to-virtual or v-to-v migrations. For instance, you can migrate a virtual machine running in Microsoft's Virtual Server product into a virtual machine on an ESX host, and vice versa.