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» VIEW ALL POSTS Sep 2 2008   9:24AM GMT

Making a P2V conversion: Driver cleansing



Posted by: Rick Vanover
hardware, Virtual machine, Virtualization strategies, P2V, Rick Vanover

Successful physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversions revolve around getting the virtual environment correct before presenting the actual workload to the new VM. In this video blog, Rick Vanover discusses some conversion tasks that can help a VM function optimally as the workload goes virtual from a driver perspective.

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Alan Wright  |   Sep 2 2008   5:13PM GMT

You can also Install the linux Dell/HP management Agents into the service console as to continue the resilience of the Host Hardware. Additionly install thew linux version of the APC Business/Network edition onto the console.
A good tip is to double the service console size from 5000 to 10000mb in order accomodate these new services beforehand.


 

Jonathan  |   Sep 2 2008   9:41PM GMT

Before a P2V, I like to stop (not disable) the services related to agents or unnecessary software components. After a successful P2V, then I uninstall all the software you mentioned, RAID, NIC, other hardware monitoring. But to really do a “cleanse”, I also remove all the hidden hardware devices that won’t be used anymore.

To see all that hidden stuff, I add a system variable “devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices” and set it to “1″, then reboot. See the KB article for more detail:
 <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241257" title="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241257" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241257</a>

I go into Computer Management | Devices Manager | View and check Show Hidden Devices. I drill down the tree and every object that is dimmed I delete. You don’t have to worry, if the device is dimmed it’s not needed and even if it was it will be re-detected on reboot.

By doing this I know the system is clean and free from any legacy hardware it won’t be using in it’s new virtualized environment.

jonatj


 
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