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VMware To Release VMware Converter 3: Live P2V and V2V Tool

Tuesday, 03 October 2006 by Michel Roth

VMware has announced that they will be releasing a tool called VMware Converter 3 in the next 6 six months. VMware Converter 3 will allow you to live P2V and V2V migrations. They will release a free version that will allow you to do one migration at a time. Multiple, simultaneous migrations will require another version of the tool. I'm betting that PlateSpin (the market leader in live P2V) will be offering some steep discounts some time soon ....

"VMware today introduced VMware Converter 3, the next generation of its conversion tool that enables fast and reliable Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) and Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V) conversions through a simple and centralized management product. VMware will provide a version of VMware Converter 3 free-of-charge at general availability for anyone seeking an easy and affordable approach to converting to a virtual environment and will provide an enterprise edition at no additional cost to customers who have current support and subscription contracts for VirtualCenter Management Server."

"VMware Converter 3 is designed from the ground up to provide high levels of scalability, reliability and usability. VMware Converter 3 creates VMware virtual machines from sources such as physical machines, other VMware virtual machine formats and third-party image formats. It combines the functionality of two existing VMware products � VMware P2V Assistant and VMware Virtual Machine Importer � into one integrated offering aimed at simplifying the process of converting physical and virtual machines into VMware virtual machines. VMware P2V Assistant takes a snapshot of an existing physical system and transforms it into a VMware virtual machine, eliminating the need to reinstall and reconfigure complex application environments. VMware Virtual Machine Importer is a freely available utility that takes virtual machines from a variety of source formats and converts them into most VMware product destinations."

VMware Converter 3 helps IT professionals successfully create new virtual environments by letting them:

� Create VMware virtual machines from physical machines running these Windows operating systems: Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (including 64-bit versions of these), as well as Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4 SP4+
� Import older VMware virtual machine formats to new VMware virtual machine formats
� Convert VMware virtual machines from third-party formats including Microsoft Virtual Server and Virtual PC and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery
� Move virtual machines across different development, test and production environments

VMware Converter 3 introduces new functionality:

� Zero-downtime conversion enables users to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine while the source machine continues to operate, without disruption to end-user service
� Remote cloning allows machines to be cloned from a remote console without manually using a boot CD or physically being in front of the source machine
� Improved usability with a new, easy-to-use user interface that allows customers to convert physical machines in the fewest possible steps
� Better performance with significantly improved cloning speed
� Broad support for new and legacy hardware and software running on the source server

Read the entire annoucement here.