Converting VMware ESX machines to Hyper-V format

Organizations that are running VMware virtualization tools and wish to migrate to a Hyper-V resource pool will need to recover their existing virtual machine assets. This involves converting the virtual machines from VMware to Hyper-V format. This is relatively simple to do, and there are actually two ways to do it.

Convert VMware VMs using System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM) will convert virtual machines from VMware ESX format to Hyper-V format. Just remember that the source ESX server must be a managed host in your SCVMM environment for the conversion to work. Only the guest operating systems listed below are supported for conversion:

• Windows Server 2008 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows 2000 Server SP4 and Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4 or later
• Windows XP Professional SP2 or later (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Vista SP1 (32-bit or 64-bit)
• Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later (32-bit or 64-bit)

The virtual to virtual (V2V) process converts virtual disks from the Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) to VHD, uninstalls VMware Tools, and installs Integration Services. Machines can be dragged from an ESX host to a Hyper-V -- or Microsoft Virtual Server -- host to begin the conversion process, or you can use the Convert Virtual Machine command in the Actions menu of the SCVMM Administrator Console. The wizard used to support the process follows these steps:

1. Launch the Conversion Wizard and click Browse to select the source VM to convert.
2. Change the VM name if you need to, use the default owner, and add a description if required.
3. Assign the appropriate resources to the target VM.
4. Select an appropriate host as presented by the Intelligent Placement option.
5. Select the host path to store the target VM.
6. Attach the network adapters to the target VM.
7. Modify the Additional Properties field if required.
8. Review your settings and click Create to begin the conversion process. You can also click View Script to capture the Windows PowerShell script generated by the wizard for later use.

Once you click the ...