Tag: VMware

In Other VMware News …

Other than ESXi/vSphere having a fundamental breakout (the worst thing that can happen to virtualisation) security flaw, CRN reported that VMware is concerned about the competition.  The memory vTax that they announced at VMword 2011 is allegedly going to be dumped next week with the vSphere 5.1 announcement at VMworld 2012.

Has anyone asked if there will be vTax refunds for those folks who have coughed up for the virtual memory licensing of vSphere?

I guess that Netscape Novell VMware has learned that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  In some cases, they are doomed anyway.

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Serious Break-Out Security Flaw Found in VMware Cloud

A cloud is typically a “multi-tenant” hosting infrastructure where the owners of the virtual machines in the IaaS are customers of the hosting provider. This might be a private implementation in a corporation, government agency, or university.  It might be a hosting company (such as Rackspace) selling capacity to anyone with Internet access and a credit card.

I worked in the hosting biz for 3 years using virtualisation for IaaS.  When I was asked about it, I told people that:

  • No customer/tenant could trust any other customer/tenant
  • I (the hosting company) could not trust any customer/tenant

That’s because:

  1. Some of the customers/tenants favoured convenience over security, or they were complete and utter morons
  2. I didn’t know them from Adam and they could have been up to no good

Trustworthy isolation was critical, and the virtualisation being used had to be rock solid.  I could not risk one tenant getting access to another, and I absolutely in any circumstance could never let them near the infrastructure.

And that’s why a post on a Microsoft Canada blog which linked to a research article caught my attention yesterday.

Long story short: A hacker can craft a VMDK descriptor file, upload it to a cloud (a feature that is offered for migration), and configure that descriptor file to load VMware ESXi system files directly into the virtual machine.  They successfully tested this on ESX 5.0, loading the /etc/shadow file, which according to nixCraft:

… stores actual password in encrypted format for user’s account with additional properties related to user password i.e. it stores secure user account information

Woops!  That sounds like a file you don’t want to be making readily available.  Remember: this was a “hosting customer” that uploaded a VM as a guest, fired up the VM, and gained access to the usernames/passwords of the host.  They also got access to other files such as system logs. 

They then went on to gain access to all physical hard drives on the host.  You have to be kidding me!!!!!

So if you are a company setting up a cloud with VM upload/migration features, and basic security is important, then don’t use vSphere 5.0.

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Convert vSphere VMs into Hyper-V VMs from vSphere Client

Microsoft has just launched a beta of the the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client v1.0.  The idea is that you can start the conversion of VMware virtual machines into Hyper-V virtual machines from a menu in the VMware admin tool Smile

The MVMC Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client Beta:

  • Extends the vSphere Client context menu to make it easier to convert the VMware-based virtual machine to a Hyper-V-based virtual machine.
  • Is built upon the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter release candidate.

This plug-in extends vSphere Client to facilitate conversions from a virtual machine context menu and without changing configurations on the source VMware host. For more details about which guest operating systems are supported, see the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter.

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Have We Reached A Turning Point In The VMware/Hyper-V War?

A few of us proclaimed it last September: Windows Server 2012 is to VMware as Windows 2000 was to Novell.  Evidence that others agree?

Gigaom reports that:

VMware left its core business exposed, they say, first by announcing heavy-handed vSphere price hikes last year that, in the words of one VMware watcher, “kicked the door open for Microsoft Hyper-V.” VMware has yet to recover from that, in his view.  Silicon Valley is baffled at how easy VMware has made it for Microsoft to come in and take all the easy stuff.

TechCrunch reports that:

Paul Maritz is out as the CEO of VMware and will be replaced by EMC COO Pat Gelsinger.

In my opinion, investing in a VMware solution right now would be like investing in IntraNetware in 2000.  You’ll have buyers remorse come September when Windows Server 2012 goes GA.

According to Google, the VMW stock on the New York Stock Exchange is also trending downwards over the past 3 months.  Meanwhile MSFT is running it’s usual unexciting steady.

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I guess the people have figured out what the Emperor has been wearing for a while.

Meanwhile, the VMware marketing engine is doing their best to tell us how well they did in the past.  Yes, Novell was a market leader once.  So was Netscape.  So was Lotus Notes.  Spotting the trend here?

I’m happily waiting to moderate (aka delete) the VMware marketing/fanboy comments on this one unless they’re so badly informed that I’ll gladly approve to shoot them down with cold hard correct facts Smile

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Windows Server 2012 & 2012 R2 Virtualisation Licensing Scenarios

I am not answering any more questions on this post – to be honest, there have been too many for me to have the time to deal with them. Don’t bother asking – I’ll ignore/delete it.  My recommendations are:

  1. Re-read this post if you do not understand it after the first or second reads. To be honest, most of the questions have been from people who are just trying to make things complicated. Just license the hosts for the maximum number of Windows Server VMs that can ever run on that host, even for 1 second. It is that simple!
  2. Ask your LAR/distributor/reseller – that’s their job and that’s why you pay them

This post follows my dissertation on Windows Server 2012 licensing, which is essential reading before proceeding with this post.

[Edit] The below is unchanged with WS2012 R2. The only difference is that WS2012 R2 Datacenter edition (only) includes Automatic Virtual Machine Activation.

I’m putting Hyper-V aside for just a few minutes to talk about how you will license virtualisation of Windows Server 2012 in virtual machines no matter what virtualisation you use, be it vSphere, Hyper-V, XenServer, or whatever tickles your fancy.  BTW, the counting here also applies to:

  • System Center 2012
  • Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS)
  • Enrolment for Core Infrastructure (ECI – minimum of 25 hosts)

Please read this post s-l-o-w-l-y and let it sink in.  Then read it again.  If you have been eating bowls full of VMware FUD then read it a third time – slowly.

FAQ

  • VOSE or virtual operating system environment is a licensing term for virtual machine (VM).  It is used when talking about licensing a VM for Windows Server.
  • When you buy a license for virtualisation you legally buy and assign it to hardware, not to VMs.  The virtualisation rights of Windows Server licenses the VMs on the licensed host for Windows Server.
  • There is no mobility with OEM.
  • You can move a volume license and it’s virtualisation rights once every 90 days.  If you want to use HA (clustering), Live Migration/vMotion, DRS/Dynamic Optimization/PRO, then you need sufficient virtualisation rights on each host to support the maximum number of VMs that is possible on that host, even for 1 second.
  • You cannot split a license or it’s virtualisation rights across hosts.
  • Virtualisation rights are 2 VOSEs for a host licensed by Windows Server 2012 Standard and unlimited VOSEs for a host licensed for Windows Server 2012 Datacenter.
  • Virtualisation rights covers the host for the assigned edition of Windows Server 2012 and lower versions/editions of Windows Server.  It does not include Windows 8/7/Vista.
  • You can assign more than 1 license to a host

In other words, you license a host for the maximum number of Windows Server VMs that it could host.

1 Host, 1 CPU, 2 VMs

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Here you want to run a single host that has 1 CPU.  The host will run 2 Windows Server virtual machines.  You will assign a single Windows Server 2012 license to this host.  The license covers 2 CPUs (there is only 1) and provides virtualisation rights for 2 virtual operating system environments (VOSEs).  In other words, you get rights to install Windows Server 2012 Standard (or previous versions) in 2 VMs on this host.

1 Host, 2 CPUs, 4 VMs

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The Standard edition covers 2 VOSEs, but the customer wants 4 VMs running Windows Server Standard 2008 R2.  A single copy of WS2012 Standard will not suffice.  2 copies are bought to provide the 4 (2 * 2 VOSEs) VMs with licensing.

1 Host, 2 CPUs, 10 VMs

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There are two options; do you go with the Standard or Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2012?

The Standard edition covers 2 VOSEs, but the customer wants 10 VMs running Windows Server Standard 2008 R2. A single copy of WS2012 Standard will not suffice. 5 copies are bought to provide the 10 (5 * 2 VOSEs) VMs with licensing.  Based on USA Open NL pricing the licensing of these VMs will cost $882 * 5 = $4,410.

The Datacenter edition of WS2012 gives unlimited VOSEs and covers 2 CPUs in the host.  This solution will require a single Windows Server 2012 Datacenter license which will cost $4,809.

Decision: If you will not go over 10 VMs on this host then Windows Server 2012 Standard edition is the way to go.  If you estimate that there is a good chance of the VM numbers growing then spend an extra $399 and pick up the easier to account-for Windows Server 2012 Datacenter with it’s unlimited VOSE rights.

10 is the magic number using USA Open NL pricing. Once you reach 10 VOSEs on a 1 or 2 CPU host, you need to consider the Datacenter edition because it is cheaper once you hit 11 VOSEs.

1 Host, 4 CPUs, 4 VMs

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It’s an unusual configuration but a valid one for the demonstration.  The WS2012 Standard/Datacenter SKUs cover 2 CPUs each.  In this case there are 4 CPUs.  This will require 2 copies of Windows Server 2012 Standard, which also covers the 4 VMs.

Let’s pretend that 300 VMs will run on this host with 4 physical CPUs.  Then we would assign 2 copies of Windows Server Datacenter on it.  2 copies will cover 2 CPUs each (4 CPUs) and unlimited VOSEs.

That Host with 320 Logical Processors – 10 CPUs with 16 Cores with Hyperthreading

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The maximum specification for Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V is 320 logical processors in the host.  That could be 10 Intel CPUs, each with 16 cores, with Hyperthreading enabled.  We don’t count cores or logical processors when we license.  We count CPUs, sockets, or plain old processors – pick the term you prefer.  There are 10 CPUs/sockets/processors in this server.  That requires 5 copies of either Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter, depending on the required number of VOSEs.

Clusters

Let’s move on to the clusters, where people usually get things wrong because they don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) the mobility rights.  VOSEs licensed by OEM cannot move.  VOSEs licensed by VL can move once every 90 days.  The correct solution is to license each host for the maximum number of VOSEs that it can have for even one second.  And when I say “correct” I mean legal.  Software Asset Management professionals (auditors) are not stupid and the “tricks” I hear people proposing are neither original or unknown to these auditors.

Reminder: This applies even to you non-Hyper-V folks.

2 Hosts, 1 CPU each, 4 VMs

 

 

 

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Don’t get fooled!  This is not one host with 3 VMs and 1 host with 1 VM.  This is 2 hosts, each of which can have up to 4 VMs.  In the past we would have used Enterprise edition on each host.  That has been replaced by Windows Server 2012 Standard edition, that now has all the features and scalability of the Datacenter edition.

Take each host and size it for 4 VOSEs.  That means we need to assign 2 copies of Windows Server 2012 Standard edition to each host.  That’s 4 copies of WS2012 Standard.

2 Hosts, 2 CPUs each, 10 VMs

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10 VMs with 2 hosts means that it is possible to have all 10 VMs on a single host.  You have two options to license each host for up to 10 VOSEs.

Firstly you could license each of the hosts with 5 copies of Windows Server 2012 Standard.  That will give you 10 (5 * 2) VOSEs.  This requires 10 (5 * 2 hosts ) copies of Standard at a cost of $8,820 using USA Open NL.

Alternatively you could license each host with 1 copy of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter, at a cost of $9,618.  The extra $798 will allow you to burst beyond 10 VOSEs to unlimited VOSEs.  Switching to licensing hosts using the Datacenter edition means we don’t have to count VOSEs and we have unrestricted mobility between hosts.

2 Hosts, 2 CPUs each, 20 VMs

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We have exceed the magic number of 10, and now it is cheaper to license with the Datacenter edition with it’s unlimited VOSEs per host.  Each host has 2 CPUs, so each host requires 1 copy of Datacenter.  There are 2 hosts so we require 2 copies of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter.

You could add more hosts to this cluster and each could have unlimited VMs.  As long as the hosts have 1 or 2 CPUs each, each additional host requires only 1 copy of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter to license it for unlimited installs of Windows Server for the VMs on that host.

Lots of Hosts, Lots of VMs, 4 CPUs per Host

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The magic number of 10 VOSEs is a dot in the rear view mirror.  We now have lots of hosts with lots of VMs flying all over the place.  Each host has 4 CPUs.  To license the VOSEs on each host, we will require licensing for 4 CPUs.  This will require 2 copies of Windows Server 2012 Datacenter per host, each covering 2 CPUs.

Live Migration Outside the Cluster

And new for WS2012 thanks to Live Migration living outside the cluster: you must ensure that the destination host is adequately licensed for VOSEs to accommodate the new VM. If this is an infrequent move then you could avail of the VL 90 day mobility right to reassign a license, ensuring the the old host is sufficiently licensed for remaining VOSEs and physical CPUs.

Hyper-V Server 2012

Hyper-V Server has no virtualisation rights and includes no free licensing for VOSEs.  Therefore it is irrelevant in this conversation.

Economically Speaking – Why Hyper-V Makes Sense

If you buy Windows Server licensing for a host to license your VMs, then you are a tickbox (or PowerShell cmdlet) and a reboot away from having Hyper-V.  Buying another product is just more money spent.  And let’s be honest, Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V is not what you might have used/looked at before.

Notes: Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator

These are my notes from the TechEd NA recording of WCL321 with Mikael Nystrom.

Virtual Machine Converter (VMC)

VMC is a free-to-download Solution Accelerator that is currently in beta.  Solution Accelerators are glue between 2 MSFT products to provide a combined solution.  MAP, MDT are other examples.  They are supported products by MSFT.

The purpose of the tool is to convert VMware VMs into Hyper-V VMs.  It can be run as standalone or it can be integrated into System Center, e.g. Orchestrator Runbooks.

It offers a GUI and command line interface (CLI).  Nice quick way for VMware customers to evaluate Hyper-V – convert a couple of known workloads and compare performance and scalability.  It is a low risk solution; the original VM is left untouched.

It will uninstall the VMware tools and install the MSFT Integration components.

The solution also fixes drive geometries to sort out possible storage performance issues – basic conversion tools don’t do this.

VMware Support

It supports:

  • vSphere 4.1 and 5.0
  • vCenter 4.1 and 5.0
  • EXS/ESXi

Disk types from VMware supported include:

  • VMFS Flat and Sparse
  • Stream optimised
  • VMDK flat and sparse
  • Single/multi-extent

Microsoft Support

Beta supports Windows VMs:

  • Server 2003 SP2 x64/x86
  • 7 x64/x86
  • Server 2008 R2 x64
  • Server 2008 x64 (RC)
  • Vista x86 (RC)

Correct; no Linux guests can be converted with this tool.

In the beta the Hyper-V support is:

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V
  • VHD Fixed and Dynamic

In the RC they are adding:

  • Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 Hyper-V
  • VHDX (support to be added in RTM)

Types of Conversion

  • Hot migration: no downtime to the original VM.  Not what VMC does.  But check the original session recording to see how Mikael uses scripts and other MSFT tools to get one.
  • Warm: start with running VM.  Create a second instance but with service interruption.  This is what VMC does.
  • Cold: Start with offline VM and convert it.

VMC supports Warm and Cold.  But there are ways to use other MSFT tools to do a Hot conversion.

Simplicity

MSFT deliberately made it simple and independent of other tools.  This is a nice strategy.  Many VMware folks want Hyper-V to fail.  Learning something different/new = “complexity”, “Microsoft do it wrong” or “It doesn’t work”.  Keeping it simple defends against this attitude from the stereotypical chronic denier. 

Usage

Run it from a machine.  Connect to ESXi or vCenter machine (username/password).  Pick your VM(s).  Define the destination host/location.  Hit start and monitor.

  1. The VM is snapshotted. 
  2. The VMware Tools are removed. 
  3. The VM is turned off. 
  4. The VMDK is transferred to the VMC machine
  5. The VMDK is converted.  You will need at least twice the size of the VMDK file … plus some space (VHD will be slightly larger).  Remember that Fixed VHD is full size in advance.
  6. The VHD is copied to the Hyper-V host. 
  7. The new Hyper-V VM is built using the VM configuration on the VMware host.
  8. The drive is added to the VM configuration.
  9. The VM is started. 
  10. The Hyper-V integration components are installed.

The conversion will create a Hyper-V VM without a NIC.  Supposed to prevent split-brain conversion where source and target VM are both online at the same time.  I’d rather have a tick box. 

If a snapshot is being used … then you will want any services on that VM offline …. file shares, databases, etc.  But offline doesn’t mean powering down the VM …. we need it online for the VMware tools removal.

The Wizard

A VM must has a FQDN to be converted.  Install the VMware tools and that makes the VM convertible.  This is required to make it possible to … uninstall the VMware tools Smile

It will ask for your credentials to log into the guest OS for the VMware tools uninstall. 

Maybe convert the VM on an SSD to speed things up.

Microsoft Is a Virtualisation Leader – Gartner

I saw something about this last week but didn’t pay much attention until this morning.  Gartner has ranked Microsoft as a leader in their Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure.

Figure 1.Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure

They are just behind VMware.  Here’s the fun bit: this is based on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and System Center “2007” versus vSphere 5.0.  Wait until they get a load of System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

The cautions that Gartner have for the Microsoft platform are all compete and market awareness based, rather than technical.  And whereas Microsoft have gone for heterogeneous in System Center 2012, Gartner has a caution about the homogeneous virtualisation nature of VMware’s management/cloud vision … customers are concerned about vendor lock-in.

Roll on next year.  By the way, who owns Netscape now?

More VMware Compete Wins For Hyper-V

VMware made a cute video to defend themselves against Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.  But MSFT continues to hand out a GTA IV style baseball beat down at TechEd.

This post would have been impossible without the tweeted pictures by David Davis at http://www.vmwarevideos.com

General Feature Comparison

Does your business have an IT infrastructure so you can play, or to run applications?  What features have you got to improve those services?

Capability vSphere Free vSphere 5.0 Ent + WS2012 Hyper-V
Incremental backups No Yes Yes
Inbox VM replication No No Yes
NIC teaming Yes Yes Yes
Integrated High Availability No Yes Yes
Guest OS Application Monitoring N/A No Yes
Failover Prioritization N/A Yes Yes
Affinity & Anti-Affinity Rules N/A Yes Yes
Cluster-Aware Updating N/A Yes Yes

So Hyper-V has more application integrations.

Live Migration

Capability vSphere Free vSphere 5.0 Ent + WS2012 Hyper-V
VM Live Migration No Yes Yes
1 GB Simultaneous Live Migrations N/A 4 Unlimited
10 GB Simultaneous Live Migrations N/A 8 Unlimited
Live Storage Migration No Yes Yes
Shared Nothing Live Migration No No Yes
Network Virtualisation No Partner Yes

Shared-nothing Live Migration is actually a big deal.  We know that 33% of business don’t cluster their hosts, and another 33% have a mix of clustered and non-clustered hosts.  Share-Nothing Live Migration enables mobility across these platforms.  Flexibility is the #2 reason why people virtualise (see Network Virtualisation later on).

Clustering

Can you cluster hosts, and if so, how many?  How many VMs can you put on a host cluster?  Apps require uptime too, because VMs need to be patched, rebooted, and occasionally crash.

Capability vSphere Free vSphere 5.0 Ent + WS2012 Hyper-V
Nodes/Cluster N/A 32 64
VMs/Cluster N/A 3000 4000
Max Size iSCSI Guest Cluster N/A 0 64 Nodes
Max Size Fibre Channel Guest Cluster 2 Nodes 2 Nodes 64 Nodes
Max Size File Based Guest Cluster 0 0 64 Nodes
Guest Clustering with Live Migration Support N/A No Yes
Guest Clustering with Dynamic Memory Support No No Yes

Based on this data, WS2012 Hyper-V is the superior platform for scalability and fault tolerance.

Virtual Switches

In a cloud, the virtual switch plays a huge role.  How do they stack up against each other?

Capability vSphere Free vSphere 5.0 Ent + WS2012 Hyper-V
Extensible Switch No Replaceable Yes
Confirmed partner extensions No 2 4
PVLAN No Yes Yes
ARP/ND Spoofing Protection No vShield/Partner Yes
DHCP Snooping Protection No vShield/Partner Yes
Virtual Port ACLs No vShield/Partner Yes
Trunk Mode to VMs No No Yes
Port Monitoring Per Port Group Yes Yes
Port Mirroring Per Port Group Yes No

Another win for WS 2012 Hyper-V.  Note that vShield is an additional purchase on top of vSphere.  Hyper-V is the clear feature winner in cloud networking.

Network Optimisations

Capability vSphere Free vSphere 5.0 Ent + WS2012 Hyper-V
Dynamic Virtual Machine Queue (DVMQ) NetQueue netQueue Yes
IPsec Task Offload No No Yes
SR-IOV DirectPath I/O DirectPath I/O Yes
Storage Encryption (CSV vs VMFS) No No Yes
  • NetQueue supports a subset of the VMware HCL
  • Apparently DirectPath I/O VMs cannot vMotion (Live Migrate) without certain Cisco UCS (blade server centres) configurations
  • No physical security for VMFS SANs in the data center or cololated hosting

Hyper-V wins on the optimisation side of things for denser and higher throughput network loads.

VMware Fault Tolerance

FT feature: Run a hot standby VM on another host, taking over if another host should fail.

Required sacrifices:

  • 4 FT VMs per host with no memory overcommit: expensive because of low host density
  • 1 vCPU per FT VM: Surely VMs that require FT would require more than one logical processor (physical thread of execution)?
  • EPT/RVI (SLAT) disabled: No offloaded memory management.  This boosts VM performance by around 20% so I guess this FT VM doesn’t require performance.
  • Hot-plug disabled: no hot adding devices such as disks
  • No snapshots: not such a big deal for a production VM in my opinion
  • No VCB (VSS) backups: This is a big deal, because now you have to do a traditional “iron” backup of the VM, requiring custom backup policy, discarding the benefits of storage level backup for VMs

If cost reduction is the #1 reason for implementing virtualisation, then VMware FT seems like a complete oxymoron to me.  VMware FT is a chocolate kettle.  It sounds good, but don’t try boil water with it.

VMware Autodeploy

Centrally deploy a Hypervisor from a central console.

We have System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager for bare metal deployment.  Yes, it’s a bit more complex to setup.  B-u-t … with converged fabrics in WS2012, Hyper-V networking is actually getting much easier.

And even with System Center 2012 Datacenter, the MSFT solution is way cheaper than the vSphere alternative, and provides a complete cloud in the package, whereas vSphere is only the start of your vTaxation for disparate point solutions that contradict desires for a deeply integrated, automated, connected, self-service infrastructure.

More Stuff

I didn’t see anything on SRM versus Hyper-V Replica but I guess it was probably discussed.  SRM is allegedly $250-$400 per VM.  Hyper-V Replica is free and even baked into the free Hyper-V Server.  And Hyper-V Replica works with cloud vendors as well as internal sites.  Orchestration of failover can be done manually, by very simple PowerShell scripts, or with System Center 2012 Orchestrator (demonstrated in day 1 keynote).

I don’t know anything about vSphere support for Infiniband and RDMA, both supported by WS2012.  In fact, today it was reported that WS2012 RC Hyper-V benchmarked at 10.36 GigaBYTES/second (not Gbps) with 4.6% CPU overhead.

I also don’t know if VMware supports network abstraction, as in Hyper-V Network Virtualisation, essential for mobility between different networks and cloud consolidation/migration.

Take some time to review the new features in WS2012 Hyper-V.

Import/Export OVF With Hyper-V Using System Center 2012

A new extension has been released for System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) that allows you to import and export virtual appliances using the Open Virtualisation Format (OVF).  OVF is a vendor neutral format for out-of-band migration of virtual appliance VMs.  This is the perfect way to get from one cloud to another, where specialisations would make direct import/export impossible.

There is more on this tool on TechNet

VMware also has an OVF tool that you can download.  I think that XenServer 5.6 has XenServer support baked in.

You can learn more about OVF on Wikipedia.

Virtual Machine Converter Beta – Convert From VMware to Hyper-V

If you’ve had enough of the expensive VMware and want to get onto the enterprise and cloud ready Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V (which is effectively free if you’re licensing your Windows Server VMs correctly end economically) then you’ll want to convert those VMware VMs.  You could use System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager.

Or you could use a tool that went into beta kind of quietly back in April called the Virtual Machine Converter.

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) provides a Microsoft-supported, freely available, standalone solution for converting VMware virtual machines (VMs) and VMware virtual disks (VMDKs) to Hyper-V virtual machines and Hyper-V virtual hard disks (VHDs). MVMC supports converting virtual machines using the following guest operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows 7

It supports vSphere 5.0 and 4.1 and:

  • Provides a quick, low-risk option for VMware customers to evaluate Hyper-V
  • Converts the virtual disks and the VMware VMs configuration, such as memory, virtual processor, and other machine settings from the source
  • Uninstalls the VMware tools on the source VM and installs the Hyper-V Integration Services as appropriate
  • Includes an easy-to-use wizard-driven GUI simplifying VM conversion
  • Supports offline conversions of VMware virtual hard disks (VMDK) to a Hyper-V based virtual hard disk file format (VHD)
  • Includes a scriptable Command Line Interfaces (CLI) for performing machine conversion and offline disk conversion which integrates with datacenter automation workflows, such as those authored and executed within System Center Orchestrator. The command line can also be invoked through PowerShell.

Oh, it’s a 3.93 MB download, and apparently it was announced at TechEd just now that it would be freely available.  Nice!  Now there’s no excuse to continue being VMlimited!

EDIT#1:

Damien Caro of Microsoft has blogged on using the Virtual Machine Converter on the MSDN blogs.  Rather interestingly, there is a command line interface (MVDC.exe) allowing you to automate the conversion process.

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