+BudMan MVC Posted November 25, 2015 MVC Share Posted November 25, 2015 Veem works with esxi free just fine.. offroadaaron 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Veteran Posted November 25, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted November 25, 2015 not tried it yet but Veeam appears to say otherwise http://www.veeam.com/kb1435 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skiver Veteran Posted November 25, 2015 Veteran Share Posted November 25, 2015 Another option - Use VMWare converter (free) connect it into ESX and then do a convertion to a workstation image and save that to anywhere. Get the new Disk Datastore in place and then reverse the process by taking the desktop imagine into ESXi. If you have snapshots it won't take them but other than that its a pretty simple process, I've been doing it the last two weekends and moved about 3TB's worth of VMs. Drop me a message on Skype if need be but if I can figure it out I'm sure you can! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Praetor Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Free ESXi has the backup API disabled so the only solution (commercial) that can backup the free version is Unitrends (it uses agents for it). It works well. Veeam and Unitrends have free versions of their solutions that can backup ESXi but only with the minimal licensed version (Essentials) - also it works pretty well. there is also ghettoVCB that can backup VMs via script and the ovftool tool (the VMs must be shut down) - both work great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Praetor Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Ah yep, gotcha haha. No, valid question. Yes, it's to do with the way VMware partitions the disks, lays out the system files, MBR, etc.. It takes no time to build a single standalone host, really, think about it. Network, time, handful of settings, pretty muuchh done. Most of VMware's customers have multiple hosts, running vcenter, and can afford to migrate VMs off the host while they rebuild it correctly. It's just best practice. This is why you should be using Vcenter because it gives you a ton more management features, ie host profiles. Basically you configure a profile, save it, then spit it to all the other hosts, and bam every host is configured the same. What you should be learning in your labs is to use external storage for your VMs, ie datastore via iSCSI. There's a use for your netapp. No one in the real world should be storing their VMs on a datastore that is a partition of the physical disk the hypervisor is installed on. This way, if you want to upgrade the hypervisor (esx version), you dont have to do anything except shutdown your VMs, reinstall OS on host, re-connect your iSCSI targets, import your VMs, and awayyy you go. VMotion works with shared storage. It's not the vmdk that's being moved around, more the virtual machine (which is stored in memory) itself. Because it's on shared storage, with multiple paths to each host, it can move around hosts in real time, and can still write to the vmdk which is static on the storage. That ^ is where the fun with VMware is at. While true, the fact is that the world is moving towards to VSAN (either native VMWare solution of third party like Starwind for Hyper-V): it provides better flexibility, more performance and less costly. But it's going to take a while until is more mainstream: most enterprises that i know are still getting ROI from their SANs (to justify their huge price). Also VMWare is losing ALOT of marketshare: most of my former clients (i'm out of consultancy now) are moving towards Hyper-V with shared storage or with VSAN, but i know others are going XEN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted November 25, 2015 Veteran Share Posted November 25, 2015 My old job was having me learn how to use "vmotion". It was going to be my ONLY task, migrating VMs. I was going to be taking tasks from SAs and Network Admins.Thanks for that extra tidbit! vmotion is easy, right click migrate, if you are licensed for it. certain licenses you will be able to do hot or live vmotion migrations on either data store or host. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yeah, and a simple copy of the VM to a another location using the vsphere client will do fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted November 25, 2015 MVC Share Posted November 25, 2015 Dude just export it as on OVF... click click you have a copy of your machine...when you redo your esxi, just deploy it.. Veem use to work with the free, but seems it was a mistake.. Doesn't matter the OVF export is just as easy.. Only difference is your VM has to be off vs with veem it could be online.. binaryzero 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Veteran Posted November 26, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted November 26, 2015 cool i will try this later Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted November 26, 2015 MVC Share Posted November 26, 2015 I would suggest you test redeployment of the machine before you redo so your sure your good. I deploy clean linux images in like less than 2 minutes.. Which looks like I need to update here anyway, its 4_2 while current is 4_3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n_K Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 Dude just export it as on OVF... click click you have a copy of your machine...when you redo your esxi, just deploy it.. Veem use to work with the free, but seems it was a mistake.. Doesn't matter the OVF export is just as easy.. Only difference is your VM has to be off vs with veem it could be online.. Does an OVF template store the settings such as network card settings though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skiver Veteran Posted November 26, 2015 Veteran Share Posted November 26, 2015 The only downside with export is it is one by one, converter can do a few at a time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted November 26, 2015 MVC Share Posted November 26, 2015 network card settings like what? Like if you set a static IP - yeah.. It is an export of that MACHINE.. While it will ask you should your disk be think or thin and what network your nic should be attached too, etc. It would have any settings you had put on that machines OS before you exported it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Veteran Posted November 26, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted November 26, 2015 oh god i forgot about setting up my nics again on the host Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadaaron Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) oh god i forgot about setting up my nics again on the host Surely you don't have that much to setup on the NIC's... network card settings like what? Like if you set a static IP - yeah.. It is an export of that MACHINE.. While it will ask you should your disk be think or thin and what network your nic should be attached too, etc. It would have any settings you had put on that machines OS before you exported it. Like Mac address and hardware ID's. If it creates a new NIC then ubuntu will see it as a new device and you won't get your static IP or Mac address if you have bound it in DHCP. Edited November 27, 2015 by offroadaaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 I know that cloning VMs (treating it like just ordinary data) is not recommended - but was never told why it was a no noIf the clone is done @ a bit for bit level - what causes the issues ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadaaron Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) I know that cloning VMs (treating it like just ordinary data) is not recommended - but was never told why it was a no noIf the clone is done @ a bit for bit level - what causes the issues ? Cloning VMs isn't recommended? That's new to me... If the clone is done @ a bit for bit level - what causes the issues ? Do you mean block level? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T3X4S Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) Cloning VMs isn't recommended? That's new to me... Do you mean block level? Sorry - I didnt make that post very clear.Yes I meant drive cloning when the drive is part of the VM enviroWas just wondering what the problem was if the cloning process was done at the block or bit level - at that point its just 1s and 0sI always knew not to do it, and to use something like Veeam.... - just wondered why Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadaaron Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) Cloning will work in this case, it's just not recommended and I'd rather steer someone down the right way of doing something that will also work on a larger scale than recommending a non-recommended solution. There are issues if you clone the device to another box with different hardware and if you clone and keep both the original and the clone on the same network. That being said you can also have issues if you install ESX on a USB stick say in VMware or a PC placing it in another PC as well. It keeps things like MAC addresses and hardware ID's in VMware and screws with things. Edited November 27, 2015 by offroadaaron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Wow this thread has blown out to a bunch of over thinking... Use the vsphere client to copy the machines off, there's CRC checking in that, you should be good to go. Rebuilding a stand alone host in ESXi is a piece of cake. No cloning... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadaaron Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) Wow this thread has blown out to a bunch of over thinking... Use the vsphere client to copy the machines off, there's CRC checking in that, you should be good to go. Rebuilding a stand alone host in ESXi is a piece of cake. No cloning... Not over thinking, just people discussing. Edited November 27, 2015 by offroadaaron Praetor and T3X4S 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BinaryData Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 Wow this thread has blown out to a bunch of over thinking... Use the vsphere client to copy the machines off, there's CRC checking in that, you should be good to go. Rebuilding a stand alone host in ESXi is a piece of cake. No cloning... Partially my fault, I've never used ESX before, and it's something thats been on my task list to learn. Seeing as it's in almost every data center, and both heavily used by the two I've worked in. Thought it would be a good idea to toss different questions in. Just ignore me, I'm here to soak up knowledge. offroadaaron 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted November 27, 2015 MVC Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) what is a no no for a clone? Its a VM, its hardware does not change for it if your on the same HW level 7,8, 11, etc.. Who said anything about cloning anyway... He wants to save his vm as he redoes his host install to a new ssd. So if he exports his vms to a ovf, then does a clean install to his new ssd of esxi. And then deploys his ovf to that new install of his esxi he is fine.. The whole process will take minutes.. I have done this multiple times, its really clickity clickity all done.. He could also just clone his whole esxi install to a new ssd and have everything the same just on a faster disk if he wanted too.. If he doesn't want to export, he could just copy over the files of the vm and then copy them back and import that vm into his new setup and again done.. There are multiple ways to skin this cat for sure!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haggis Veteran Posted November 27, 2015 Author Veteran Share Posted November 27, 2015 Surely you don't have that much to setup on the NIC's... Have only ever done it once Just need to check out the settings again as i have LAN, WAN and vmkern Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadaaron Posted November 27, 2015 Share Posted November 27, 2015 (edited) what is a no no for a clone? Its a VM, its hardware does not change for it if your on the same HW level 7,8, 11, etc.. I think you're mixing up cloning ESX which is physical and cloning a VM which is virtual... The thing with the export to OVA is I don't know if it creates all virtual new hardware, like NIC's and MAC addresses, etc... Or if it's an actual clone... I haven't done it this way ever... Well I have but I haven't looked into those parts to see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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