It’s been a while since I’ve had time to post, but I couldn’t keep this to myself:
From the VMware vCenter Converter 4.2 for vCenter Server 4.1 Release Notes:
What’s NewThe VMware vCenter Converter 4.2 is a substantial upgrade from vCenter Converter 4.1 and includes the following new functionality (previously found only in vCenter Converter Standalone 4.0.x):Physical to virtual machine conversion support for Linux sources including:Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1, 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, and 11.0Ubuntu 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, and 8.x
This sounds too good to be true. I upgraded my lab environment and confirmed: you can now do scheduled Linux P2V.
The lab setup was ESX 4.1, vCenter 4.1, and vCenter Converter 4.2 for vCenter Server with a RHEL4.7 AS server imported.
It’s funny, considering Converter Standalone could do this since years and Converter Enterprise that came with vCenter always lacked Linux P2V support.
I’ve converted a few RHEL Systems from 2.1 to 5.4 without much issues with standalone during the last year or so.
It still can’t import VHD files but can import directly from a Hyper-V server!