Virtualisation-management specialist Vizioncore announced a new version of its physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-virtual conversion tool at the VMworld conference in Las Vegas on Monday.
The updated suite, vConverter 4.0, includes support for all the major hypervisors, and includes a new continuous-protection feature and intelligent, synchronised cutover. The conversion tool is designed to help companies convert a physical server to a virtual machine running on any platform, such as VMware or Microsoft.
The continuous-protection mode maintains an up-to-date replica of a physical or virtual server that can be used should the original server go offline. This means that, as well as taking on physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) work, the suite could be used as part of a disaster-recovery plan.
The software suite also handles a broader range of operating systems and virtual file formats than are supported by Microsoft's recently launched Virtual Machine Manager 2008. It works with Microsoft, Virtual Iron, VMware and XenServer environments, enabling customers to migrate workloads between the platforms. They can do this either on-demand or using scheduling facilities to perform the work overnight or at weekends. VConverter can also migrate virtual machines back to physical server systems, which is sometimes necessary to work around performance problems or before some software vendors will provide technical support.
Scott Herold, chief architect at Vizioncore, said the new suite is designed to make migrations as easy as possible and as repeatable as possible. "Migrations are complex processes that don't always work perfectly first time. We have full reporting, so, if something didn't work, you can see what went wrong and why it went wrong."
The synchronised cutover feature allows a converted system to be tested while the original system remains online. A final synchronisation is done before the two systems are swapped over. "We can uninstall software prior to the first boot, so that, when they do boot, they start cleanly," Herold said. Without this feature, some converted systems might fail to start properly because an agent or driver software is stuck looking for hardware that is no longer present, he added.
Vizioncore vConverter 4.0 is expected to be available in October.
