When it comes to disaster recovery and reducing IT costs, virtualization and P2V is a cost-effective way to ensure a business remains competitive. And productive while maintaining business continuity.  P2V stands for Physical to Virtual and is the process of migrating the operating system, application programs, and data. From a physical server to a virtual server running on a server virtualization platform.

Physical to Virtual (P2V) can be accomplished manually or by using migration tools.  If you choose to implement P2V manually, this can be a time-consuming process. Since it requires the creation of a virtual environment.  Once the new situation creates, you must reinstall the operating systems, applications, and data.  If the hardware is significantly different than the previous infrastructure, the result is a tedious process. Using migration tools to implement P2V is the way to go. This if you want to streamline the process. Since migration tools provide you with the opportunity to automate the P2V process.

How P2V Works

A virtual environment offers the opportunity to reduce the need for server room space by phasing out legacy systems.  Fewer server room requirements meant reduced power consumption and improved monitoring and maintenance.

Because of the opportunity to reduce costs while accessing the latest technologies, the P2V market has grown significantly. With many different products and technologies to choose. Each which provide different capabilities that meet a variety of business needs.

Depending upon individual business requirements the process of P2V migration can vary. However, here is a general idea of how it works:

• Assessment of Source Machine Resources:  To make sure the virtual environment offers appropriate capacity, an audit of the Central Processing Unit, amount of disk space, Random Access Memory (RAM) and other essential components should conduct.
• Migration Audit:  This step includes the audit of security credentials, services on the source server that requires termination during migration, number of resources that required on the target server. Such as Network Interface Cards, amount of RAM and number of CPUs, etc.
• Transfer of Data:  Once the infrastructure prepared for migration, it installs an application on the source server. Along with a new virtual machine.  The app then transfers the data over the network to the new device.

Once the data has successfully transferred, there are some configuration and health checking processes involved.  However, it is not necessary to completely uninstall applications. And you can review the health of the infrastructure by merely logging onto a console before making the new virtual environment available online.

Benefits of P2V for Disaster Recovery

Migrating from physical to virtual is more than just converting physical servers to a virtualized environment.  P2V plays an essential role in disaster recovery when it comes to servers which have remained in the physical area.  There are physical servers which do not work well in a virtualized environment. Due to the power which is required to handle tasks.

Recovery of virtual machines is relatively easy since they utilize virtual disk files which can copy to another location.  It is one of the main reasons why most companies use virtual machines for disaster recovery.  For physical servers, you can use P2V conversion to create a disaster recovery strategy with virtualization.

P2V conversion can be used on physical servers to optimize a disaster recovery strategy.  Once you have implemented a P2V environment, you can run the physical server as opposed to activating the virtual copy.  The result is a virtual copy of a physical machine with the files consolidated to a virtual disk.  The disk can easily replicate to a disaster recovery site.

If disaster strikes at your primary location, the virtual copy can easily be accessed. Instead of using the old process of beginning with the operating system and then layering the data over the top.

Also, in a virtualized disaster recovery circumstance, the chances are higher of a reduced load in the data center temporarily until you switch back to full service. It is possible for the physical server to function as a virtual one until it is time to go back to total productivity.  At this time you can convert back to a physical server by combining V2P (Virtual-to-Physical) products with P2V conversion to return the server to its original state.

P2V Products

If your organization is considering the switch to a P2V environment, keep in mind that there are many products available that serve different purposes.  For this reason, it is essential to invest the time to research different products and enlist the help of a qualified virtualization provider that is knowledgeable about various products and services.  A virtualization vendor will also listen to your needs and come up with an environment that meets your business requirements and your budget.

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