Executive Summary:
With virtualization becoming more common, administrators can find help developing and managing virtual environments with some of these free utilities. Converting physical systems to virtual machines (VMs) is one of the most common virtualization tasks, but you'll might also need help converting between Microsoft Virtual Server and VMware VMs. Other utilities can help you resize or benchmark your VMs.
|
With virtualization technology making deep
inroads into almost every aspect of IT,
assembling your virtualization toolkit can
really help you be prepared to deal with the wide variety
of situations that you’re likely to encounter. For instance,
what do you do if you want to convert a virtual machine
(VM) from Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 to VMware?
Or what if you’ve created a Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk
(VHD) image, but it’s run out of space and needs to be
expanded? I’ve come up with a list of some of my favorite
free virtualization tools for working with Microsoft or
VMware VMs that can solve these problems and more.
10 Ultimate-P2V—Converting physical systems
to VMs is one of the most common
virtualization tasks. The Ultimate-P2V
utility is essentially a plug-in for BartPE
that creates new boot VM images by ghosting the physical
image and then injecting drivers into a VMware VM image.
This utility is far simpler to use than a tool such as Microsoft
Virtual Server Migration Toolkit (VSMT), but it requires
another third-party tool—Symantec Ghost or Acronis True
Image, for instance—to create the disk image. You can find
Ultimate-P2V at www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?page_id=174.
9 Virtual Floppy Drive—Virtual Floppy Drive
is another helpful tool; it lets you mount a virtual
floppy drive from a VM. Creating a set of
virtual floppy drives can be handy for loading
storage drivers and other software for your VMs. Virtual
Floppy Drive can be found at chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/ vmware/vfd.html.
8 ISO Recorder—ISO Recorder is my favorite free
utility for working with ISO images, and ISO
images are really handy for installing the OS and
other software on a VM. ISO Recorder integrates
into Windows Explorer’s context menu, and it lets you
create ISO images and burn ISO images to CD-ROM or
DVD. You can download ISO Recorder from isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm.
7 VMware Converter—This is my favorite conversion
tool for VMware. VMware Converter is an
easy-to–use, wizard-based tool that can convert
either physical machines or Microsoft VMs to
VMware VMs. VMware Converter works with Windows
Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows XP (32-bit
and 64-bit), Windows 2000, and Windows NT 4 (SP4 or
later). You can download VMware Converter from www.vmware.com/products/converter.
6 VMDK to VHD Converter—If you’re looking
for a tool that can convert the other way—from
VMware to Microsoft images—then you’ll want
to check out vmToolkit’s VMDK to VHD Converter.
Because most free tools seem oriented toward
making VMware images, this is a welcome addition if you
need to deal with both VMware and Microsoft VMs. You’ll
find the VMDK to VHD converter at vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry8.aspx.
5 VMware Workstation 5.5 Disk Mount Utility—
This utility lets you mount a VMware virtual
hard disk file (.vmdk) on a Windows host. The
virtual hard disk file is mounted as a drive, and
you can read from and write to the .vmdk file. You can get
VMware Workstation 5.5 Disk Mount Utility from www.vmware.com/download/eula/diskmount_ws_v55.html.
4 Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1’s VHDMount—
VHDMount is Microsoft’s answer to VMware’s
Disk Mount Utility. VHDMount is a commandline
tool that lets you mount a VHD file (.vhd) as
a local drive. VHDMount is included as part of Microsoft
Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (which is itself free).
3 VHD Resizer—Expanding an existing virtual
hard drive has always been a problem for both
Microsoft and VMware VMs. VHD Resizer can
expand and shrink Microsoft’s VHD files. It’s
also able to convert between Fixed and Dynamic file types.
VHD Resizer is found at vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry87.aspx.
2 VMmark—Does it seem like VMware has too
many entries in this list? It’s no wonder they’re
the market leader in virtualization. VMmark
is another powerful and free tool; this one lets
you benchmark applications running in VMware VMs.
You can find VMmark at www.vmware.com/products/vmmark.
1 Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus—VMRCplus
lets you manage, configure, and connect to Microsoft
VMs. Unlike Virtual Server, VMRCplus doesn’t
require Microsoft IIS. VMRCplus can manage up to
32 VMs. You can download the Microsoft VMRCplus
client from www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=80adc08c-bfc6-4c3a-b4f1-772f550ae791.
End of Article
Register
