Is it possible to clone a RHEL or windows 2008 virtual machine (VMware) from a production server to a test server?
I want to install oracle 11g server and create several databases on RHEL virtual machine and then clone it and copy to another virtual machine on another test server.
The other virtual machine will have crystal report server 2011.
I am not sure if the cloning will do a sector by sector copy and caryy over any registry or memory settings for the software installed.
Are the programs 100% guaranteed to work on target machine?
Aer all the registry settings and memory and variables setting stored in the VM file.
In windows, copying windows programs never works for me, I always had to reinstall software on a 2nd machine unless I am doing a complete disk image and restoring image to another disk.
What tools/software do you normally use for copying the virtual machine?
arnold
VM data is stored within, the issue could depend on whether the VMs network is set to bridge to the host physical.
You are responsible for license conformance. I.e. If you have rights to x number of windows platforms, and are now using x+1, you would be in breach. Similarly for oracle.
There is no licensing per se for Linux, so it is not an issue.
You have to have a licensed VMware host where the vm will be copied to. Or are you looking to have the test environment on the same host as the production VMs?
We do have licenses for all the products for test server.
I was not sure what is meant by this:
<<<VM data is stored within, the issue could depend on whether the VMs network is set to bridge to the host physical.>>>
All four virtual machines are installed on one host production server. Then these 4 VMs will be copied to the test server. Do you mean the VM needs a brdige to the actual physical server in order to do this?
If you don't want your Test and your Production networks to talk to each other you will want to edit the virtual machines before you turn them on in your test environment (or on your Test VM Hosts).
So 'Edit Settings' your VM's and click on the 'Network adapter' and change the 'Network Connection'.
arnold
The point deals with the existing network configuration.
The options are
Nat IP
Or using the host network interface to get an IP on the local LAN
The issue deals with whether the VM environment is self contained and does not have Physical LAN computers/users.
Are the programs 100% guaranteed to work on target machine?
Aer all the registry settings and memory and variables setting stored in the VM file.
In windows, copying windows programs never works for me, I always had to reinstall software on a 2nd machine unless I am doing a complete disk image and restoring image to another disk.
What tools/software do you normally use for copying the virtual machine?