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It isn't something I would do.<br />
The risk isn't really worth it. Almost all P2V I have done have ended up being rebuilt within months. <br />
<br />
Why do a P2V anyway? A new virtual machine build will take less than an hour on decent hardware off an ISO, Exchange 2013 will install in 40 minutes and you can then move the mailboxes with ZERO downtime. <br />
You then have a clean build, latest OS installation, latest Exchange installation and no overhead from the previous server, with its hardware drivers etc. <br />
<br />
Simon.
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It isn't something I would do.
The risk isn't really worth it. Almost all P2V I have done have ended up being rebuilt within months.

Why do a P2V anyway? A new virtual machine build will take less than an hour on decent hardware off an ISO, Exchange 2013 will install in 40 minutes and you can then move the mailboxes with ZERO downtime.
You then have a clean build, latest OS installation, latest Exchange installation and no overhead from the previous server, with its hardware drivers etc.

Simon.

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Thank you both for your insight.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Hi All,<br />
<br />
Has anyone done a P2V conversion of a physical Exchange 2013 server running on 2012 Server; to a Virtual Server also running Server 2012? &nbsp;The Hypervisor would Micosoft Hyper-V and I'd be making the move using Virtual Machine Manager.<br />
<br />
Any advice? &nbsp;Precautionary measures? Gotcha's? &nbsp;Explosions? that I should be on the lookout for?<br />
<br />
Also, what time frame would you estimate this could be done in? &nbsp;The current Exchange Server has about 80GB utilized on the disk array.<br />
<br />
THansk in advance!
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Hi All,

Has anyone done a P2V conversion of a physical Exchange 2013 server running on 2012 Server; to a Virtual Server also running Server 2012?  The Hypervisor would Micosoft Hyper-V and I'd be making the move using Virtual Machine Manager.

Any advice?  Precautionary measures? Gotcha's?  Explosions? that I should be on the lookout for?

Also, what time frame would you estimate this could be done in?  The current Exchange Server has about 80GB utilized on the disk array.

THansk in advance!

P2V 2013 Exchange Migration with Virtual Machine Manager

Microsoft Virtual Server was a virtualization solution that facilitated the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Virtual machines are created and managed through a web-based interface that relies on Internet Information Services (IIS) or through a Windows client application tool called VMRCplus. Features included Linux guest operating system support, Virtual Disk Precompactor, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), x64 host operating system support, the ability to mount virtual hard drives on the host machine and additional operating systems support, including Windows Vista, and a volume shadow copy writer.

Microsoft Virtual Server

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2012 is the first version of Windows Server to have no support for Itanium-based computers since Windows NT 4.0. Windows Server 2012, now in its second release (Windows Server 2012 Release 2) includes Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter, and does not support IA-32 or IA-64 processors.

Windows Server 2012

Exchange is the server side of a collaborative application product that is part of the Microsoft Server infrastructure. Exchange's major features include email, calendaring, contacts and tasks, support for mobile and web-based access to information, and support for data storage.