RE: [Xen-users] Questions Converting from ESXi to Xen

["Joseph L. Casale" <JCasale@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I currently have a dual processor (2x quad core xeons) with 16gb ram and a few 
>hard disks.
>
>Being plagued with horrible performance of virtual machines (only running 2 
>vm's utilizing about 2gb ram usage and very very little processing). I just 
>can't stand the fact >that a single core machine with 1gb of ram will 
>outperform my current setup i have on esxi. It takes about 15 seconds to load 
>a static web page on any VM I create. So I can >only assume its very poor disk 
>performance, a horrible virtual network switch, or the hypervisor is just slow 
>in telling the vm to use any of the 99% of free resources. (or >all of the 
>above).
>
>So I've made the decision to buy another server and install Xen - converting 
>the current VM's over. (I should have just went with Xen in the first place I 
>think).
>
>Anyways, I can't seem to find any articles or pages that relate to converting 
>an ESXi VM to Xen. (All that I find is how to convert Xen to ESXi) - Which is 
>a bit mind >boggling because ESXi in my opinion is just horrible!
>
>If anyone could help me find the information I'm looking for in converting a 
>VM to Xen, that would be great.

It's fairly easy either way and depends on what Guest OS. For windows, all 
versions
of windows always load IDE drivers into the critical device database and are 
ready
at boot. Just image out of esx and into whatever block device you are backing 
your
vm's with. 'qemu-img convert' for example if using files... dd or a more 
intelligent
app like ghost works as well.

If Linux, you need to change the kernel back to a non xen kernel and create a 
initrd
that has ide drivers for that kernel, then image out and in like above.

Either way, remove the vmware tools prior to imaging out.

FWIW, *you* have a mis-configuration in your ESXi setup, I have plenty 
Win/Linux/Solaris
vm's that run everything from database to web/fileservers on ESXi and it runs 
very well.

jlc

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