Migrating in and out virtual machines

Uploading your own image to the VDC

Supported images

Currently we support:

• VMDK monolithic sparse images with a single disk

We are working on supporting:

• VMDK compressed (stream) images
• Virtualbox VDI images

We do not support:

• VMDK images with multiple disks

Exporting a compatible image using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone

The VMware Converter Standalone tool allows physical to virtual machine conversions as well as conversions between virtual machine formats.

First, download the Converter Standalone software here [1] and follow these steps to create a compatibile image:

* File -> New -> Convert machine
* Select your source and follow the wizard

When prompted to select the destination type, select:

* 'VMware workstation or other VMware virtual machine'
* VMware product: 'VMware Workstation 7.0.x'
* Provide it a relevant name that will identify your image
* Select a local destination 

On the next screen, ensure that under the 'Current settings':

* Data to copy: Type should be 'Not pre-allocated'
* Leave the rest of the configuration as-is.

The filename should contain only the following types of characters:

* Alphanumeric (0-9, a-z, A-Z)
* Full Stop (.)
* Hyphen (-)
* Underscore (_)

The filename must end in the extension .vmdk

Uploading the image

Supported file formats

1. VMDK MONOLITHIC SPARSE (VMWARE KB [2])
2. OVA

In order to upload your image from UI:

• Click on Apps Library
• Click on the Plus Icon inside Virtual Machine templates pane and then click on "Create from local file"
  
  
• Type the name of your appliance
• Type the description of your machine
• Choose the Category (OS Type/Family)
• Allocate the necessary resources (CPU/RAM)
• Choose the ICON by entering the url
  
  
• Click on the Disks Tab
• Click on the Plus icon and then click on "Disk from local file"
  
  
• Choose type (Make sure you choose VMWARE Sparse Disk)
• Enter the capacity which should be size of your vmdk file or greater
• Click on select file and then from your local machine select the vmdk file
• Select the controller. Please note this depends on how your machine was originally created and when you deploy the new machine from this template it will use the controller you assign in this step.
  
  
• Click on save and wait for the upload to finish.

Once the above is done you can start deploying new machines from the template you just created.

Setting the image information

You can change the icon, the description, the number of virtual CPUs and the RAM used by the image by clicking on the edit button that appears when you hover over the image icon.

Exporting an image

When you want to export a virtual machine from the VDC platform, you will first need to take a copy of your running image.

The file is exported as a thin provisioned vmdk sparse file. This will run in any recent copy of VMware Workstation, Server, Player, and ESXi (vSphere). It can however be converted using conversion tools to a format that is able to run on Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen, and other leading hypervisor products.

The export process below will only export the Operating System volume in a single vmdk file. External Volumes cannot be exported using this method. Standard copy/replication methods can be used to copy external volumes.

After logging into the VDC portal, select the Apps Library tab

Then select the relevant Data Centre.

Next select the template of which you took a clone. The templates that have clones are denoted with a yellow M in the top left hand side of the graphic, as shown to the left.

Click on the graphic, and in the bottom part of the screen a list of available images will appear.

Click on the button and select Edit

Once there Click on Disk Tab and then click on the Download button

The file will then be downloaded.