8.4 Importing a physical machine on a Cloud Server

To perform this operation on a Windows machine, follow the steps below:

Create a disk image of the physical machine

• The best tool provided by VMware for creating disk images for VMware environments is VMware vCenter Converter Standalone. VMware also provide the more basic "VMware Workstation" and "VMware Server" tools for the same purpose.
  
  For more information on accepted formats, see the relevant guide.

Upload the disk image to the FTP space connected to your Cloud account

• go to the Control Panel;
• select "COMPUTING" from the horizontal menu;
• select the Data Center;
• select "Import Disks" under "TEMPLATES" in the left menu;
• connection details for the FTP space will be displayed, together with a list of disk images uploaded;
• disk images to import can be uploaded by downloading any FTP client (such as FileZilla, CoreFTP, Cyberduck, etc.) and signing in to the FTP space.

Create a VMware Cloud Server with a custom template

• when creating a Cloud Server, click on "ENABLE FTP IMPORT" when you have to choose an operating system;
• click on "CONNECT DISK" under the main disk (HD 1);
• the pop-up "Select a virtual disk to use" window will appear, with a list of uploaded disk images;
• select the image file you want to upload to the virtual disk, making sure it is a boot file and confirm by pressing "CONNECT";
• at the end of the procedure, a Cloud Server will be created with its own custom template/OS;
• remember that it will not be possible to access the Cloud Server via RDP or SSH because it has not been configured with the new IP. To configure the IP you need to connect using the Recovery Console.

To perform this operation on a Windows machine, follow the steps below:

Create a disk image of the physical machine

• To get a virtual copy of a physical disk, Microsoft provides the following tools:
  • the Disk2VHD utility;
  • the tool found at SCVMM.
  For further information on accepted formats, see the relevant guide.

Upload the disk image to the FTP space connected to your Cloud account

• go to the Control Panel;
• select "COMPUTING" from the horizontal menu;
• select the Data Center;
• select "Import Disks" under "TEMPLATES" in the left menu;
• connection details for the FTP space will be displayed, together with a list of disk images uploaded;
• disk images to import can be uploaded by downloading any FTP client (such as FileZilla, CoreFTP, Cyberduck, etc.) and signing in to the FTP space.

Create a Hyper-V Cloud Server with a custom template

• when creating a Cloud Server, click on "ENABLE FTP IMPORT" when you have to choose an operating system;
• click on "CONNECT DISK" under the main disk (HD 1);
• the pop-up "Select virtual disk to use" window will appear, with a list of uploaded disk images;
• select the image file you want to upload to the virtual disk, making sure it is a boot file and confirm by pressing "CONNECT";
• at the end of the procedure, a Cloud Server will be created with its own custom template/OS;
• remember that it will not be possible to access the Cloud Server via RDP or SSH because it has not been configured with the new IP. To configure the IP you need to connect using the Recovery Console.

In the case of exporting a disk image from a Linux machine, there is not a generic tool that guarantees the export in a quick and simple way regardless of the Linux distribution; it is advisable to proceed as follows:

• boot from external disk (CD/DVD)
• export an image from the machine or from a command line (e.g.:dd command) or from tools (e.g. Clonezilla, Partimage)
• upload the image to the FTP area provided by Aruba
• create a Cloud Server with a custom Template
• upload the image to the main disk
• access the Cloud Server using the Recovery Console to restore the filesystem and reconfigure the machine (operation almost certainly required)