Importing VMDKs

[Dan Belkie <db...@toadfire.com>]

Hey all!
Brand new to the list, and looking for a private cloud solution for onsite.

In my current office environment I have a pretty large VMware Virtual
Centre deployment, and I am looking to DR it to a private cloud that I will
be building. Yes I could just duplicate my VMware environment in the second
location and use SRM or something like that, but the private cloud solution
will have 3 main purposes:

1) DR for my existing VMware environment.
2) Test and Dev for users in the office where the DR site will be hosted.
(so brand new... now VMware involved).
3) I would like to save money on my VMware licensing.

Now that I have set the stage... I am looking to determine how and what the
process is for taking a VMDK from my VMware environment, and importing it
to a private cloud. I have been searching if this is possible with
cloudstack, and I cant find too much..... I would prefer to not have to go
through a long import process if at all possible.

If this is possible can someone point me to some whitepapers or
documentation on how this is done?

Thanks!
Dan

Re: Importing VMDKs

[Abraham Hoffman <ab...@expertzero.com>]

Hi Dan,

This sounds more like an infrastructure question than a Cloudstack
question. However:

1. DR environments should implement the best practice of being
geographically separate from the primary site (both for security and
failure concerns). If you *must* have your DR on premises, make sure you
are aware of the risks.
2. KVM, QEMU, Libvirt, is a fantastic option when comparing to the VMware
suite of tools. Number one reason? It's free. KVM also supports migrating
VMDK images to QCOW2 or other formats.

If you would like to chat on the phone about your project, I am a
co-founder of a startup in Arizona called "ExpertZero". We are currently
building a data center to support United Way Tucson's VDI deployment as
well as working with a number of National Companies. Overall we will be
supporting 3,800 VDI instances by Q1 of next year, and are using CentOS,
KVM, CloudStack and our custom software to do it.

Send me an E-mail at abe [at] expertzero [dot] com if you would like some
help. I would be happy to work with you gratis on the project and give you
some free advice.

Abe Hoffman
ExpertZero | "Simple Cloud Desktops"
Co-Founder - Chief Cloud Architect


On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Dan Belkie <db...@toadfire.com> wrote:

> Hey all!
> Brand new to the list, and looking for a private cloud solution for onsite.
>
> In my current office environment I have a pretty large VMware Virtual
> Centre deployment, and I am looking to DR it to a private cloud that I will
> be building. Yes I could just duplicate my VMware environment in the second
> location and use SRM or something like that, but the private cloud solution
> will have 3 main purposes:
>
> 1) DR for my existing VMware environment.
> 2) Test and Dev for users in the office where the DR site will be hosted.
> (so brand new... now VMware involved).
> 3) I would like to save money on my VMware licensing.
>
> Now that I have set the stage... I am looking to determine how and what the
> process is for taking a VMDK from my VMware environment, and importing it
> to a private cloud. I have been searching if this is possible with
> cloudstack, and I cant find too much..... I would prefer to not have to go
> through a long import process if at all possible.
>
> If this is possible can someone point me to some whitepapers or
> documentation on how this is done?
>
> Thanks!
> Dan
>