insert Virtualization Hypervisor between hardware and existing OS - vmware

There didn't seem to be a dedicated Virtualization SE, so...
I am looking to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.1 (or an older version if it helps) on a 64bit AMD A8 architecture.
Is there a path to doing this without destroying/having to reinstall Windows 8 already preinstalled by the Vendor (Acer), making it one of the VMs instead?
Or in general? (Eg. on another PC running 32bit Ubuntu, where I would like to "insert" a Hypervisor as well).

Use VMware Converter. It converts a physical machine into a VM during runtime. It is freely downloadable after registering on the VMware site:
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

Yes, you can install VMware Workstation and then install vShpere Hypervisor 5.1 as a guest OS. I have done that before. VMware Workstation supports the so called nested virtualization which means you it can expose the hardware virtualization feature of CPU which is required by vSphere to the guest OS. If you don't want to pay for VMware Workstation, you can use VMware Player which is free but capable of nested virtualization.

Related

Trying to run VMWare Workstation on Google Cloud Platform instance?

Windows:
Now, I want to install a VMWare Workstation on the Windows Google Cloud Platform instance and next install another OS on that VMWare Workstation.
But I get this BSOD.
Linux:
Now, I want to install a VMWare Workstation on the Linux Google Cloud Platform instance and next install another OS on that VMWare Workstation.
But I get this error.
This host supports intel VT-x. but the Intel VT-x implementation is incompatible.
This host does not support Intel EPT hardware assisted MMU virtualization.
Module "CPUIDEarly" power on failed.
Failed to start the virtual machine.
How can I do it?
I agree with Martin that you may not want to run VMware workstation, but you may need nested virtualization for other stuff like VMware ESXi/qemu.
GCE VMs do support nested virtualization please see Enabling Nested Virtualization for VM Instances on how to do it. This will enable VT-x support inside the VM.
It is rather useless to install a type 2 (hosted) hypervisor inside a GCE virtual machine.
There are a) other options for VMware hosting or b) migrate these containers with Velostrata.
c) That one error message (assuming you'd go the proposed nested virtualization route) might require monitor.allowLegacyCPU = "true" in file config.ini, because it seems the CPU is not supported by VMware Workstation 14 (this at least works for some elder Intel® Xeon® CPU).

VMware Workstation 15 export to customers ESXi5.5

I don't have ESXi inhouse, but am building a VM for a customer and they have two environments, an ESXi5.5 deployment and a 6.7.
At the moment I'm only able to export to an OVF/OVA format, which (for my customer) has worked in their 6.7 environment as I've downloaded the (Linux) version of Workstation 15 and am wondering how on earth I get to export the VM for ESX5.5. The VMware forums and online help don't seem to have been updated for Workstation 15 as they refer to a wizard which isn't available in the version of Workstation 15 that I have (only available in the paid version?)
I've also downloaded the VMware vCenter Converter (Windows version, standalone) as I was under the impression that that would be able to do convert anything to anything and therefore do what I needed, but it will only allow me to export to a 5.5 ESXi server within my environment, which I don't have.
What I'm looking at doing is building a VM that can be used in any ESXi environment, so I guess I should ask: what really is the best tool for me to be able to do that, considering that I don't have ESXi deployed here and am using VMWare Workstation and VirtualBox.
I had hoped that OVA/OVF would be a standard, and perhaps that's correct for newer VMWare Type I hypervisors?
My assumption is that you're running into an issue where the VM of a specific hardware version cannot be imported to the 5.5 environment. Each version of vSphere has a compatible hardware version, they're listed here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-64D4B1C9-CD5D-4C68-8B50-585F6A87EBA0.html
To downgrade an existing VM's hardware, you can manually create a new (custom) VM in Workstation and when asked for the Virtual Disk, point to the existing disks you have already created. Additional information: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1028019

What are the steps or process required for VMWare upgrade?

Hi i am studying for an interview where i want to know the process required for upgrade process for VMWare ESXi 4.0 to 5.1 to 5.5?
What do we upgrade first VCenter or ESXi or VMS?
What process do we have to follow and which tools do we use?
Before beginning any upgrade, make sure that the hardware is compatible with the version of VMware you want to install. This can be verified using the VMware HCL. Also, make sure that the ESX version is compatible with the VM guest OS. On occasions there are legacy systems on extremely outdated versions of Windows that get virtualized. Plan for downtime. Upgrading VM hardware and VMware tools require reboots. If this is not planned it can result in unplanned outages, downtime, etc.
You upgrade vCenter first, followed by the host and lastly VMware tools and virtual machine hardware version on VMs. Be careful when upgrading the virtual machine hardware. Upgrading to the latest VM hardware removes some of the manageability from the vSphere desktop client and forces you to use the web client.
You can also use update manager to schedule host upgrades, patching, etc as well as VMware tools deployment. This is just an overview; there is obviously more to it than this.

Enable hyper-V on Windows 2012

I have a window7 (32 bit) machine. I installed Virtual Box and created a VM (Windows 2012 {64bit} with enabled VT-x/AMD-V,Nested Paging).
I want to enable Hyper-V on this VM any Idea?
I tried following links but not working for me:
Link1
Link2
but in my case I am using Virtual Box.
How can I enable Hyper-V feature?
Do you want to expose VT-x/AMD-V to the guest system in the VM so it can run Hyper-V inside VM? As far as I know, VirtualBox does not support it, but VMWare does, even in their free VMWare Player.
I have been running Windows Phone 8 emulator in VMWare Player without problems. Yes, it required manual editing of .vmx file, but is works reliably and without any problems at all.
If you decide to give VMWare Player a try, make sure you have VT-x/AMD-V available and enabled on your physical host computer. Then add the following setting to your VMWare machine:
hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"
mce.enable = "TRUE"
and you should be able to start Hyper-V inside your VM.
For more information, see these links:
Unable to use Hyper-V platform inside a Windows 8 virtual machine
How to Enable Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Role in VMware
and some useful topics on VirtualBox forums which explain why the feature is not available on VirtualBox:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20589
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=52625&p=304452
I really miss this feature on VirtualBox because I find VMWare Player to be bloated and it slows the host system down much more than VirtualBox does.

Unable to start Micro Cloud Foundry

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with Windows7 OS. I downloaded micro cloud foundary and vm ware player. When I tried to boot micro Cloud Foundry in my system (Intel i7- 2760QM which is 64 bit) through VM player, I got the error "This Kernel requires an x86-64 CPU. but only detected an i686 CPU."
I even enabled Intel Virtualization Technology through BIOS as suggested in other posts, but I am still getting the same error.
Apart from this, I also checked the processor compatibility with the VMware utility and it shows that it is compatible.
Any suggestions ?
Here are the hardware requirements for VM Player.
It's possible you need to enable Intel virtualization in your BIOS.
I think you have to install a 64bit windows.