We have a small plant with a Exchange BES server(30 users), the plant is closing. We are looking at using a P2V (Physical-to-Virtual) migration tool to move the entire BES to a VM platform at our main computer center. The P2V migration method is not certified by RIM but we plan to try it anyway. We plan on turning off the physical BES server before the P2V migration is starts. When done the VM instance will be brought up (same server name, different IP). If it doesn't come up we should be able to turn if off and just bring the original one back online. The backup plan would have to be installing the BES on the VM platform and bring over the BES specific data from the old server. (same SRP would be used). I know not to have both server operational at the same time.

Has anyone tried using the P2V tools out there?

We have PlateSpin that we use for our P2V process, however with BES, it's honestly quicker and easier just to perform the knife-edge cutover process (I believe I'm starting to become the poster child for the knife-edge cutover). I virtualized seven servers in less than 5 total minutes of downtime to the users.

Is the BES running MSDE or SQL Server 2005 Express on the same server, or do you have a remote database (I would assume the MSDE/SQLX route, but I just want to make sure)?

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BCSA (4.1, 5.0) | BCSD (4.1, 5.0)

The views expressed by me on Port3101.org are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

I've used the P2V method now three times to convert my BES to virtual, one BES was even the host SQL server for the BESMGMT db. I've had no issues with the conversion process or the BES after it was completed. I reused the same IP address on the original (physical) BES. I've knife-edged (or spork-edged if you want to be safer) a few times as well. In my case I found the P2V process to work well (~1000 users on the BES).

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AUTIGER92
Exchange\Blackberry Admin
4 - BES Servers (4.1.6), 3 Exchange Organizations,
~1800 BB Users, and a headache.
War Eagle!!

Doubletake works well for this.

Just to chime in here... we have a single BES (for Exchange) for ~220 users configured to use MSDE. I P2V'd it without any issues into our VMware ESX environment. Just to play it safe, I had stopped the BlackBerry services plus the MSDE services before using the VMware Converter to convert while the physical server was still online.

I P2Ved a BES to a VMWare ESX server using VMWare converter with no problems.

Stop all BES services on the Physical machine and set them to manual start.
P2V.
Start services in the virtual. Reset services to auto start