ABSTRACT
Guided Consolidation is a new feature in VirtualCenter 2.5. It is a subset of functionality found in VMware's Capacity Planner service. The benefit it provides is in facilitating the process of virtualizing physical servers in the datacenter for small to medium sized organizations. A step-by-step process is followed to guide new users with the tasks of consolidating the physical servers in the datacenter. There is no need to perform a separate installation as Guided Consolidation is included as part of the default installation process of VirtualCenter 2.5. Guided Consolidation uses the following two services:
• Capacity Planner Service • VMware Converter Enterprise Service
The Capacity Planner service is used to collect usage information of the discovered physical machines. Usage data is collected once an hour. The VMware Converter Enterprise service is used to perform the planned consolidation tasks (i.e. physical to virtual conversions.) A detailed discussion of VMware Converter Enterprise can be found in Chapter 8 – Converter Enterprise.
