[ovirt-devel] virt-v2v integration feature

[Itamar Heim]

On 07/09/2014 09:30 PM, Arik Hadas wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> The proposed feature will introduce a new process of import virtual machines from external systems using virt-v2v in oVirt.
> I've created a wiki page that contains initial thoughts and design for it:
> http://www.ovirt.org/Features/virt-v2v_Integration
>
> You are more than welcome to share your thoughts and insights.
>
> Thanks,
> Arik
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Some thoughts after reviewing:
http://www.ovirt.org/Features/virt-v2v_Integration

great to see this - its something which i hope will ease a lot 
conversion to oVirt!

adding users@ mailing list, to get feedback on the use cases.


1. Need to understand if possible to provide the VM via 'uploading
    it'[1]

2. does this really merit a provider per external system? or just
    ability to choose source path (including simple nfs/posix path
    pointing to existing kvm disks or vmware vmdk's), or URI/user
    /passowrd for such a system if vsphere/etc.?
    I'm not opposed to allowing to define providers, I would just
    remember that's a specific single use case, and would separate the
    import/convert flow from being part of the provider (i.e., on the
    import/convert flow, would allow to choose the source being a path
    or a pre-defined provider)

to sum above two points, I think the page should start with 'use cases':
- I have a KVM VM i want to 'convert' to RHEV (doesn't need full v2v,
   but libvirt-->ovf conversion?)
   the VM(s) is/are in an nfs/posix path, or i want to upload the VM.

- i have a folder with VMs/disks i want to convert (make sure this
   covers the ESXi flow)

- I have a vsphere to import VMs from

- I have Xen...

(hope to see input from users on these. I'm sure there was a thread on 
this in the past, what do you know, i started one...[2])

3. does this mean virt-v2v and all of its dependencies will be required
    by vdsm (and on ovirt-node). also, for distro's which have it, of
    the required windows components?

4. most important flow i would like to remove via this integration is
    the "double copy". i.e., if we run v2v from a host, there is no
    reason to not pre-create the VM/disks for it, and have v2v overwrite
    their content, instead of converting into the export domain just to
    perform another copy/import.
    (may mean you want virt-v2v to have a specific verb to just get the
    OVF, and a specific verb to convert a disk)

[1] we want to support upload of an iso/VM/disks in any case.
[2] http://lists.ovirt.org/pipermail/users/2014-January/019839.html