Physical To Virtual

What Does Physical To Virtual Mean?

Physical to virtual (P2V) is the process of converting and migrating a physical computer image into a virtual machine (VM). It allows a physical machine to transform into a VM with the same state, stored data, applications and required system configuration and resources.

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Physical to virtual is also known as physical to virtual migration (P2V migration).

Techopedia Explains Physical To Virtual

P2V is performed through purpose-built conversion and migration software or a composite solution. P2V tools save the physical machine’s state and data as a VM snapshot or image instance. The VM manager or hypervisor tool allocates the required resources (including computing, memory, storage and networking) to the VM. The VM snapshot created from the physical machine is than reinstalled by the hypervisor on the allocated storage space.

P2V is commonly used in server consolidation and virtualization processes, where one or more physical servers are converted to run as virtual server on a single physical server.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…