Definition

physical to virtual (P2V)

Physical to virtual (P2V) is a term that refers to the migration of an operating system (OS), application programs and data from a computer's main hard disk to a virtual machine or a disk partition.

P2V can be done manually by creating or defining a virtual environment and then reinstalling the OS, applications and data on it. This can be a tedious and uncertain process, especially if the new environment contains substantially different hardware than the old. To streamline the operation, part or all of the migration can be carried out automatically by means of specialized programs known as migration tools. P2V is commonly used to accomplish server virtualization. P2V is also becoming popular as a means for Macintosh users to run Windows applications.

Related glossary terms: GSX Server, root partition, SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) , systems management, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), virtual private server (VPS) or virtual dedicated server (VDS), live migration, Our Favorite Technology Blogs, Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) , PowerPC

This was last updated in September 2006

Posted by: Margaret Rouse

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