FreePBX migrate from Physical to virtual

FreePBX
1

Hello,

We are running FreePBX/Asterisk 11.17.1 on a physical server right now and we would like to move it to a VM on VMWARE cluster. I searched online and could not find anyone confirming if I can use vmware convertor to migrate my FreePBX instance to VM. Is it possible to use VMWARE convertor to do this conversion? If not and if I have to install FreePBX from scratch on a new VM, how do I copy all the extensions, trunks and other configuration from physical installation to virtual machine? Please advise the steps I would need to take to get this done.

I also plan on upgrading the FreePBX to latest version on VMWARE.

Thanks!

2

VMware converter should work just fine with this use case. Do you have any DAHDI hardware in the physical box?

You can also create a new VM from scratch, and then do a backup/restore in FreePBX of your physical box. Should work either way.

3

Thanks Mike! We do not have any DAHDI hardware. We are using SIP trunks for all the calls.

Since we also need to upgrade FreePBX to latest version what would you suggest is better?
– upgrade it on physical platform and then use vmware convertor to virtualize it
– virtualize it using vmware convertor and then upgrade

4

I moved my vm’s to googles cloud. It works great, better than aws. Low latency and great bandwidth. Very affordable. They also have a free migration tool that will automatically move your vm up to google - I highly recommend.
https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/tutorials/migrating-vms-compute-engine

5

Virtualize then upgrade. This way you’ll have the ability to snapshot (or backup using ghettoVCB, VEEM, etc)… so if something goes wrong you can just revert.

6

@tbagalini - How much do you pay, what are the specs, and how many extensions? You’ve piqued my interest.