Hello,  Well to answer some of your questions. If you virtualise your physical server you have some options:  - If you want to continue using Replication Manager and present the snap to your Networker StorageNode (which I will assume is a physical machine), you need to have raw device mapping (RDM) for you data luns, because you cannot otherwise assign it to you Networker StorageNode. This is a setup I have implemented for quite some customers. In most cases, they then run either SQL or Exchange on this VM, and use Replication Manager to make a clone or snapshot and mount it to their backup server (which is then a physical machine). Ofcourse you can use Replication Manager for a VM without RDM, but you can then not mount it to a physical host.  - Powerpath you will no longer need (multipathing will be done by VMware), but you can use PowerPath/VE on you VMware hosts (requires a licence).  - I dont know how your PtoV would go in the above situation. It might be that you only have to PtoV your OS, and then present your dataluns to the VMware environment, and set up RDM for them to the newly created VM.  - If Replication Manager is not used for application integration, you could also virtualise without using RDM. Backup options could include VCB or normal client backup.  Regards,  Hans Peskens
Greetings all,  We have @ 50 virtual servers and another 50 or so physical servers.  The guy I manage,  who does most of our VMware tasks, has done quite a few P to V's...but we have not had to do a P to V yet for a physical server that is connected to my CX4-120.  All previous P to V's have been stand alone servers that are NOT attached to our SAN.  All these host servers connected to my SAN are running Windows Server 2003, and have EMC software like Replication Manager, Power Path, Navishphere (CLI), ADMsnap etc. installed.   I read that VMware uses Raw Device Mapping so that the new virtual server will still have its "LUNs" presented to it when it's no longer a physical server connected via fiber to the SAN.  What about the other EMC related products like Replication Manager, power path, Navi etc?  I still need to be able to take "snap shots" of the LUNs on my host servers vis my Replication Manager server.  All of these snap shots then get presented to a server that is attached to a tape library where I perform my nightly backups., using Legato's Networker.  Or does moving all my Physical servers to Virtuals mean VCB to back the new virtual servers up?  I need to make sure I understand what I am embarking on as we begin to transition all our Physical servers attached to our SAN to Virtual servers.  Is my question making sense?  Perhaps when you do the step of P to V'ing, I'm hoping RM, PowerPath, Navi et. al get copied over to the new virtual and that someone responds to this post and tells me it's simple.  There is a side of me that is fearful in the sense that going P to V for servers attached to the SAN will be difficult to transition over.  Any information that can be passed along to me regarding converting a physical server that has it's data on the SAN to a virtual server is greatly appreciated.  Thanks, Jon
Going "P" to "V"