So, I’ve been trying to install a windows OS inside my virtual ESX server on ravello. I’ve been sort of stuck, since when I go to boot the OS I can see the BIOS but when it goes to install the OS off the CD-ROM no joy so far. (Screen stays blank indefinitely)

I was able to use the same 2008R2 ISO and install in an ’empty’ ravello VM and have fired up that VM just fine. Current annoyance, mouse pointer offset issues inside the ravello console. I’m going to open it up so that I can just RDP in and that should take care of that.

Ok, so I RDP in an loaded the Client and then connected, and do you know what… it actually loaded the OS….

And then I went back to connecting to the Vcenters public address and now it works as well… I’m not really sure what happened. Some hangup with connecting to the ISO? Very weird. But now it works…

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Ok, I have been able to replicate this. I went to build another machine name ‘ProtectMe’ with the goal of replicating this over to the other ESX server.

I’m still getting the ‘stuck’ black window when trying to initially load the OS from the ISO. Now I’m going to connect to the console from a ‘local’ server VM on the local 10.x scheme.

Yes, now all the sudden the console starts responding! Very, very strange.Well now that I have some working OS’s I’m going to install veeam on the one, and use it to replicate over to my second esxi server.

So this is what the server setup looks like

So, off to download Veeam. In order to get internet access to my veeam VM I hard coded the IP Address to 10.0.0.50, the gateway to 10.0.0.2 and the DNS server to 10.0.0.1

After installing Veeam, add in the vcenter machine. Then add in the second esx server. Hmm my second server was having an issue. Something caused it to purple screen of death. I wonder if ravello could detect when it is in a stalled state? Anyways time for a reboot. Hmm its still purple screening. Oh well, time for a new install of esx. VM’s are disposable

Now I’m going to configure a replication job of my ‘Protectme’ VM over to the second esx server.

And then I fire off the replication… This is it creating a replica from esx1 over to esx2.

And there you have it ladies and gents, a little bit of Ravello and a little bit of veeam!