Clone & virtualize my SA2500 box

[James_ifs_]

Hi all,

Is it possible to clone and virtualize my SA2500 box as i would like to add it to my virtual test lab and test 7.2 before upgrading.

Thanks,

[mattspierce_]

That is a bold move virutalizing your appliance.  The two offical virtualization methods are the DTE which is limited to 3 sessions and the SPE wich requires special licensing.  Our sales contact told us the SPE could not be licensed for less that 10,000 licenses.  Way overkill for our enviroenment.  Its a shame as we would love to have a virutal appliance we could pack off to Disaster Recovery.

[zanyterp_ · Accepted solution]

No, this cannot be done.
There is a virtual IVE (the dte version on the download site) that can be loaded in VMware/esx for this purpose, I believe.

[johnrbaker_]

Hi

I have done this with my SA700 (+10 client), and I dont see why it cannot be done with the SA2500.

However it is not easy and will not be supported.

There are also a few issues that you would need to look out for.

1. You will need to clone most, if not all, of the SA hard drive, using a byte/sector copy. There is a special partition which holds the license information that most disk tools cannot copy.

2. You will need to copy the SA units MAC addresses onto the virtual network cards

3. The virutal network cards must be setup to E1000 (intel clone)

4. The SA700 does not support power off when shutting down. This is a pain in the ass.

Again, its not supported. My physical SA was noisy and not very fast, my virtual SA700 is much faster and much quieter.

[James_ifs_]

i download the DTE version and exported/imported my config over and everything works great.

Thank you

[kees777_]

Hi johnrbaker,

I am very anxious to find out how you virtualized your sa 700. I recently bought one to be able to access my home network while I am at the customer site. All is well except that machine makes a hell of a noise.

I have virtualized a laptop before that ran windows xp on it. I recall installing some software on that laptop to get it going. But ofcourse the procedure to virtualize the sa 700 would need to be different.....

Looking forward for your answer.

Cheers,

Jan-Kees