virtapace

Owned by Thomas Farley (Deactivated)
Last updated: Mar 28, 2022
4 min read

Table of Contents

PACE (Predictive Application Component Extraction) identifies, analyzes, and migrates installed products installed on a local or remote machine, and lists installed components for each of those products if requested. This list of components can contain file paths, registry paths, side-by-side information, and so on. The command line utility for PACE is virtapace.

If there is component information in the registry for a product (that is, if the product was installed using Microsoft Windows Installer), virtapace lists components, one per line.

When the virtapace /M /L command is executed, virtaaudit functionality is also executed.

Administrator privileges are required.

PACE Limitations

  • PACE supports only products installed for all users at this time (i.e., it does not support products installed only for an Administrator account).

  • PACE may not discover some products or product components. For example, PACE may not discover Oracle 11g because Windows does not understand it as an installed product. Oracle 11g does not register itself or leverage any Windows mechanisms related to installation and is therefore not recognized by the operating system as being installed. Therefore, Oracle 11g will not appear in the Source Products list generated by virtapace.exe, but can be listed using the virtasvc.exe utility.

  • A message will be displayed in the /W output if the product is found to contain driver files. VirtaMove does not support the migration of drivers. Drivers should be pre-installed on the destination.

Syntax - Application Discovery and Migration

virtapace "server list" /M /L
virtapace "server list" /M /C
virtapace "server list" /M /T [/Z]

Options

Option

Description

server list

Full path to a file providing a list of sources with credentials. Each line presents a single source and should be comma-separated. If the source machine is running VirtaMove Source Agent, only the source address is required.

File format:
<SourceAddress>,<Username>,<Password>

/M

Enables migration of multiple sources.

/L

Outputs a list of installed products for each individual source to a productlist.csv file per source, and creates a pivot_table_info.csv file and a Summary_Report.txt file. The productlist.csv file is inside the PACE folder.

To select a product, place an 'x' before the product name in productlist.csv

/C

Outputs "Mapp.xml" of components associated with selected products to the individual source folder. A file for input of service credentials will also be generated when necessary. Open the credentials file and enter in the necessary credentials. This is not required if the source machine is running VirtaMove Source Agent.

/T

Tethers selected products into containers corresponding to each individual source. This option automatically sets the COTF property in the container's scripts/StandardCOTF.xml file.

Note that to maximize success, applications on the source should be stopped and/or not in use during the tethering process.

If you have not yet activated your VirtaMove license, you will be prompted to do so when you try to execute /T. See Activating Your VirtaMove License for information.

/Z

When used in conjunction with the /T option, automatically compresses the container once the pre-population operation is completed.

/R

Regenerates the ProductList.csv file in the PACE folder according to the current ProductListIncludes.txt file without consulting the source machine.

Requires a ProductListIncludes.txt to be present in the PACE folder. An existing ProductList.csv or Mapp.xml file will be backed up with a timestamp. Reads from the renamed ProductList.csv file and creates a new ProductList.csv file, reselecting from the products based on the contents of the includes file.

Note: Existing containers will not be backed up or modified by this command. If you do not want to modify an existing container with additional product information during a subsequent /M /T command, move the container before executing /M /T. Do not rename the container or container folder.

Example Usage - Listing Applications

Create server.text in C:\appliances. server.text holds the source information: <source>,<username>,<password>.

Then, execute virtapace:

Example Usage - Choosing Applications

Select the application(s) to migrate by opening productlist.csv, likely in the C:\PACE folder. Select a product by typing an "x" in front of the application(s) you want to move. Generate a file for all the components:

If necessary, enter the credential for any associated accounts in the credentials file. This is not required if VirtaMove Source Agent is in use.

Example Usage - Tether Products

Tether the container:

C:\Program Files\VirtaMove> virtapace C:\appliances\server.txt /M /T

The container is now created in the folder C:\appliances\Containers\<source>.

Syntax - Simple Application Discovery

Running the commands in this section does not migrate applications. Use these commands to quickly discover applications on the source machine.

Options

Option

Description

/L

Lists products installed on the local or remote system. If only the source address is provided, the source machine must be running VirtaMove Source Agent. See Using VirtaMove Source Agent for more information.

product name

The name of the product as it appears in the list.

/C

Lists components associated with the product.

/W

Optional. Lists dependencies and analyzes discovered components.

Example /W Output