GP Test Install

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Posted on by Joe Mottolo

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What is the best practice procedure and lessons learned associated with taking an existing production Great Plains server and using software (e.g. PlateSpin) to convert this “physical” server to a “virtual” VMware server for the purposes of using it for a Great Plains test server or training server?

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George Sagen 1,005 on at

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Re: GP Test Install

One issue I ran into while using VMWare was changing the server name so that the multiple VM's could co-exist using shared network resources. GP worked okay and SQL Server handled it okay, but GP didn't like it when I tried to install patches or upgrades or use GP utilities to create a new company in the VM with the new name. The original server name was tucked away somewhere and GP kept trying to use that instead of the new server name. We solved it by keeping the server name the same, but isolating it from the rest of the active directory.
Community Member Microsoft Employee on at

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Re: Re: GP Test Install

Running the environment in a VM should be fine for training/testing purposes. I even do the practice on my laptop. I have a test VM for each active project so I can use it for training, demos, even development and whatever comes to mind. It has distinct advantages such as instant rollback - I simply copy an older VM backup, and obviously sandboxing, among others.
Richard Whaley 25,195 on at

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Re: GP Test Install

Various different VMware packages work well for training and testing. It is not recommended to run MS-SQL in production in a virtual server and I prefer not to use VM software at all. But I keep hearing it it getting better and better.