Question : Addressing a virtualized server

I have sucessfully installed ESXi 3 on a Dell PowerEdge 2900 and subsequently installed the VMware infrastructure client on my laptop to manage it.

I also sucessfully P2V converted two physical servers that run our enterprise content management system (ECMS) to the ESX "host" (which is what I guess my PowerEdge 2900 is now considered?) and sucesfully powered them on..very cool as I open up a console for each VM after powering them on.

The question I have now is...how do I go about "addressing" the vm's on my PowerEdge 2900? For example...if my physical servers were to go down and I needed to keep the ECMS up and running...what would I need to do in order to have people start using the virtualized versions of the ECMS? The ESX host is on our network...do I need to add the vm's on the ESX host to our network now as well before they can actually be "used"? How would I go about referencing the machine names to our network? For example, the ESX host is named "machine1.abc.edu" on our network. The vm's on the ESX host now appear as "machine5.abc.edu on machine1.abc.edu" and "machine6.abc.edu on machine1.abc.edu"

Answer : Addressing a virtualized server

Assuming its all windows servers and network, you can start the VM's om the network as the physicals are down. Sids keep the same when you virtualize and the network doesn't see a difference. Keep the names as they are physical and update (make new) P2V regulary to keep them up to date...
You should test it before relying on it :-)