1.  It had to support Ubuntu 64-bit Version 8.10.

2.  I wanted an official support channel that I could lean on if I ran into problems.

3.  It had to be inexpensive.

I found a number of $300+ solutions, but I don’t consider that cheap… To me, cheap is $50 or less.  Then as luck would have it I found a great solution for a mere $29.99.  The program is called “Image For Linux” and it is available at:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux.htm

I followed the setup directions provided with the download and within an hour I had successfully cloned my server over to a VM.  The only bump in the road was easy to overcome and I think the problem may have been caused by me choosing an incorrect setting before the clone process.  Because of that, I had to reinstall Grub on the VM which was no big deal.  I just loaded the Ubuntu disc, fired up the VM and had it boot from the Live-CD.  Then I went to the command line and typed (be sure to hit the enter key after each command):

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
quit

The first line loads grub.  The second finds your boot partition and displays that information back out on the command line for you to read.  The output varies based on your install of course.  In my case hd0,4 is the only thing the second command displayed on screen after running so my choice was pretty easy.  Using that input, lines three and four tell grub where to install and the fifth line of course kicked me back out of grub.  I then removed the Live-CD, rebooted the VM and that was it!  The whole process was very painless and the software proved to be very capable.  If you have a need to clone or P2V a Ubuntu Linux machine then I recommend this software.