Virtual Infrastructure Machine Migration

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Importance
VMware VMotion and VMware Storage VMotion are valuable tools for
delivering higher service levels and improving overall hardware utilization and balance.

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

vMotion Migration
A vMotion migration moves a powered-on virtual machine from one host to another.

vMotion can be used to do the following: Improve overall hardware utilization Allow continued virtual machine operation while accommodating scheduled hardware downtime Allow VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) to balance virtual machines across hosts

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

How vMotion Works

Memory bitmap Memory bitmap Memory Bitmap

Memory bitmap

vMotion network
Production network

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Virtual Machine Requirements for vMotion Migration

A virtual machine must meet the following requirements: A virtual machine must not have a connection to an internal vSwitch (vSwitch with zero uplink adapters). A virtual machine must not have a connection to a virtual device (such as a CD-ROM or floppy drive) with a local image mounted. A virtual machine must not have CPU affinity configured. If the virtual machines swap file is not accessible to the destination host, vMotion must be able to create a swap file accessible to the destination host before migration can begin. If a virtual machine uses an RDM, the RDM must be accessible by the destination host.

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Performing a vMotion Migration

From the VMware vCenter Server inventory, right-click a virtual machine that is powered on and select Migrate.

vMotion

Cold; Function available when virtual machine is powered off

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A
2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Storage vMotion
Storage vMotion allows you to do the following: Perform storage maintenance and reconfiguration Redistribute storage load Evacuate physical storage soon to be retired Perform storage tiering Upgrade VMware ESXi hosts without virtual machine downtime

Storage vMotion is storage-type independent. Source and destination can be different storage types.
VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A
2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Migrating with Storage vMotion

Virtual Machine > Migrate

Storage vMotion

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Storage vMotion Guidelines and Limitations

Guidelines: Plan and coordinate with administrators. Perform during off-peak hours. Ensure that source host has access both to source datastores and target datastores. Limitations: Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be RDMs. The virtual machine must be powered off to concurrently migrate to another host and datastore.

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

2011 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Demonstration:

Live migration of virtual machines. VMware Storage vMotion.

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A

Key Points
The Migrate Virtual Machine wizard allows you to perform either a VMotion
or a Storage VMotion migration.

Storage VMotion can be used to redistribute the storage load while virtual
machines are up and running.

VMotion can be used to balance live virtual machines across hosts in a

DRS cluster.

VMware vSphere: Overview Revision A