Migration steps

To migrate a single virtual machine, click it to access its details page and click Migrate. To migrate multiple virtual machines, tick them in the virtual machine list and click Migrate above the list.

The virtual machines to be migrated must meet the cluster and virtual machine requirements.

During migration, you can view the number of selected virtual machines, their names, status, the cluster they reside, and the total capacity.

In the pop-up Migrate VM dialog box, select Another cluster, and select the target ACOS cluster for the migration.

The target cluster must meet the cluster and virtual machine requirements; otherwise, the migration might fail.

Select the target host.

• Manually select a specific target host

  When selecting a host, you can view the host's name, IP address, available data space, number of available hosts, and cluster version.

  The target host must also meet the host requirements specified in the cluster and virtual machine requirements.

• Select Automatically place VM on proper host

  The system will automatically place the virtual machines on an appropriate host based on the VM placement group policy and host resource usage.

Configure the storage policy.

The virtual machines to be migrated will use the default storage policy of the target cluster, but you can also customize its storage policy. For batch migration, the configured storage policy will apply to all selected virtual machines.

• Redundancy policy

  You can select 2 replicas or 3 replicas. If the target cluster is an ACOS active-active cluster, you can only select 3 replicas. You can select Erasure coding as the redundancy policy only when the target ACOS cluster supports erasure coding.

• Provisioning

  You can select Thick provisioning or Thin provisioning as the provisioning type.

Configure the network mapping.

For each VM network used by the selected virtual machines, you need to choose a VM network in the target cluster to establish the network mapping. If the selected virtual machines are configured with virtual NICs of which the network type is VPC network, you do not need to establish network mapping for the virtual NICs.

To ensure the network operates normally after migration, it is recommended that you select a VM network that has exactly the same VLAN type and MTU as the source VM network for mapping. If either network has a different VLAN type or MTU, hot migration will not be allowed.

When the type of the source VM network is Access and the configuration is as follows, the system will automatically populate the mapped network, but you can also modify it manually.

• The target cluster has only one VM network with the same type and VLAN ID as the source VM network.
• The target cluster has multiple VM networks with the same network type and VLAN ID as the source VM network, but only one of them is associated with a VDS (virtual distributed switch) that has the same name as the VDS where the source VM network is located.

When the configuration of the source VM network is as follows, you need to manually specify the mapping network.

• The VM network type is Trunk.
• The target cluster has multiple VM networks with the same network type (Access) and VLAN ID as the source VM network, and multiple of these VM networks are on VDSs (virtual distributed switch) that have the same name as the VDS where the source VM network is located.
• The target cluster does not have any VM networks with the same type and VLAN ID as the source VM network.

Configure the migration option.

If any of the selected virtual machines are in a started state, you will need to choose from the following migration methods for those virtual machines.

• Hot migration
• Staged migration

You can also set whether to keep the source virtual machines after migration, but only cold migration and staged migration allow keeping the source virtual machines. The kept virtual machines will be in the Shutdown state.

Note:

• When a virtual machine has no special configuration, choose cold migration or staged migration, and choose not to keep the source virtual machine after migration; or choose hot migration, after which the virtual machine will keep the original MAC address and UUID. However, if you choose cold migration or staged migration and choose to keep the source virtual machine after migration, the migrated virtual machine will use a new UUID. Also, to avoid network conflicts, the migrated virtual machine will not keep its original MAC address.
• When a virtual machine has any special configurations, there will be certain limitations on its functions. For details, refer to Function limitations after migration.

Click Migrate. You can check the migration progress or stop the migration in the task center.

Note:

For a staged migration, you need to manually shut down the source virtual machines in the task center to migrate the remaining data.