Exporting a virtual machine

ACOS allows for exporting a virtual machine in the OVF format, as well as exporting all virtual volumes within a virtual machine in the .raw or .qcow2 format. When you choose to export an OVF file, the exported file will include the following information:

• Basic information: virtual machine name
• Compute resources: vCPU allocation (excluding QoS policies) and memory allocation
• Disk: virtual volume (without storage policy configuration), CD-ROM (excluding ISO image and whether it is enabled)
• Network devices: virtual NICs (includes quantity information, with an option to preserve the MAC address)
• Other configuration: firmware

Prerequisite

• The virtual machine is in the Shutdown state.
• The virtual machine contains non-shared virtual volumes.

Precaution

• When the CPU architecture or virtualization platform versions vary across clusters, there may be different limitations on importing and exporting OVF files between virtualization platforms. For detailed information, refer to OVF file import and export support matrix.
• For virtual machines with data encryption enabled, the system decrypts the virtual volumes before export. All exported data is in decrypted form.

Procedure

1. Locate the virtual machine you want to export in the virtual machine list. Click that virtual machine to pop up its detail panel. Then click the ellipsis (...) and then select Export.

   To export multiple virtual machines, select all the virtual machines you want to export in the virtual machine list, and then click Export in the upper right corner of the list.

2. In the Export VM dialog box, select the content to export.

   • Export OVF package: Export the virtual machine in OVF format. The exported files include a .ovf file and a .vmdk file. If you check Keep MAC address, the MAC address information of the virtual machine will also be included in the OVF file.
   • Export virtual volume only: Export all virtual volumes in the virtual machine. Select the export format based on the target virtualization platform's support for .raw and .qcow2 file formats.

3. Click Export or Export virtual volume.

   During the export process, you can view the export status in the Task center. You can also click the ellipsis (...) in the upper-right corner of the task and select Stop to terminate the virtual machine export task.

4. After the export is complete, download the exported file. There are two ways to download:

   • In the Task center, under the current export task entry, click Download.
   • In the virtual machine details panel, to the right of the prompt for the generated file, click Download.

Exported files can only be retained in AOC for 72 hours. You need to download them in time.