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Table Of Contents
Operations During Cold Migration
A cold migration consists of the following operations:
1 If you select the option to move to a different datastore, the configuration files, including the NVRAM
file (BIOS settings), log files, and the suspend file, are moved from the source host to the destination
host’s associated storage area. You can choose to move the virtual machine's disks as well.
2 The virtual machine is registered with the new host.
3 After the migration is completed, the old version of the virtual machine is deleted from the source host
and datastore if you selected the option to move to a different datastore.
Network Trac for Cold Migration
By default, data for VM cold migration, cloning, and snapshots is transferred through the management
network. This traffic is called provisioning traffic. It is not encrypted but uses run-length encoding of data.
On a host, you can dedicate a separate VMkernel network adapter to the provisioning traffic, for example,
to isolate this traffic on another VLAN. On a host, you can assign no more than one VMkernel adapter for
provisioning traffic. For information about enabling provisioning traffic on a separate VMkernel adapter,
see the vSphere Networking documentation.
If you plan to transfer high volumes of virtual machine data that the management network cannot
accommodate, redirect the cold migration traffic on a host to the TCP/IP stack that is dedicated to cold
migration and cloning of powered off virtual machines. You can also redirect if you want to isolate cold
migration traffic in a subnet different from the management network, for example, for migration over a
long distance. See Place Traffic for Cold Migration, Cloning, and Snapshots on the Provisioning TCP/IP
Stack.
Migration with vMotion
If you must take a host offline for maintenance, you can move the virtual machine to another host.
Migration with vMotion™ allows virtual machine processes to continue working throughout a migration.
When you migrate a virtual machine with vMotion, the new host for the virtual machine must meet
compatibility requirements so that the migration can proceed.
vMotion Migration Types
With vMotion, you can change the compute resource on which a virtual machine is running. You also can
change both the compute resource and the storage of the virtual machine.
When you migrate virtual machines with vMotion and choose to change only the host, the entire state of
the virtual machine is moved to the new host. The associated virtual disk remains in the same location on
storage that must be shared between the two hosts.
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