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Table Of Contents
MAC Address Management During Migration Between vCenter Server
Systems
When you move a virtual machine between vCenter Server instances, the environment specifically
handles MAC address migration to avoid address duplication and loss of data in the network.
In an environment with multiple vCenter Server instances, when a virtual machine is migrated, its MAC
addresses are transferred to the target vCenter Server. The source vCenter Server adds the MAC
addresses to a black list so that it does not assign them to newly created virtual machines.
To reclaim unused MAC addresses from the black list, contact VMware Technical Support for assistance.
Migration with Storage vMotion
With Storage vMotion, you can migrate a virtual machine and its disk files from one datastore to another
while the virtual machine is running. With Storage vMotion, you can move virtual machines off of arrays
for maintenance or to upgrade. You also have the flexibility to optimize disks for performance, or to
transform disk types, which you can use to reclaim space.
You can choose to place the virtual machine and all its disks in a single location, or you can select
separate locations for the virtual machine configuration file and each virtual disk. The virtual machine
does not change execution host during a migration with Storage vMotion.
During a migration with Storage vMotion, you can change the disk provisioning type.
Migration with Storage vMotion changes virtual machine files on the destination datastore to match the
inventory name of the virtual machine. The migration renames all virtual disk, configuration, snapshot,
and .nvram files. If the new names exceed the maximum filename length, the migration does not
succeed.
Storage vMotion has several uses in administering virtual infrastructure, including the following examples
of use.
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Storage maintenance and reconfiguration. You can use Storage vMotion to move virtual machines off
a storage device to allow maintenance or reconfiguration of the storage device without virtual
machine downtime.
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Redistributing storage load. You can use Storage vMotion to redistribute virtual machines or virtual
disks to different storage volumes to balance capacity or improve performance.
Storage vMotion Requirements and Limitations
A virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the virtual machine
disks to be migrated with Storage vMotion.
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