6.5.1

Table Of Contents
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MAC Address Management During Migration Between vCenter Server Systems on page 124
When you move a virtual machine between vCenter Server instances, the environment specically
handles MAC address migration to avoid address duplication and loss of data in the network.
Requirements for Migration Between vCenter Server Instances
You can use migration across vCenter Server instances if your system meets certain requirements.
The following list sums the requirements that your system must meet so that you can use migration across
vCenter Server instances:
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The source and destination vCenter Server instances and ESXi hosts must be 6.0 or later.
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The cross vCenter Server and long-distance vMotion features require an Enterprise Plus license. For
more information, see hp://www.vmware.com/uk/products/vsphere/compare.html.
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Both vCenter Server instances must be time-synchronized with each other for correct vCenter Single
Sign-On token verication.
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For migration of compute resources only, both vCenter Server instances must be connected to the
shared virtual machine storage.
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When using the vSphere Web Client, both vCenter Server instances must be in Enhanced Linked Mode
and must be in the same vCenter Single Sign-On domain. This lets the source vCenter Server to
authenticate to the destination vCenter Server.
For information about installing vCenter Server in Enhanced Linked Mode, see the vSphere Installation
and Setup documentation.
If the vCenter Server instances exist in separate vCenter Single Sign-On domains, you can use vSphere
APIs/SDK to migrate virtual machines. For more information, see the VirtualMachineRelocateSpec data
object in the VMware vSphere API Reference.
Network Compatibility Checks During vMotion Between vCenter Server Instances
Migration of VMs between vCenter Server instances moves VMs to new networks. The migration process
performs checks to verify that the source and destination networks are similar.
vCenter Server performs network compatibility checks to prevent the following conguration problems:
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MAC address compatibility on the destination host
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vMotion from a distributed switch to a standard switch
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vMotion between distributed switches of dierent versions
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vMotion to an internal network, for example, a network without a physical NIC
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vMotion to a distributed switch that is not working properly
vCenter Server does not perform checks for and notify you about the following problems:
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If the source and destination distributed switches are not in the same broadcast domain, virtual
machines lose network connectivity after migration.
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If the source and destination distributed switches do not have the same services congured, virtual
machines might lose network connectivity after migration.
Chapter 11 Migrating Virtual Machines
VMware, Inc. 123