Virtual Machine Migration

IT professionals around the world are exploring application and desktop virtualization not only to accelerate their migrations but as a superior means to delivering computing services to their business users.

Experience Game-changing Virtual Machine Mobility

VMware VMotion technology, deployed in production by 70% of VMware customers*, leverages the complete virtualization of servers, storage and networking to move an entire running virtual machine instantaneously from one server to another. VMware VMotion uses VMware’s cluster file system to control access to a virtual machine’s storage. During a VMotion, the active memory and precise execution state of a virtual machine is rapidly transmitted over a high speed network from one physical server to another and access to the virtual machines disk storage is instantly switched to the new physical host. Since the network is also virtualized by VMware ESX, the virtual machine retains its network identity and connections, ensuring a seamless migration process.

VMware VMotion allows you to:

• Perform live migrations with zero downtime, undetectable to the user.
• Continuously and automatically optimize virtual machines within resource pools.
• Perform hardware maintenance without scheduling downtime and disrupting business operations.
• Proactively move virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers.

Reliably Manage Live Migrations with Ease

Benefit from the reliability and manageability derived from a production-proven product used by thousands of customers for years. Live migration of virtual machines across your infrastructure is surprisingly simple with functionality that lets you:

• Perform multiple concurrent migrations to continuously optimize a virtual IT environment.
• Identify the optimal placement for a virtual machine in seconds with a migration wizard providing real-time availability information.
• Migrate any virtual machine running any operating system across any type of hardware and storage supported by VMware ESX, including Fibre Channel SAN, NAS and iSCSI SAN.
• Prioritize live migrations to ensure that mission-critical virtual machines maintain access to the resources they need.
• Schedule migrations to happen at pre-defined times, and without an administrator’s presence.
• Maintain an audit trail with a detailed record of migrations.

Let's take a closer look.

Vince Bailey