With the release of vSphere 6.0 it was time to upgrade and completely redesign the homelab. I wanted to start testing design scenarios around NSX and having multiple vCenter servers but first thing I wanted to try was cross vCenter vMotion which is a new feature in vSphere 6.0. There are some requirements around cross vCenter vMotion which are required:
- vCenter 6.0 and greater
- SSO Domain
- Same SSO domain to use the UI
- Different SSO domain possible if using API
- 250 Mbps network bandwitdh per vMotion operation
- L2 network connectivity on VM portgroups (IP addresses are not updated)
Within my lab I have two physical ESXi 6 hosts both running 4 nested ESXi 6 hosts each, a vCenter Server Appliance and an NSX Manager. The four virtual ESXi 6 hosts are added to two clusters (MGMT and Compute) for both PA (Palo Alto) and NY (New York) sites. Within the New York datacenter I have a TEST01 VM which I will migrate to the Palo Alto Datacenter. A picture says a thousand words:
All hosts are connected to the same back end storage array so I will not be migrating the storage at the same time and I've already configure VMK ports for vMotion. Right click on the VM and select migrate:
I'm just going to change the compute resource so ensure it's checked and click Next:
You now need to select the host that you want to migrate the VM to. You have the option of selecting a specific Host, Cluster, Resource Pool or vApp. In this example I'm going to move it to the PA-Compute cluster from the NY-Compute cluster. In order for the clusters to appear I had to enable DRS and EVC on the clusters even though they had exactly the same hardware. Once the compatibility checks succeed click next:
Select a folder on the remote vCenter to place the virtual machine in and click next:
Select the network on the remote vCenter that you want to connect the VM to. It doesn't have to have the same portgroup name but obviously it needs to be backed by the same VLAN otherwise you'll loose network connectivity and have to re-ip the VM. In this example I'm moving a VM from the Compute-VLAN8-NY-Servers portgroup to Compute-VLAN8-PA-Servers. Once compatibility checks have succeeded click next:
Select the vMotion priority and click next:
Check the destination is correct and click finish and watch the magic happen:
Once the vMotion has completed the VM will now reside in the new cluster attached to the new vCenter:
One ping dropped throughout the entire process:
The task shows completed successfully and the hosts the VM was migrated from and to:
After presenting to numerous customers around what's new with vSphere 6.0 cross vCenter vMotion was definitely a welcomed feature. So go update your environment and take advantage of all the new features.
