Pre-Requisites for vMotion and Storage vMotion in vCenter
Pre-Requisites for vMotion
?
vMotion in vCenter allows the live migration of virtual machines (VMs) between ESXi hosts without downtime. To successfully use vMotion, the following prerequisites must be met:
1. vCenter & Licensing
?? vMotion requires a vCenter Server to manage the ESXi hosts.
?? The ESXi hosts must be licensed for vMotion (included in vSphere Standard, Enterprise, and higher editions).
2. ESXi Host Requirements
?? Compatible ESXi Versions: Hosts must be running compatible versions of ESXi.
?? Shared Storage: VM files should reside on shared storage accessible by both source and destination hosts (e.g., NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel).
?? Compatible CPUs: The hosts should have compatible CPU families (or use Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) to mask CPU differences).
?? VMKernel Network for vMotion: A dedicated VMkernel port with vMotion enabled must be configured on each host.
3. Network Configuration
?? Same Network Subnet: The vMotion network should be on the same subnet across hosts.
?? Sufficient Bandwidth: VMware recommends at least 1 Gbps (preferably 10 Gbps) network speed for optimal performance.
?? Jumbo Frames: If configured, all hosts must support Jumbo Frames (MTU 9000) for performance improvements.
4. Virtual Machine & Storage Requirements
?? The VM must not have attached local storage (unless using vSphere 6.0 or later with vMotion across local datastores).
?? The VM's disk mode must not be Independent Mode.
?? The VM must not have a directly attached physical device (e.g., USB, CD/DVD mapped to a local host).
5. Resource Availability
?? The destination ESXi host must have sufficient CPU, memory, and network resources to accommodate the VM.
?? No resource reservations or constraints that prevent migration.
?
领英推荐
?
Pre-Requisites for Storage vMotion
?
Storage vMotion allows the live migration of a virtual machine's storage (VM files) between different datastores without downtime. Below are the key prerequisites:
1. vCenter & Licensing
?? A vCenter Server must be managing the ESXi hosts.
?? The ESXi hosts must be licensed for Storage vMotion (included in vSphere Standard, Enterprise, and higher editions).
2. ESXi Host Requirements
?? ESXi Version: The source and destination ESXi hosts must be running ESXi 4.0 or later.
?? Shared Storage: The ESXi hosts must have access to both the source and destination datastores.
?? VMKernel Network for Storage vMotion: A VMkernel port should be configured for efficient data transfer.
3. Virtual Machine Requirements
?? Virtual Machine Disk Type: The VM must not have disks in independent mode or be configured with raw device mapping (RDM) in physical mode.
?? Snapshots: Storage vMotion supports VMs with snapshots, but performance may be affected.
?? Powered-On or Off VMs: Storage vMotion works with both powered-on and powered-off VMs.
4. Datastore Requirements
?? The destination datastore must have enough free space to accommodate the VM's files.
?? Supports migration across different types of datastores (VMFS, NFS, vSAN, vVols).
?? Both source and destination datastores must be accessible by the ESXi host running the VM.
5. Resource Availability
?? The ESXi host must have sufficient CPU and memory resources to support the Storage vMotion operation.
?? vSphere must not be experiencing high disk or network latency, which could slow down migration.