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Migrate VMs

ZStack Cube Virtualization Edition provides internal VM migration capabilities for changing the host, data storage, or both within an existing ZStack Cube Virtualization Edition environment. When changing data storage, you can migrate the entire VM or only selected data disks. Depending on the VM power state, data storage type, and business continuity requirements, you can use hot migration or cold migration.

Before migration, make sure that the destination host, destination data storage, network connectivity, and VM state meet the migration requirements.

Hot Migrate a VM to Another Host

Hot migration migrates a running virtual machine. This action mainly copies the CPU register state and memory information.

Before you begin

  • The VM resides on local storage, NFS storage, ZCE distributed storage, SAN storage, or ZHPS distributed storage.
  • If the VM has data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration. A VM on local storage can be hot migrated with local data disks attached. A VM on shared storage can be hot migrated with data disks, shared disks, and ISOs attached.
  • If vNUMA is enabled for the VM, make sure that the pNUMA topology of the destination host is consistent with that of the source host.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before hot migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.
  • If the selected VM is associated with VM scheduling policies, modify the policies based on your service requirements to avoid policy conflicts.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host.
  3. In the Change Host dialog, configure the migration settings.
    Option Description
    Destination Host Select the host to which the VM is migrated.
    Migration Encryption Encrypts memory and runtime state data transferred during hot migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
    Auto-Converge If the VM has been running under a high service load for a long time and the service can tolerate a moderate performance impact, enable this option to improve the migration success rate.
  4. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note: If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.

What to do next

After migration, you can re-attach the detached data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices to the VM.

Cold Migrate a VM to Another Host

Cold migration migrates a powered-off virtual machine.

Before you begin

  • The VM resides on local storage.
  • If the VM has ISOs or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.
    Note: A VM on local storage can be cold migrated with local data disks attached.
  • If the selected VM is associated with VM scheduling policies, modify the policies based on your service requirements to avoid policy conflicts.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Shut Down.
  3. After the VM is shut down, click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host.
  4. Configure the migration.
    Option Description
    Destination Host Selects the host to which the VM is migrated.
    Migration Encryption If changing the host also transfers local disk data, this option encrypts the data in transit. If VM encryption is enabled, the option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. Otherwise, it is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  5. Review the configuration and click OK.

What to do next

After migration, you can re-attach the detached data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices to the VM.

Change Data Storage

Changing data storage migrates the system disk or data disks of a VM without changing the host on which the VM runs. You can migrate the entire VM or only selected data disks.

If encryption is enabled for the VM or any disk to be migrated, see Interoperability with Other Features.

Migration Scope

Scope Description
Entire VM Migrates the system disk of the VM. You can also migrate the attached data disks as needed.
Data Disk Migrates one or more selected data disks without changing the data storage of the system disk. You can specify a different destination data storage for each data disk.

Supported Migration Methods

Migration Scope Source and Destination Storage VM State
Entire VM SAN storage to SAN storage Running or shut down
Entire VM Between SAN storage and ZCE distributed storage Running
Data Disk SAN storage to SAN storage Running or shut down
Data Disk NFS storage to NFS storage Shut down
Data Disk ZCE distributed storage to ZCE distributed storage Shut down

The source and destination data storage must be attached to the same cluster. Data disks on local storage or other unsupported storage types cannot be migrated.

Note: If the destination data storage contains source data retained after a failed storage migration, remove the retained data on the Data Cleanup tab of the destination data storage details page before retrying the migration.

Hot Migrate a VM from SAN Storage to SAN Storage

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the source data storage and destination data storage are attached to the same cluster.
  • If the VM has ISOs or block devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If a shared data disk is attached to the VM, the shared disk cannot be migrated together with the VM. Detach the shared disk before migration.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before hot migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Data Storage.
  3. In the risk confirmation dialog, review the migration risks, select I understand the risks above, and click OK.
  4. In the Migration Scope section of the Change Data Storage dialog, select Entire VM.
  5. Configure the migration.
    Option Description
    Destination Data Storage Selects the SAN data storage to which the system disk is migrated.
    Migrate Data Disks Specifies whether to migrate all data disks attached to the VM.
    Migration Bandwidth Limits the bandwidth used for migration. Leave this option empty to apply no bandwidth limit.
    Migration Encryption Encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  6. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note:
    • If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.
    • If the selected VM has snapshots, storage migration while the VM is running deletes these snapshots. Proceed with caution. To keep snapshots, shut down the VM before migration.

What to do next

After migration, you can re-attach the detached data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices to the VM.

Cold Migrate a VM from SAN Storage to SAN Storage

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the source data storage and destination data storage are attached to the same cluster.
  • If the VM has ISOs or block devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If a shared data disk is attached to the VM, the shared disk cannot be migrated together with the VM. Detach the shared disk before migration.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Shut Down.
  3. After the VM is shut down, click Actions > Migration Management > Change Data Storage.
  4. In the risk confirmation dialog, review the migration risks, select I understand the risks above, and click OK.
  5. In the Migration Scope section of the Change Data Storage dialog, select Entire VM.
  6. Configure the migration.
    Option Description
    Destination Data Storage Selects the SAN data storage to which the system disk is migrated.
    Migrate Data Disks Specifies whether to migrate all data disks attached to the VM.
    Migration Bandwidth Limits the bandwidth used for migration. Leave this option empty to apply no bandwidth limit.
    Migration Encryption Encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  7. Review the configuration and click OK.

What to do next

After migration, you can re-attach the detached data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices to the VM.

Hot Migrate a VM Between SAN Storage and ZCE Distributed Storage

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the source data storage and destination data storage are attached to the same cluster.
  • If the VM has ISOs or block devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If a shared data disk is attached to the VM, the shared disk cannot be migrated together with the VM. Detach the shared disk before migration.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Data Storage.
  3. In the risk confirmation dialog, review the migration risks, select I understand the risks above, and click OK.
  4. In the Migration Scope section of the Change Data Storage dialog, select Entire VM.
  5. Configure the migration.
    Option Description
    Destination Data Storage Selects the destination data storage to which the system disk is migrated.
    Disk 1 Storage Pool Selects the destination storage pool for the system disk when the destination is ZCE distributed storage.
    Migrate Data Disks Specifies whether to migrate all data disks attached to the VM. When the destination is ZCE distributed storage, the data disks are migrated to the storage pool selected for Disk 1.
    Migration Bandwidth Limits the bandwidth used for migration. Leave this option empty to apply no bandwidth limit.
    Migration Encryption Encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  6. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note:
    • If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.
    • If the selected VM has snapshots, storage migration while the VM is running deletes these snapshots. Proceed with caution. To keep snapshots, shut down the VM before migration.

What to do next

After migration, you can re-attach the detached data disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices to the VM.

Migrate Data Disks

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the source and destination data storage are attached to the same cluster.
  • SAN data disks can be migrated while the VM is running or shut down. NFS and ZCE data disks can be migrated only after the VM is shut down.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Data Storage.
  3. In the risk confirmation dialog, review the migration risks, select I understand the risks above, and click OK.
  4. In the Migration Scope section of the Change Data Storage dialog, select Data Disk.
  5. Select the data disks to migrate and configure a destination for each disk.
    Option Description
    Migrate All Selects all data disks that can be migrated.
    Cancel All Clears the selection of all data disks.
    Migrate Specifies whether to migrate the corresponding data disk.
    Destination Storage Specifies the destination data storage for the selected data disk. You can specify a different destination for each data disk.
    Storage Pool Specifies the destination storage pool when the destination is ZCE distributed storage.
    Migration Encryption Encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.

    If the VM has many data disks, search for a disk by name.

  6. Review the configuration and click OK.

Hot Migrate a VM Across Data Storage of the Same Type

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the data storage where the VM resides meets the storage combination requirements.
    Supported storage combinations:
    • Hot migration from local storage to local storage.
    • Hot migration from ZCE distributed storage to ZCE distributed storage.
    • Hot migration from NFS storage to NFS storage.
    • Hot migration from SAN storage to SAN storage.
  • If the VM has shared disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If vNUMA is enabled for the VM, make sure that the pNUMA topology of the destination host is consistent with that of the source host.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before hot migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.
  • If the selected VM is associated with VM scheduling policies, modify the policies based on your service requirements to avoid policy conflicts.
  • For hot migration across data storages of the same type, only full-VM migration is supported.
  • For hot migration from one ZCE distributed storage to another ZCE distributed storage, make sure that the monitoring nodes of the two distributed storage systems can communicate with each other.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host and Data Storage.
  3. In the Change Host and Data Storage dialog, choose the destination data storage and destination host, and configure the migration bandwidth and Migration Encryption as needed.
    • Migration Encryption encrypts memory, runtime state, and disk data transferred during hot migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
    • For hot migration from one ZCE distributed storage to another ZCE distributed storage, you can specify the storage pool for disk 1 and choose whether to migrate data disks.
    • If the VM has been running under a high service load for a long time and the service can tolerate a moderate performance impact, you can enable auto-converge to improve the migration success rate.
  4. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note:
    • If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.
    • If the selected VM has snapshots, storage migration while the VM is running deletes these snapshots. Proceed with caution. To keep snapshots, shut down the VM before migration.

Cold Migrate a VM Across Data Storage of the Same Type

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the data storage where the VM resides meets the storage combination requirements.
    Supported storage combinations:
    • Cold migration from ZCE distributed storage to ZCE distributed storage.
    • Cold migration from NFS storage to NFS storage.
  • If the VM has data disks, shared disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If the selected VM is associated with VM scheduling policies, modify the policies based on your service requirements to avoid policy conflicts.
  • For cold migration from one ZCE distributed storage to another ZCE distributed storage, if a cold migration network is configured for the destination distributed storage, the VM is migrated through the cold migration network. Otherwise, the management network is used.
  • For cold migration from one NFS storage to another NFS storage, the destination NFS storage must be attachable to the cluster where the VM to be migrated resides.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Shut Down.
  3. After the VM is shut down, click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host and Data Storage.
  4. In the Change Host and Data Storage dialog, choose the destination data storage and destination host, and configure Migration Encryption as needed.
    Migration Encryption encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  5. Review the configuration and click OK.

Cold Migrate a VM Across Different Data Storage Types

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the data storage where the VM resides meets the storage combination requirements.
    Supported storage combinations:
    • Cold migration between ZCE distributed storage and SAN storage.
    • Cold migration between ZCE distributed storage and NFS storage.
    • Cold migration between local storage and SAN storage.
    • Cold migration between local storage and ZCE distributed storage.
    • Cold migration between local storage and NFS storage.
    • Cold migration between SAN storage and NFS storage.
  • If the VM has shared disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If vNUMA is enabled for the VM, make sure that the pNUMA topology of the destination host is consistent with that of the source host.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.
  • If the selected VM is associated with VM scheduling policies, modify the policies based on your service requirements to avoid policy conflicts.
  • For hot migration across data storages of different types, only full-VM migration is supported.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host and Data Storage.
  3. In the Change Host and Data Storage dialog, choose the destination data storage and destination host, and configure the migration bandwidth and Migration Encryption as needed.
    • Migration Encryption encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
    • For migration from SAN storage, local storage, or NFS storage to ZCE distributed storage, you can specify the storage pool for disk 1.
    • If the VM has been running under a high service load for a long time and the service can tolerate a moderate performance impact, you can enable auto-converge to improve the migration success rate.
  4. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note:
    • If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.
    • If the selected VM has snapshots, storage migration while the VM is running deletes these snapshots. Proceed with caution. To keep snapshots, shut down the VM before migration.

Hot Migrate a VM Across Storage Pools in the Same ZCE Distributed Storage

Before you begin

  • Make sure that the VM resides on ZCE distributed storage.
  • If the VM has shared disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.
  • If vNUMA is enabled for the VM, make sure that the pNUMA topology of the destination host is consistent with that of the source host.
  • If the VM has VF NICs attached, make sure that the following requirements are met before hot migration:
    • VMTools is installed on the VM and is running properly.
    • If the driver version inside the VM is too old, migration might fail. Check and update the driver version as needed.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host and Data Storage.
  3. In the Change Host and Data Storage dialog, choose the destination data storage and destination host, and configure the migration bandwidth and Migration Encryption as needed.
    • Migration Encryption encrypts memory, runtime state, and disk data transferred during hot migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
    • For hot migration across storage pools in the same ZCE distributed storage, you can specify the storage pool for disk 1 and choose whether to migrate data disks.
    • If the VM has been running under a high service load for a long time and the service can tolerate a moderate performance impact, you can enable auto-converge to improve the migration success rate.
  4. Review the configuration and click OK.
    Note:
    • If the selected VM has VF NICs attached, short network interruptions might occur during migration depending on the physical network environment. Proceed with caution for service-sensitive VMs.
    • If the selected VM has snapshots, storage migration while the VM is running deletes these snapshots. Proceed with caution. To keep snapshots, shut down the VM before migration.

Cold Migrate a VM Across Storage Pools in the Same ZCE Distributed Storage

Before you begin

If the VM has data disks, shared disks, ISOs, or peripheral devices attached, detach them before migration.

Procedure

  1. In the navigation pane, choose Inventory > VM and Host.
  2. Select the target VM and click Shut Down.
  3. After the VM is shut down, click Actions > Migration Management > Change Host and Data Storage.
  4. In the Change Host and Data Storage dialog, choose the destination data storage and destination host, and configure Migration Encryption as needed.
    Migration Encryption encrypts data transferred during migration. If VM encryption is enabled, this option is enabled automatically and cannot be disabled. If VM encryption is not enabled, this option is disabled by default and can be enabled as needed. The disk encryption state does not affect this option. For more information, see Interoperability with Other Features.
  5. Review the configuration and click OK.
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