Whats new in vSphere 6 vMotion Enhancements

VMware vSphere vMotion capabilities have been enhanced in this release, enabling users to perform live
migration of virtual machines across virtual switches, across vCenter Server systems, and across long distances
of up to 100ms RTT.
These new vSphere vMotion enhancements enable greater flexibility when designing vSphere architectures
that were previously restricted to a single vCenter Server system due to scalability limits and multisite or metro
design constraints. Because vCenter Server scale limits no longer are a boundary for pools of compute
resources, much larger vSphere environments are now possible.
vSphere administrators now can migrate across vCenter Server systems, enabling migration from a Windows
version of vCenter Server to vCenter Server Appliance or vice versa, depending on specific requirements.
Previously, this was a difficult task and caused a disruption to virtual machine management. This can now be
accomplished seamlessly without losing historical data about the virtual machine.
Cross vSwitch vMotion

Cross vSwitch vMotion allows you to seamless migrate a virtual machines across different virtual switches
while performing a vMotion. This means that you are now longer restricted by the network you created on the
vSwitches in order to vMotion a virtual machine.
With this new functionality you can now migrate a virtual machine to a new cluster with a separate vDS
without interruption for instance during datacenter migrations. This further increases agility, reducing the time
it takes to replace/refresh hardware and increases availability during planned maintenance activities.
For this to work you need the source and destination portgroups to share the same L2. The IP address within
the VM will not change.
vMotion will work across a mix of switches (standard and distributed). Previously, you could only vMotion
from vSS to vSS or within a single vDS. This limitation has been removed. The following Cross vSwitch
vMotion migrations are possible:

vSStovSS.
vSStovDS.
vDStovDS.
vDStoVSSisnotallowed.

Cro
oss vCenter v
vMotion

Butt Cross vSwiitch vMotionn is not the only

o
vMotion
n enhancemeent. vSpheree 6 also introoduces suppo
ort for Crosss
vCeenter vMotioon. vMotion can now perrform the following channges simultaaneously:

Changeccompute(vMotion)Perfo
ormsthemiggrationofvirtualmachinessacrosscomp
putehosts.
Changesstorage(StoraagevMotion))Performstthemigration
nofthevirtuaalmachinedissksacrossdattastores.
Changen
network(CrosssvSwitchvM
Motion)PerformsthemigrationofaV
VMacrossdiffferentvirtualswitches.
ChangevvCenter(CrosssvCentervM
Motion)PerfformsthemiggrationoftheevCenterwhiichmanagesttheVM.

All of these typpes of vMotioon are seamlless to the gu

uest OS.

Lik
ke with vSwitch vMotionn, Cross vCeenter vMotion requires L2
L network cconnectivity since the IP of the VM
willl not be channged. This fuunctionality builds upon Enhanced vMotion
v
andd shared storaage is not required.
Tarrget support ffor local (sinngle site), m
metro (multiple well-connnected sites),, and cross-ccontinental sites.
s
Witth vSphere 6 vMotion yoou can now:

MigratefromaVCSAtoaWindow
wsversionofvvCenter&viceversa.
Replace//retirevCenteerserverwith
houtdistruption.
Resourceepoolingacro
ossvCenterswhereadditio
onalvCentersswereusedd
duetovCenteerscalabilityllimits.
MigrateVMsacrosslo
ocal,metro,aandcontinenttaldistances.
Public/PrrivatecloudeenvironmentsswithseverallvCenters.

Theere are severral requiremeents for Crosss vCenter vMotion

v
to work:
w

OnlyvCeenter6.0andgreaterwillb
besupported.AllinstancessofvCenterp
priortoversio
on6.0willneeedtobe
upgraded
dbeforethisthisfeaturew
willwork.Forrexample,an
ninstanceofvvCenter5.5and6.0willno
otwork.
Boththeesourceandtthedestinatio
onvCenterse
erverswillneeedtobejoineedtothesam
meSSOdomainifyouwantt
toperforrmthevMotionusingthevSphereWeb
bClient.IftheevCenterservversarejoineedtodifferen
ntSSO
domains,itsstillposssibletoperformaCrossvC
CentervMotio
on,butyoum
mustusetheA
API.
Youwillneedatleast250Mbpsoffavailablenetworkbandw
widthpervMo
otionoperatio
on.
Lastly,althoughnotteechnicallyreq
quiredforthe
evMotiontosuccessfullyccomplete,L2connectivityisrequired
ontheso
ourceanddesstinationporttgroups.Whe
enaCrossvCeentervMotio
onisperformeed,aCrossvSSwitch
2

vMotionisdoneaswell.Thevirtuaalmachinepo
ortgroupsforrtheVMwilln
needtheshareanL2netw
workbecause
theIPwiillwithinthegguestOSwillnotbeupdatted.

These are somee of the featuures with Crross vCenter vMotion:

TheVMUUIDorVMIInstanceIDw
willalwaysrem
mainthesameacrossallvC
Centerserverrsintheenvirronment.This
isnottheesameastheeManagedID
D,MoRef,orB
BIOSUUID.UUIDlocationisfoundinth
hevmxfileun
nderthetitle
vc.uuid
Thehisto
oricaldataan
ndsettingsforrtheVMareretainedwheenitsmigrateedusingCrosssvCentervM
Motion.This
includesEvents,Alarm
msandTaskh
history.Performancedataisonlykepto
onthesourceevCenterservver.
AdditionallyHA/DRSssettingsthatwillpersistaffterthevMottionare:
o Affinity/AntiA
A
AffinityRuless
o Automationle
A
evel
o Startupprior
S
rity
o Hostisolation
H
nresponse
Thesearetheresourccesettingsthatbemigrate
ed:
o ResourceSett
R
tings
o Shares
S
o Reservations
R
o Limits
L
MACAdd
dressaregen
neratedinsucchawaytheyyareguaranteeedtobeuniq
quetothatvCenterserver.WhenaVM
M
ismigrattedoffavCen
nterserveritw
willkeepthesameMACaddressattheedestinationvCenter.Add
ditionally,thatt
MACadd
dressisadded
dtoalocalblacklistonthe
esourcevCen
nterservertoguaranteeth
hatserverdoesnotreuse
thatMAC
CaddressinccaseithappenstogenerattethesameM
MACforanew
wVM.

Lon
ng distance v
vMotion

Lon
ng Distance vvMotion is an
a extensionn of Cross vC
Center vMotion howeverr targeted forr environmeents where
vCeenter serverss are spread across
a
large geographic distances annd where thee latency acrooss sites is 100ms or
lesss.
Althhough spread across a loong distance, all the stan
ndard vMotioon guaranteees are honoreed. This doess not requiree
VV
VOLs to workk. A VMFS//NFS system
m will work also.
a

With Longg Distance vvMotion youu can now:

MigrateVMsacrossp
physicalserveersthatspreadacrossalarrgegeographicdistancewithoutinterru
uptionto
applications
Performapermanenttmigrationfo
orVMsinano
otherdatacen
nter.
MigrateVMstoanoth
hersitetoavo
oidimminenttdisaster.
DistributteVMsacrossssitestobalaancesystemlo
oad.
3

Followth
hesunsupport.

Theere are severral requiremeents for Longg Distance vMotion

v
to work:
w

Therequ
uirementsforrLongDistanccevMotionarrethesameaasCrossvCen
ntervMotion,exceptwithttheaddition
ofthemaximumlaten
ncybetweenthesourcean
nddestinationsitesmustbe100msorrless,andtheereis250
Mbpsofavailableban
ndwidth.
Tostresssthepoint:Th
heVMnetwo
orkwillneedttobeastretcchedL2becau
usetheIPofttheguestOSwillnot
change.Ifthedestinaationportgrou
upisnotinth
hesameL2do
omainasthesource,youw
willlosenetw
work
uestOS.Thism
meansinsom
metopologiess,suchasmettroorcrossccontinental,youwillneed
connectivitytothegu
astretch
hedL2techno
ologyinplace.Thestretche
edL2technollogiesarenottspecified.Anytechnologythatcan
presentttheL2networktothevSpherehostswillwork,asitsunbeknown
ntoESXhowthephysicalnetworkis
configureed.Someexaamplesoftech
hnologiesthaatwouldworkkareVXLAN,NSXL2Gatew
wayServices,,orGIF/GRE
tunnels.
Thereisnodefinedm
maximumdistancethatwillbesupporteedaslongastthenetworkm
meetsthese
requirem
ments.Yourm
mileagemayvvary,butaree
eventuallyconstrainedbythelawsofp
physics.
ThevMo
otionnetworkkcannowbeconfiguredto
ooperateoveeranL3connection.

Rep
plicationAssisted vMottion

Rep
plication-assisted vMotioon enables customers, with
w active-acctive replicattion set up between
b
two sites, to
perfform a moree efficient vM
Motion resulting in huge time and resource savinngs. With Reeplication-asssisted
vMotion custom
mers can savve as much as 95 percentt more efficieent dependinng on the sizze of the dataa.
Incrreased vMotion Networrk Flexibilitty

In addition
a
to a multiple nettwork stack,, NFC trafficc can be isolaated from otther traffic. This
T allows operations
o
suchh as cloningg from a tempplate to be seent over a deedicated netw
work rather than sharingg the manageement
netw
work as in prrevious verssions. This alllows more fine
f tuned coontrol of nettwork resourrces.
Thee next versioon of ESXi will
w have muultiple TCP/IP stacks. Thhis allows thee vSphere seervices to opperate with
theiir own:

MemoryyHeap.
ARPTablles.
RoutingTTable.
DefaultG
Gateway.

Previously ESX had only one networking stack. This improves scalability and offers flexibility by isolating
vSphere services to their own stack. This also allows vMotion to work over dedicated Layer 3 network.