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Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion

Mark

Updated: Feb 20, 2024

What is it?

Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion was a new feature introduced in vSphere 7.0 U1c. It actually existed for a few years beforehand, but only as a VMware fling. It was only with the release of vSphere 7.0U1c that it became an official part of the product.


Whereas Cross vCenter vMotion can vMotion VMs between two vCenters in the same SSO domain, Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion, migrates VMs between two different SSO domains.


When to use it?

In my environment, I had to upgrade a 6.7 platform to version 7.0. I decided to do a clean install rather than upgrade the existing platform, so I built an a

ll new platform using a separate SSO domain. I then used this feature to migrate the VMs between the 2 platforms.


How to use it?


In order to migrate the VMs from 6.7 to 7.0, go to your new vCenter, right click the cluster, and as long as the vCenter is 7.0 U1c or later, you will have a new Import VMs option as shown.











When you click Import VMs it will start the Advanced xvMotion wizard, the first step of which is to connect to the remote 6.7 vCenter. Enter the details and login



Once connected, you will see a list of VMs on the Remote vCenter. Select the VM you wish to migrate, run through the wizard, selecting the desired host and storage settings, then begin the Advanced xvMotion process. How long it takes will depend on the size of the VM, and the speed of connections between your endpoints.



If all goes well, you should be able to vMotion all of the VMs necessary with no downtime. Obviously you'll need to have the same port groups configured on both ends. We migrated over 400 VMs using this method, without any issues and no downtime.


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