Virtualization is a popular technology because it helps companies centralize and better utilize the hardware resources.
IT administrators need to know the differences between physical and virtual environment. One of the aspects is virtual machine migration. The migration procedure in virtual environment is different from physical machine migration.
What is virtual machine migration?
virtual machine migration means moving virtual machine from one host to another. The migration content could be only the compute resource or storage, or both of them.
Moving virtual machine can help balance the load and find the proper environment. Except for manual VM migration, HA and DRS will also help guarantee virtual environment performance.
There are generally 2 kinds of migration, cold migration and hot migration. Cold migration requires IT administrators to shut down the VM before migrating the VM while hot migration allows IT administrators to move VM while it is running, greatly reducing downtime.
Guest machines are the folder on the host. IT administrators can export the folder of VM and then import the VM to another host to perform VM migration. Some platforms can help users export VM with GUI, while some open-source platforms require users to export and import VM with command lines.
There are several virtual machine migration tools released by virtualization service vendors, like VMware vSphere, Hyper-V Manager, XenCenter, etc. IT administrators can also export only virtual disks to create new VM on another server.
VM migration can be not only performed in homogeneous virtual environment. Heterogeneous virtual environment is accepted by more and more companies so cross-platform migration is often needed. Virtualization service vendors often provide only the service to import VM from other platforms. To freely move VM between different virtual platforms, you can use Vinchin Backup & Recovery.
The following sections will give some virtual machine migration examples.
How to migrate VMware virtual machine?
The often-used migration tool for VMware is vCenter. vCenter is a powerful VMware management tool which allows IT administrators to move VM in every way, including moving compute source, storage, and moving VM between vCenters.
The most significant feature is vMotion which allows IT administrators to move VM while it is running but this requires specific licenses and configuration.
Log into vCenter > right-click the virtual machine > select Migrate > select a Migration Type > follow the wizard to select the destination host and storage and complete the rest procedures
How to migrate Hyper-V virtual machine?
Hyper-V Manager is the virtual machine manager for Hyper-V virtual environment. This application will be automatically installed with Hyper-V feature enabled.
The source server and destination server need to be added to Hyper-V Manager in advance.
Right-click Hyper-V Manager > select Connect to Server
After that, Hyper-V VM can be moved to another host.
Right-click the virtual machine > select Move > follow the move wizard to migrate Hyper-V virtual machine
How to migrate KVM virtual machine?
KVM VM can be exported and imported with virsh command. It might be complicated to move multiple VMs so you can use another virtual machine manager virt-manager to move KVM virtual machine.
Right-click the VM in virt-manager > select Migrate > select a destination host in the pop-up > click Migrate
How to migrate Xen virtual machine?
Xen-based virtual machine on XenServer or XCP-ng can be managed by XenCenter and Xen Orchestra. They can help export, import, and migrate Xen virtual machine.
In XenCenter, right-click the VM > select Migrate to Server (for hot migration) or Move VM ( for cold migration) > follow the migration wizard to configure the task.
How to migrate VM with Vinchin Backup & Recovery?
Every virtualization platform only releases tool for importing VM from other platforms. The migration procedures will be complicated with multiple migrations tools used in virtual environment. To easily migrate VM between different virtualization host with one tool, you can select Vinchin Backup & Recovery.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery is professional backup and disaster recovery solution which can be used to manage multiple virtualization platforms like VMware vSphere, Red Hat Virtualization, oVirt, XenServer, XCP-ng, oVirt, OpenStack, etc.
You can add all the servers from different platforms to Vinchin backup server for centralized management. The migration process is simple. You just need to backup virtual machine agentlessly, and then select a new host to recover the VM. Migration wizard will help you easily complete the process.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery has been selected by thousands of companies. You can also start to use this brilliant system with a 60-day full-featured free trial. Just click the button to get the installation package.
Sum Up
Virtual environments are used in many companies. IT administrators need to know virtual machine migration methods to manage virtual environment.
The above sections have introduced several migration tools including vCenter, Hyper-V Manager, virt-manager, XenCenter, Xen Orchestra, etc.
You can also select Vinchin Backup & Recovery to manage multiple virtualization platforms. Don't miss the free trial.
