vMotion Live Migration

[jlnmrx]

Dear,

I recently performed the host and datastore migration of some VMs using vMotion in the vSphere Client 5.5 environment. The migrations were successfully completed. VMs are running and no alert or error has been received.

However, I can still see the folder of some VMs navigating in the old datastore. Some folders contain ".VMDK", ".png" and ".log", others contain only ".png" files and others without content.

I need to empty the old datastore, but I'm not sure deleting those folders will damage the migrated VMs.

Can anyone help me with this?

Thank you very much in advance.

Greetings,

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

These are very often "junk" files left behind post migration and removing them should not harm running VMs. They are often either orphaned disks or screenshots of the console at a particular moment in time past. While it's always good to get confirmation, you can probably remove them.

[a_p_]

Deleting the .png, and .log files will not cause any issues.

However, you need to be very careful with any *.vm* files. One easy way to find out whether e.g. .vmdk files are still in use is to run RVTools (https://www.robware.net/rvtools/), and check for "zombie files" in the "vHealth" tab.

If you are still insure, it may be a good idea to either move the files to a new sub-directory, or rename the directory prior to finally deleting the files/folders. If the files are in use by any powered on VM, renaming will be denied.

André

[IRIX201110141]

About the *.png.  IIRC earlier(current?) behaviour is that if a VM crashed and the VM Monitoring for VM was active it creates a Screenshot if the crash  occures.  Yes you can also create a screenshot with the help of the APIs.

When investigating older or long living vSphere environments they leave all kind of waste behind.

- Admins removed VMs/vDisk from inventory instead deleting

- Abortet svMotions

- VM Helper Snapshots

- vRanger Replication VMs leave some weird files behind

- Rescue Operations on the Snapshot chains

- and so on

Does RVtools comes with a feature to list non active vDisk? It lists VMs in the Healthtab for sure.

Otherwise you can run some   find, grep on every *.vmx to to find a reference to your *.vmdk. But most likely you can remove it.

Regards,

Joerg

[jlnmrx]

Friends,

Thank you!

Sorry for the delay in returning them a feedback!

After verifying more in detail I was able to verify that they are even "junk" files as we imagined, being previous states of the migrated machines that were not moved by vMotion.

I sent them to a local area to be discarded by the administrator of our VMWare environment later and this did not affect the operation of the VMs.

Greetings,

Merry Christmas! ^^

[ChrisFD2]

Excellent suggestion a.p.​

RVtools is fantastic and it should be used by anyone who is administering VMware.