topic Re: VM/vAPP migration across VCD sites (multisite) in VMware vCloud Director Discussions

VM/vAPP migration across VCD sites (multisite)

rguhr — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 14:57:24 GMT

Hi,
we setup multisite with two VCD instances. Customers now can view and manage their virtual data centers across sites with single login.

However, we have not found a way for customers to migrate workload from one site to another.
The normal way within the same site would be the Move action on VMs (you need a target vAPP for this) but in the Move dialog you can only select vApps from the same site.

Does migration work differently for multisite or is there really no option for customers at the moment (without help from the service provider)?
(The underlying vCenters can migrate workloads via Cross vCenter Migration)

Re: VM/vAPP migration across VCD sites (multisite)

Sreec — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 18:14:08 GMT

The multisite association is primarily for the ease of VDC management and monitoring. Considering your use case, you need to integrate a unique VCDA for each VCD instance and replicate the required workloads for failover/migration.

Re: VM/vAPP migration across VCD sites (multisite)

rguhr — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 15:18:44 GMT

Thanks for you answer.

VMware support also suggested the VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA).
It is a pity that the VCD has not integrated this directly itself.

Some other ways could be (not tested):
* Convert the VM to a vApp template, place the template in a catalog, subscribe the catalog on the other side and then deploy the template
* Convert the VM to a vApp, download the vApp as OVA and import the OVA on the other side
* Other 3rd-party tools like Veeam