Storage vMotion a powered-off VM?

[klancy43]

excuse me, 

does anyone have experience on cold migration of VM from a datastore to another?

the storage vmotion allows VM to be migrated to another storage in a running state, so the related license is required.

But what about the minimum requirement when migrating a VM from a datastore to another one(only the storage changes)?

does vmotion kernel still necessary?

[RajeevVCP4 · Accepted solution]

Only vmkernel necessary , if you disabled vmotion protogroup too only storage vmotion continue work.

[Arvind_Kumar11]

Yup, vmotion kernel is necessary even for powered off VM

[hadjer1]

Hello,

Yes, as the other contributers said, you need a vMotion vmkernel. However, you don't need to create one, you can activate vMotion service on another vmkernel such as the managment vmkernel.

Regards,

Kodus if you find my answer useful.

[nblr06]

Not sure whether migrating powered-off VM between storages requires an advanced level of license or not.

But vMotion vmkernel will be used.

[Lalegre]

Hello @klancy43,

Actually when you are moving a powered-off VM it is considered as Cold Migration and that traffic by default goes over the Management VMkernel or the Provisioning one in case you have one configured. This is well explained on the last section of this page: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc/GUID-98C18721-A4B0-...

Also, if you want to see it real time, you can connect to the ESXi where the VM is, run "esxtop" and then press "n" to see where the traffic is going.

[RajeevVCP4]

for only storage vmotion, no need vmotion port group/vmkernel