VMotion Between Datacentres

[Braveheart1512]

Hi,

Sorry if this has been asked a million times before

We have a data centre setup in out head office with a 4 node HA and DRS cluster running around 50 Virtual servers. We are now looking at reviewing our DR plan and I was wondering if it is possible to VMotion to another data centre in a branch office connected by a 4mb link. If so does the branch office need ESX server or can I test vmotion using ESX3i in the branch office and use the local disks of the server to hold the VM's

Regards

John

[Yattong]

Hey

We have a data centre setup in out head office with a 4 node HA and DRS cluster running around 50 Virtual servers. We are now looking at reviewing our DR plan and I was wondering if it is possible to VMotion to another data centre in a branch office connected by a 4mb link. If so does the branch office need ESX server or can I test vmotion using ESX3i in the branch office and use the local disks of the server to hold the VM's

Vmotion pre-requisite are that VM's must be stored on 'shared storage'. So that both source ESX host and target ESX host hvae access to power on the VM

Another pre-req is a 1Gb vmotion network, even though I know some people are using 100Mb its not supported.

How is it setup in your VC? You have to remember also that, datacenter objects are vmotion boundaries too.

I think you may have to look into other DR solutions, maybe SRM (I have my VMware hat on)

Or if there are only a few VM's that need saving, manually scripting a copy of the VM's to your seconary site?

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

~y

[Braveheart1512]

Hi,

I have not set anything up yet in VC. I am still at the planning stage. If I powered off the Vm's and done a storage migration would this work?

Thanks

John

[Yattong]

Yeah, that will work.

You can cold migrate very easily with VC.

However, you'll be copying GBs data over your 4Mb link. Might take you a while.

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

~y

[Braveheart1512]

so the cold migration would work from ESX 3.5 to ESXi and back again ok?

We would need to increase the speed of the connection between the sites but that would be part of our DR review project

Thanks for your help

John

[Yattong · Accepted solution]

no problem,

Would you mind marking this thread as answered, and allocating some points pls. 🙂

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

~y

[stvkpln]

You'll want to make sure you have adequate licensing to connect the ESXi host to VC, if the plan is to use VC as the platform to perform the migration. The VC agent is not licensed as part of the free ESXi product (though it can be added).