Vmotion between 2 remote hosts on the same site

[GeraldoMagellaJ]

Hey everyone. I'm new to a company that has 2 vCenter servers, one in each datacenter, and we have some standa-alone servers (not clustered) in some locations.

All the hosts are licensed with Enterprise plus. Let me draw the locations so you'll have an Idea:

VCenter1

-Datacenter1 (remote dc 01)

** Host1

...

** Host15

VCenter 2

-Datacenter2 (remote dc 01)

** Host16

...

** Host30

-Datacenter 3 (Local network)

**HostLocal1

**HostLocal2

That make sense, as I have 15 hosts on Datacenter 1 and 2. We use VCenter 2 to manage HostLocal1 and HostLocal2, but we don't cluster them together and we don't vMotion among them, because all the vMotion traffic would have to go to vCenter and Then to the second host, is that right? Is there a way to prevent that?

Let me rephrase that: The VMotion traffic would be like this:

HostLocal1 --> VCenter 2 ---> HostLocal2

Or:

HostLocal1 --> HostLocal2.

Writing this question down make me realize that my assumption is incorrect, vMotion traffic has nothing to do with VCenter, traffig flows from those 2 servers. Can anyone confirm?

Thanks a lot for your time.

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

We use VCenter 2 to manage HostLocal1 and HostLocal2, but we don't cluster them together and we don't vMotion among them, because all the vMotion traffic would have to go to vCenter and Then to the second host, is that right? Is there a way to prevent that?

Let me rephrase that: The VMotion traffic would be like this:

HostLocal1 --> VCenter 2 ---> HostLocal2

Or:

HostLocal1 --> HostLocal2.

vMotion traffic only flows directly between the source and destination ESX(i) host. The assumption that vMotion traffic flows through vCenter is flat-out wrong. vCenter is merely needed to initiate/control the vMotion between the hosts, but it's completely left out from the data that is transferred between hosts for moving the VM.

The assumption that you need a cluster object for vMotion or that clustering automatically implies vMotion is wrong as well.

[GeraldoMagellaJ]

Actually, when writing the question that hit me as a truck. It would be completely dumb doing that way.

Thanks for the clarification/confirmation anyways.