Configure a new migration to replicate the workload from one site to another. After a successful replication, you can migrate the workload to a remote site for running it in the destination site.

Note: The target recovery point objective (RPO) for a migration always is 24 hours. For information about the RPO, see Replicating workloads.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.5 or later is deployed for selecting a sizing compute policy.
  • Verify that you can access VMware Cloud Director Availability as a tenant or as a service provider. For more information, see Accessing VMware Cloud Director Availability.

Procedure

  1. In the left pane, choose a replication direction by clicking Incoming Replications or Outgoing Replications.
    • Alternatively, from the on-premises vSphere Client either under the Hosts and Clusters or under the VMs and Templates inventories, right-click the virtual machine or from the Actions menu select:
      • Configure Protection
      • Configure Migration
      • Fast Migration
  2. After selecting the replication direction, initiate creating a new migration.
    • To configure the migration with all migration settings, click All Actions > New migration.
    • Alternatively, for one-click migration while skipping the settings, click All Actions > Fast migration. vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites do not allow one-click migration.
    One-click migration requires only selecting the source workloads for migration, skipping the migration settings configuration and allowing finishing the replication wizard or navigating back for configuring the settings.
  3. To create the migration, depending on the source and destination sites complete the New Migration wizard.
    • For on-premises site as source:
      • On the Source VMs page, select the source virtual machines, then click Next.

        For cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director as destination, optionally activate the Group VMs to a single vApp toggle.

      • (Optional) On the vApp Settings page that shows after activating the Group VMs to a single vApp toggle from the Source VMs page, if you enter the vApp name of an already existing vApp replication the selected virtual machines become part of that replication. Optionally, when migrating multiple virtual machines change their order of boot by dragging each row and set optional boot delay between each replicated virtual machine in the resulting vApp, then click Next.
    • For cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director as source:
      • On the Source VMs and vApps page, select the source workloads, then click Next.
    • For vSphere DR and migration from vCenter Server site to vCenter Server site as destination:
      • On the Datastore page, select the destination datastore for placing the recovered workloads, then click Next.
    • For cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director as destination:
      • On the Destination VDC and Storage policy page, select the destination virtual data center and the storage policy for placing the recovered workloads, then click Next.

      For seed vApps and virtual machines, the Replicator Service uses the storage policy of the seed.

      For VDCs that do not have replications to them, the Quota column shows Currently unavailable, and refreshes once every 10 minutes.

    • On the Settings page, configure the following migration settings depending on the source and destination sites, then click Next.

      One-click Fast migration skips the Settings page directly to the Ready to complete page. To configure the migration settings, click the Settings page, or alternatively, click Back.

    Option Description
    Compress replication traffic For an incoming migration to an on-premises site, to apply compression on the replication data traffic and reduce the network data traffic at the expense of CPU, leave this toggle activated.

    Disk Provisioning

    		 For vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites, select one of the following provisioning formats for the destination disk:
    • Thin Provision
    • Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed
    • Thick Provision Eager Zeroed
    For information about the disk provisioning, see Replicating Thin or Thick Provisioning Virtual Disks.
    Delay start synchronization
    • To start the initial synchronization when the wizard finishes, leave this toggle deactivated.
    • Alternatively, to schedule the start of the first synchronization, activate this toggle, then enter the local date and time.
    VDC policy settings
    • VDC VM placement policy
    • VDC VM sizing policy
    For a migration to a cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director, optionally from the drop-down menus, select the organization VDC compute policies to apply on the recovered workloads. For more information, see VDC compute policies.

    If you do not select a sizing policy for the replication, then VMware Cloud Director automatically applies the system default sizing policy on the destination virtual machine.
    Exclude disks Optionally, to select specific hard disks of the virtual machines for replicating to the destination site and reduce the replication data network traffic, activate this toggle.
    Configure Seed VMs For migration to or from a cloud site backed by VMware Cloud Director, optionally, to select a previous copy of the virtual machines in the destination site and reduce the replication data network traffic, activate this toggle.
    • (Optional) On the Replicated Disks page that shows after activating the Exclude disks toggle from the Settings page, deselect the disks of the selected workload to exclude from replicating, then click Next.
    • (Optional) On the Seed VM page, that shows after activating the Configure Seed VMs toggle from the Settings page, select a vApp or a virtual machine as a replication seed, then click Next.
    • On the Ready to complete page, verify that the migration settings are correct, then click Finish.

      One-click migration, once used, skips the migration settings configuration. You can still configure the migration settings, by clicking the Settings page, or alternatively, by clicking Back.

Results

After completing the wizard, in the Replication type column for this replication, you see a Migration state.

What to do next

You can migrate, or test, or fail over the workload to the destination site. For more information, see Migrate a replication or Test failover a replication or Failover of a replication.