Create a migration

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: With VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7.2 and later, you can create a replication for a virtual machine (VM) with enabled virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM), and with full, partial, or no encryption of the attached storage disks. You can also create a replication for a non-encrypted VM and encypt the VM as a part of the replication process. For more information, see Create a replication for encrypted virtual machines.

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 4.7 or later is deployed in both the source and in the destination sites.
Verify that you can access VMware Cloud Director Availability as a tenant or as a provider. For more information, see Accessing VMware Cloud Director Availability.

Procedure

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
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.

To create the migration, depending on the source and destination sites complete the New Migration wizard.

For an on-premises site as a source and a Cloud Director site as a destination:
1. On the Source VMs page, select the source virtual machines, then click Next.
  To unite the selected virtual machines in one vApp, activate the Group VMs to a single vApp toggle.
2. On the vApp Settings page, that shows after activating Group VMs to a single vApp, you must enter a vApp name for the group. By entering the vApp name of an already existing vApp replication the selected virtual machines become part of that replication. Optionally, when protecting 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.
3. On the Destination VDC and Storage policy page, select the destination virtual data center. Then, either select the storage policy for placing the recovered workloads and click Next, or to configure seed and flexible storage profile assignment, activate the Advanced Datastore Settings toggle.
For a Cloud Director site as a source:
- On the Source VMs and vApps page, select the source workloads, then click Next.
- For an on-premises site as a destination: to configure seed and flexible storage profile assignment on the next page, activate the Advanced Datastore Settings toggle. Then, click Next.
- For a Cloud Director site as a destination: on the Destination VDC and Storage policy page, select the destination virtual data center. Then, either select the storage policy for placing the recovered workloads, or to configure seed and flexible storage profile assignment, activate the Advanced Datastore Settings toggle.
For vSphere DR and migration to a vCenter Server site as a destination:
1. On the Source VMs page, select the source virtual machines, then click Next.
2. On the Datastore page, either select the VM storage policy and destination datastore for placing the recovered workloads, or to configure seed and flexible storage profile assignment, activate the Advanced Datastore Settings toggle.

Under Advanced Datastore Settings, when activated, configure the following settings for the destination datastore of each virtual machine in the replication:
1. In the left pane under VM name, click on a virtual machine to configure its advanced datastore settings.
2. In the right pane under Use a seed VM, to lower the network data traffic and the required time for the initial synchronization by copying only the different data blocks from the source workload and reuse the seed data as a basis for replicating, activate the Configure with seed VM toggle.
3. Under Use flexible storage profile assignment, you can replicate one virtual machine to multiple datastores. For example, place one of its disks on a separate datastore, or split some disks from the .vmx file.
  Configuration files
  
  This section does not show for replications from a Cloud Director site as a source to an on-premises site as a destination as it already uses the on-premises placement.
  - From the VM Storage Policy drop-down menu, select the storage policy for the replicated workload configuration files in the destination site.
  - For vSphere DR and migration, from the VM Placement Datastore drop-down menu, select the destination datastore for the replicated workload configuration files.
  - To apply the same to all disks, click Apply,
  Note: From the Disk inclusion drop-down menu, optionally select either to Include All or to Exclude All disks from the VM in the destination. Without any disks selected for replication, you cannot continue.
  Disk X
  - For each disk in the selected VM, under Disk X, to include this disk in the replicated virtual machine, activate the Replicate toggle.
  - From the Storage policy drop-down menu, select a storage policy for this disk. For a Cloud Director site as a destination, this option requires RTVM placement. For more information, see Replication tracking placement solution. This menu does not show for replications from a Cloud Director site as a source to an on-premises site as a destination as it already uses the on-premises placement.
  - For vSphere DR and migration, from the Placement Datastore drop-down menu select a placement datastore for this disk.
4. After configuring the advanced datastore settings for all needed virtual machines in the replication, click Next.
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	To apply compression on the replication data traffic and reduce the network data traffic at the expense of CPU, activate this toggle.
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.

Option	Description
VDC policy settings	For a Cloud Director site as a destination: Note: When a VDC policy with the same name already applies on the source workload, it is pre-selected for you. You can choose to either keep it and continue, or select another VDC policy. Select the organization placement policy to apply on the recovered workloads from the VM placement policy drop-down menu. Select the organization sizing policy from the VM sizing policy drop-down menu. With no sizing policy selected for the replication, VMware Cloud Director automatically applies the system default sizing policy on the destination virtual machine. For more information, see VDC compute policies.

Option

Description

VDC policy settings

For a Cloud Director site as a destination:

Note: When a VDC policy with the same name already applies on the source workload, it is pre-selected for you. You can choose to either keep it and continue, or select another VDC policy.

Select the organization placement policy to apply on the recovered workloads from the VM placement policy drop-down menu.
Select the organization sizing policy from the VM sizing policy drop-down menu. With no sizing policy selected for the replication, VMware Cloud Director automatically applies the system default sizing policy on the destination virtual machine.

For more information, see VDC compute policies.

On the Ready to complete page, verify the selected settings, 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.