Migrating an already created replication to a remote site runs the workload in the destination site, powering off the source workload.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the workload is already protected in the destination site, before performing a migrate. For more information, see Create a migration.
  • 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.
  • Verify that VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7 or later is deployed in both the source and in the destination sites for activating Change storage placement. Also, to change the storage placement after the migrate operation completes, depending on whether the virtual machines are configured to power-on in the destination site:
    • Powered-off migrated virtual machines
      Verify that Storage vMotion is setup between the initially selected storage in the existing replication and the newly selected one in this wizard.
    • Powered-on migrated virtual machines
      Verify that both vMotion and Storage vMotion are setup. For more information, see Migration with vMotion and Migration with Storage vMotion in the vSphere documentation.
  • Verify that for Cloud Director sites, VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7 or later is deployed in both the source and in the destination sites for:

Procedure

  1. In the left pane, choose a replication direction by clicking Incoming Replications or Outgoing Replications.
  2. Select an exiting replication to migrate over and click All actions > Migrate.
  3. Complete the Migrate wizard and depending on the source and destination sites configure the different migration settings for the selected workloads.
    • Start from step f for migrating to or from Cloud Director sites, skipping steps a-e.
    • Start from step a for vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites.
    1. The Replications page shows when a selected replication is already configured with recovery settings and to use them and skip to step f, select Use preset recovery settings where available.
      For information about configuring the recovery settings for vSphere DR and migration between vCenter Server sites, see Configure recovery settings for vSphere DR and migration.
    2. On the Storage placement page, to select a different placement for the recovered workload after the migrate completes, activate the Change storage placement toggle, then you must select a VM Storage Policy and a Placement Datastore , and click Next.
      Note: By selecting a different datastore than the selected one in the existing replication, results in move of the data after the migration completes, which can affect the performance of the VM until the operation completes. See the above Prerequisites for vMotion and Storage vMotion, depending on the selected power-on state in the destination site.

      Attempting to change the storage placement from an encrypted storage policy to a non-encrypted one and the other way round is not supported.

      All disks and the vmdk file move to the newly selected storage. If the VM cannot be moved to the new storage, it remains available and migrated in the original storage as configured in the existing replication.

      The VM can have only one storage profile assigned for all its disks, overriding any Use flexible storage profile assignment settings per disk.

      Change storage placement is not available for replications from a Cloud Director site as a source to an on-premises site as a destination.

    3. On the VM Folder page, select a destination location for storing the recovered virtual machines, then click Next.
    4. On the Compute Resource page, select a destination compute resource for the recovered virtual machines, then click Next.
    5. On the Network Mappings page, select a network mapping for each adapter connected to each virtual machine, then click Next.
    6. On the Migrate Settings page, select the configuration for the recovered workloads depending on the destination site, then click Next.
      Option Description
      Instances handling after recovery Both for migrations to Cloud Director sites and for vSphere DR and migration. Does not apply for migrations from a Cloud Director site to an On-premises site.
      • Default: selecting this option provides the lowest Recovery Time Objective (RTO). To optimize performance, perform instances consolidation after the recover task completes.
      • Expose PITs: only available for migrating already protected virtual machines to an on-premises site as a destination, selecting this option allows instances older than the selected instance to be exported as snapshots to the recovered virtual machine.
      • Consolidate: selecting this option consolidates all instances into the recovered disk. This can improve the runtime performance of the recovered virtual machine in the destination site but might significantly increase the RTO.
      Security tags For migrations to Cloud Director sites:

      To copy the security tags from the source virtual machine then during recovery apply them to the destination virtual machine, select the Copy security tags check box.
      Power settings
      Powers on the recovered workloads in the destination site after the migrate task completes.
      Note: In the source site, all source workloads in the replication power off after a successful recovery.
      Network Settings
      For migrations to Cloud Director sites:
      • Select Apply preconfigured network settings on failover, to assign the network configured during the virtual machine replication.
      • Select Connect all VMs to network and from the drop-down menu select a network to connect the replicated virtual machines to.
      VDC policy settings For migrations to Cloud Director sites:
      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, or select another VDC policy. For more information, see VDC compute policies.
      • 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.
      • Select a new storage placement after migrate completes from the Storage Profile drop-down menu. See the above Note in step b.
    7. On the Ready To Complete page, verify that the migration settings are correct, then click Finish.
      After completing the Migrate wizard, the migration workflow now executes the following steps:
      1. Synchronize, when the source workloads are powered-on.
      2. Power off, when the source workloads are powered-on.
      3. Synchronize, after the source workloads are powered-off.
      4. Import the recovered virtual machines in the destination site. The Last changed column shows the migrate progress in percentages. When the migration completes, the Recovery state column of this replication shows green state Failed-Over.

        The workload is now ready for use in the destination site. After the migrate task succeeds, the change storage policy task initiates.

      5. With Change storage placement active, then move the recovered virtual machines and their disks to the newly selected storage. In the bottom in the Tasks tab, a Recovered VM storage profile task shows the move execution to the new storage. While this task is progressing, the workload is ready to be used, with limited performance until the task finishes. The state of the change storage policy task does not affect the state of the priorly completed migrate task.
  4. (Optional) In the bottom pane, to monitor the progress of the task, click the Tasks tab.

Results

After the migrate task completes, the failed over workload runs in the destination site and the source workload powers off and is no longer protected.

What to do next

  • You can reverse and re-protect the workload back to the source site. For more information, see Reverse a Replication.
  • You can permanently stop the traffic of this replication, remove the replication and remove all retained replication instances, by clicking All actions > Delete replication then confirming the deletion.