Move a Virtual Machine to a Different vApp

You can move a virtual machine to another vApp. When you move a VM, VMware Cloud Director removes the original VM from the source vApp.

When you move a VM to a different vApp, the snapshots that you have taken are lost.

Moving VMs across different vApps relies on VMware vSphere^® vMotion^® and Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC). You can move a VM to a different vApp that belongs to the same or another organization VDC within the same organization. The organization VDC can be within the same or a different provider VDC.

While you are moving a virtual machine to a different vApp, you can perform reconfigurations such as changing the network and the storage profile.

Table 1. Reconfigurations During Virtual Machine Movements and Virtual Machine States

Reconfiguration	VM state if the target vApp is in the same organization VDC	VM state if the target vApp in another organization VDC within the same provider VDC
change the network	powered off	N/A
remove the network	powered on or off	N/A
change the storage profile	powered on or off	powered off

When you move a VM to a different vApp, VMware Cloud Director automatically copies any attached Trusted Platform Module (TPM) device. For more information on VMs with TPM devices, see Working with Virtual Machines.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you have the vApp Author role or an equivalent set of rights.

• Verify that the underlying vSphere resources support vMotion and EVC. For information about the requirements and limitations of vMotion and EVC, see vCenter Server and Host Management.

• If you want to change the VM network or the storage profile, check whether you must power off the VM. See table Reconfigurations During VM Movements and VM States.

• For VMware Cloud Director 10.4.2 and later, if you want work with VMs with TPM devices, verify that the following criteria are met.
  • A VDC that supports TPM backs the VM.
  • For operations across vCenter Server instances, verify that the key provider used to encrypt each VM is registered on the target vCenter Server instance under the same name.
  • For operations across vCenter Server instances, verify that the VM and the target vCenter Server instance are on the same shared storage or that fast cross vCenter Server vApp instantiation is enabled. See the fast cross vCenter Server vApp instantiation information in the VMware Cloud Director 10.4 Release Notes.

Procedure

1. On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.
2. Click to view the list in a card view and, optionally, arrange the list of virtual machines from the Sort by drop-down menu.
3. From the Actions menu of the machine you want to move, select Move.
4. Select the destination vApp, and click Next.
5. Configure the resources, such as the name of the VM, computer name, VM storage policy and, optionally, configure the storage policies for each disk and NICs.
   Important: The computer name can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. It cannot consist of digits only and cannot contain spaces.

   If you specify a remote datastore as a storage policy, all objects that make up the VM must reside on the same remote datastore.
6. Click Next.
7. On the Ready to Complete page review your settings and click Done.