Migration with vMotion, also known as hot migration or live migration, moves a powered-on VM from one host or datastore to another. Migration with vMotion is the best option for migrating small numbers of VMs without incurring any downtime.

To implement migration with vMotion, you can use command-line (PowerShell) or API automation.

You can also use Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion to migrate workloads from your on-premises environments to your cloud environments. With Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion, you can move or clone workloads across vCenter Server systems in different vCenter Single Sign-On domains. For more information, see Export or Clone a Virtual Machine in the vCenter Server and Host Management guide.

Summary of Supported Configurations

Your on-premises vSphere installation must be one of the following:
  • vSphere 6.7U2 or higher.
  • vSphere 6.5P03 or higher.
See VMware Knowledge Base article 56991 for more information.

Restrictions on VMs Migrated with vMotion

The restrictions on migration with vMotion that apply to VMs previously migrated from on-premises data centers are as follows:

  • VMs that use standard virtual switches for networking cannot be migrated back to an on-premises data center after being migrated to the cloud SDDC.
  • Any VM that has been power-cycled in the cloud SDDC can only be migrated back to an on-premises host or cluster with the Broadwell or later chipset.
  • If your on-premises hosts haven't been patched to address vulnerability to side channel analysis due to speculative execution (also referred to as the Spectre Variant 2 vulnerability), this may affect vMotion compatibility as shown in vMotion Compatibility Effects of Spectre patch. To find the correct patch for your on-premises hosts, see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52245. All hosts in VMware Cloud on Public Cloud SDDCs have been patched.
Table 1. vMotion Compatibility Effects of Spectre patch
On-premises Host Processor Family and Patch Status Virtual Machine Hardware Version Has the VM been power-cycled in VMware Cloud on Public Cloud SDDC? vMotion from On-premises to VMware Cloud on Public Cloud vMotion from VMware Cloud on Public Cloud to On-premises
Broadwell (SPECTRE patched) < 9 No Supported Supported
Yes Supported Supported
9-13 No Supported Supported
Yes Supported Supported
Broadwell (Not SPECTRE patched) < 9 No Supported Not supported
Yes Supported Not supported
9-13 No Supported Supported
Yes Supported Not supported
Non-Broadwell < 9 No Not supported Supported
Yes Not supported Not supported
9-13 No Supported Supported
Yes Supported Not supported
Note: You can find the Virtual Machine Hardware Version on the Summary tab for the virtual machine. You can find the host processor type on the Summary tab for the host. For a list of processor types in the Broadwell processor family, see https://ark.intel.com/products/codename/38530/Broadwell.

These restrictions don't apply to cold migration.