Migrating Virtual Machines with Mobility Groups

Mobility Groups is an HCX service that supports assembling one or more virtual machines into logical sets, for execution and monitoring of migrations as a group.

With Mobility Groups, you have the flexibility to manage migrations for sets of virtual machines by application, network, pod, or other aspects of your environment.

For paired vSphere-based sites, migrations are always started from the local HCX Connector or Cloud system that initiated site pairing. In Cloud-to-Cloud deployments with bidirectional site pairing, HCX in both paired sites can initiate migrations. For more information, see Add a Site Pair.

For non-vSphere site pairs, migrations are always from the non-vSphere site to the HCX destination site.

The HCX system automatically detects virtual machine disk additions or removals and reconfigures running migrations to accommodate these changes. These disk changes are honored only if the changes occur before the migration switchover phase. If disk changes occur during the switchover phase, the changes are not recognized, which can affect the success of the migration operation. Support for adding or removing disks is available only with Bulk and Replication Assisted vMotion migrations.

For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, you can add additional VMs to the group and change configuration settings on a VM only while all VMs in the group are in Draft state. If any one VM in the group starts migration, you can make no further changes to any of the VMs that are members of that group.

Taking snapshots of a VM during migration, either manually or using a third-party backup solution, can disrupt the migration process. To prevent any impact, it is required to stop those services that may create or remove snapshots during migration. Refer to KB79220 for more information.

For Bulk, vMotion, and RAV migration types, you can select a Service Mesh to use for migration operations. For each HCX site pair, you can have one or more Service Meshes. Each Service Mesh configuration has a specific resource and network configuration. In some cases, you might choose a specific Service Mesh to use for migrations based on the mesh configuration. If no Service Mesh is selected for a migration, HCX automatically selects the Service Mesh to use. To add a Service Mesh for a site pair, see Configuring the HCX Service Mesh.

Note:

The selectable Service Mesh option requires that both the source and destination sites run HCX 4.8 or later.

For the operational limits supported with HCX migrations, see Configuration and Service Limits.

Prerequisites

General:
- The migration service is activated in both the source and destination site Compute Profile.
- The migration service is activated in the HCX Service Mesh.
- Information regarding each migration type is reviewed and understood. For more information, refer to VMware HCX Migration Types.
Workload Migration for NSX V2T:
- NSX Migration Coordinator pre-migration configuration is done prior to configuring Mobility Groups for Workload Migration for NSX V2T. For more information, see "End-to-end Workflow of Configuration and Edge Migration," in Configuration and Edge Migration Workflow.
- For NSX V2T migrations in a Federated NSX environment, prior to performing migrations you must configure (register) HCX with the Global Manager running the Migration Coordinator in addition to the Local Manager. See Configure NSX V2T Migration for Federated NSX Architectures.
  Note: By configuring HCX with the NSX Global and Local managers, you can migrate to or from an NSX Federated environment using all migration types: Bulk, Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV), vMotion.

Procedure

In the HCX Manager UI, navigate to Services > Migration.

The Migration Management interface displays a summary of existing groups for a site pair. For detailed group information, you can expand each group.
Click Migrate.
HCX displays a list of site pairs for migration.
Note: If you have only one site pair, it is selected by default.
For OS Assisted Migration, select an entry with Non vSphere Inventory. These entries provide the inventory of guest virtual machines on which you installed HCX Sentinel software.
Select a Remote Site Connection.

The Workload Mobility interface displays the inventory virtual machines workloads that are available for migration and that can be added to a group. To filter the display, you can select the Hosts and Clusters (default), Networks, or Datastore icon . Alternatively, you can use a regular expression search to filter the list of virtual machines by name.

Note:
For non-vSphere site pairs, the Network and Datastore filters are not available.
(Optional) To display a list of remote site virtual machines available for the reverse migration, click the Reverse Migration check box.
Reverse migration refers to the migration of virtual machines from an HCX destination site to a source site.
Note:
Workload Migration for NSX V2T does not support reverse migration.
Specify a Group Name.
If no group name is provided, the system automatically assigns a five character identifier as the group name. You can change this name later by editing the group information. See Managing Mobility Groups.
For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, check the box labeled V2T-Migration.
Select the set of virtual machines to include in the group and click Add.

The Transfer and Placement configuration screen appears.

Note:
To add additional virtual machines to the group, click Select VMs for Migration. For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, you can add additional VMs to the group and change configuration settings on a VM only while all VMs in the group are in Draft state. If any one VM in the group starts migration, you can make no further changes to any of the VMs that are members of that group.
Select the group Transfer and Placement, Switchover, Interconnect Service Mesh, and Extended options.
The settings you provide are applied to all members of the group by default. To override the default settings for specific virtual machines in the group, select and expand the virtual machine entry, and set different options. For additional information regarding these options, see Additional Migration Settings.
Note:
- For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, the Migration Profile is not selectable and this field is empty.
- For V2T and HCX Assisted vMotion (Direct), the Interconnect Service Mesh selection is not available.
- You can set the switchover schedule for Bulk, Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV), or OS Assisted Migration (OSAM) migrations. Switchover scheduling is not available for vMotion, HCX Assisted vMotion (Direct), or Workload Migration for NSX V2T.
- If the VM is powered off, Cold Migration is set by default.
  Note: For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, powered off VMs are also migrated as part of the group migration.
- Extended Options provide additional settings.
Select the destination network for each virtual machine to be migrated.
In most cases, the stretched network between the source and destination sites is automatically selected. You can change this selection as needed.
Important: For Workload Migration for NSX V2T, the destination network is pre-configured by NSX Migration Coordinator and is ignored in the HCX Migration wizard and cannot be changed. VMs connected to standard port groups must be explicitly mapped to the target networks.

Note: If you configure HCX with an NSX Global Manager for use with V2T migrations in a federated NSX topology, the Global Manager populates local NSX managers with all global network segments known to the Global Manager. These networks then become visible as Global Networks for Bulk, RAV, and vMotion migrations.
1. Expand each virtual machine selection.
2. Next to each guest virtual machine NIC name, click the folder for a list of available target networks.
3. Click the check box next to the network that you want the guest virtual machine to map to, and then click Select.
4. (Optional) To specify a new guest OS IP address for the virtual machine at the target network, expand the NIC entry and enter the new IP address, gateway, and subnet mask.

To complete the Mobility Group migration operation, select Go, Validate, Save, or Close to complete the Mobility Group migration operation:

Migration operation	Result
Go	Validates your virtual machine migration selections, saves the group, and then starts the migration.
Validate	Validates readiness of selected virtual machine for migration without starting the migration. Validation can be done at any time on selected virtual machines or a group.
Save	Saves migration selections as drafts for future editing or scheduling without starting the migration.
Close	Cancels your selections without creating a group or starting a migration.

What to do next

HCX provides multiple options for monitoring and managing migrations. To review the activity, progress, and history of your migrations, refer to these topics: