Migrate vCenter VMs

Commander allows you to migrate VMs to other locations in the same vCenter cloud account, to help optimize VM placement within your virtual infrastructure. You can migrate a VM to another folder, host, resource pool, or datastore, or to another host and datastore. Commander provides capacity information to guide you in selecting the target host, cluster or datastore. Commander also lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.

Migrations are run one at a time; additional migration tasks are queued.

The Commander migration wizard displays validation messages from vCenter when you select a folder, host, resource pool or datastore. Warnings are displayed in black text and allow you to proceed; errors are displayed in orange text and prevent you from proceeding.

You can't migrate a VM to another vCenter cloud account or migrate templates or out-of-inventory VMs.

Migrate a VM to another folder

Access:

Views > Inventory > Infrastructure or Applications

Available to:

Administrator, Operator, Operator with Approval Access Rights

  1. Select a VM, then select Actions > Provisioning > Migrate VM.

    The Migration VM wizard displays.

  2. On the Migration Type page, select Change folder.
  3. On the Folder page, select the folder.
  4. On the Summary page, review the summary and click Finish.

    The Summary page lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.

Migrate a VM to another host

Access:

Views > Inventory > Infrastructure or Applications

Available to:

Administrator, Operator, Operator with Approval Access Rights

  1. Select a VM, then select Actions > Provisioning > Migrate VM.

    The Migration VM wizard displays.

  2. On the Migration Type page, select Change Host.
  3. On the Host page, select the destination host.

    When you select a host or cluster in the tree, Commander provides capacity information to guide your choice.

  4. On the Resource Pool page, optionally select the destination resource pool.
  5. On the Summary page, review the summary and click Finish.

    The Summary page lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.

Migrate a VM to another resource pool

Access:

Views > Inventory > Infrastructure or Applications

Available to:

Administrator, Operator, Operator with Approval Access Rights

  1. Select a VM, then select Actions > Provisioning > Migrate VM.

    The Migration VM wizard displays.

  2. On the Migration Type page, select Change Host.
  3. On the Host page, select the current host.

    When you select a host or cluster in the tree, Commander provides capacity information to guide your choice.

  4. On the Resource Pool page, select the destination resource pool.
  5. On the Summary page, review the summary and click Finish.

    The Summary page lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.

Migrate a VM to another datastore

Access:

Views > Inventory > Infrastructure or Applications

Available to:

Administrator, Operator, Operator with Approval Access Rights

  1. Select a VM, then select Actions > Provisioning > Migrate VM.

    The Migration VM wizard displays.

  2. On the Migration Type page, select Change Datastore.
  3. On the Storage page:
    • Specify the format for the virtual disk: Same format as source, Thin provisioned format or Thick format.
    • Select a datastore. Commander provides capacity information to guide your choice.  

      It's not possible to place disks on separate datastores (disk placement is supported only with Manually Provision vCenter Services).

  4. On the Summary page, review the summary and click Finish.

    The Summary page lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.

Migrate a VM to another host and datastore

The VM must be powered off for this option.

Access:

Views > Inventory > Infrastructure or Applications

Available to:

Administrator, Operator, Operator with Approval Access Rights

  1. Select a VM, then select Actions > Provisioning > Migrate VM.

    The Migration VM wizard displays.

  2. On the Migration Type page, select Change Host and Datastore.
  3. On the Host page, select a host.

    When you select a host or cluster in the tree, Commander provides capacity information to guide your choice.

  4. On the Resource Pool page, select the destination resource pool.
  5. On the Storage page:
    • Specify the format for the virtual disk: Same format as source, Thin provisioned format, or Thick format.
    • Select a datastore. Commander provides capacity information to guide your choice.

      It's not possible to place disks on separate datastores (disk placement is supported only with Manually Provision vCenter Services).

  6. On the Summary page, review the summary and click Finish.

    The Summary page lists any policy actions that will be triggered on the VM as a result of the migration.