-vMotion :
What is Live Migration of Virtual Machines and How Does it Work?
No application can afford downtime, but fortunately some downtime is completely avoidable. For
those instances where you know ahead of time that system downtime is eminent such as for
maintenance, moves, or natural disasters you can perform a vMotion of the workload from the
server where downtime is expected to one that is not.
VMware vSphere vMotion is a zero downtime live migration of workloads from one server to
another. This capability is possible across vSwitches, Clusters, and even Clouds (depending of the
vSphere edition that you have). During the workload migration, the application is still running and
users continue to have access to the systems they need. Talk about keeping productivity high!
Perform Live Migrations
VMware vSphere live migration allows you to move an entire running virtual machine from one
physical server to another, with no downtime. The virtual machine retains its network identity and
connections, ensuring a seamless migration process. Transfer the virtual machine’s active memory
and precise execution state over a high-speed network, allowing the virtual machine to switch from
running on the source vSphere host to the destination vSphere host. This entire process takes less
than two seconds on a gigabit Ethernet network. Live migration allows you to:
• Automatically optimize virtual machines within resource pools.
• Perform hardware maintenance without scheduling downtime or disrupting business
operations.
• Move virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers.
Automate and Schedule Migrations
Using VMware vSphere vMotion automated migration, you can schedule migrations at predefined
times, without administrator intervention. The VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler,
one of vSphere’s automated migration features, uses vMotion to optimize virtual machine
performance across vSphere clusters. vMotion allows you to:
• Migrate multiple virtual machines running any operating system across any type of
hardware and storage supported by vSphere, complete with an audit trail.
• Identify the optimal placement for a virtual machine in seconds.
-Storage vMotion :
Storage vMotion is a component of VMware vSphere that allows the live migration of a running
virtual machine's (VM) file system from one storage system to another, with no downtime for the
VM or service disruption for end users. This migration occurs while maintaining data integrity.
Storage vMotion is included in the Standard, Enterprise Plus and Platinum editions
of vSphere. VMware vCenter is also required.
Storage vMotion is the companion feature to vSphere's vMotion capability, which allows virtual
machines to be moved from one physical server to another. Working in tandem, these two vMotion
processes ensure that virtual machines are mobile without endangering their operational or data
consistency.
How Storage vMotion works
VMware Storage vMotion begins the process by copying the VM's metadata, found in its
home directory, to the alternate storage location. Next, the software copies the VM's disk file
(Virtual Machine Disk File or VMDK) to the new location using vSphere's Changed Block Tracking
(CBT) functionality to preserve data integrity while the replication occurs. Then the CBT module is
queried again for a second copy to the new location, but this time only the blocks that have changed
since the initial replication was started are copied. This second step persists until both copies are in
sync. The VM is then suspended and pointed to the new location of its virtual disk image. Before
VMware ESX resumes the VM, the last of the changed regions of the source disk are replicated to
the target and the source home directory and disks are removed.
The entire process is unnoticeable to the VM and to end users, although depending on the size of
the VMDK and other factors, it can take some time to complete and may have an effect on
performance. A Storage vMotion operation may also require significant network resources which
can also affect other VMs using the same network.
What Storage vMotion is used for
Storage vMotion has a variety of uses, including as a Migration tool when moving virtual disks off
a storage area network (SAN) volume to a newly purchased storage system; as a load balancer to
ensure that a VM is getting the storage performance it requires; when taking a SAN down for
maintenance; and to move virtual disks from the local ESX Server storage to a SAN.
It can also be used to support a disaster recovery plan by replicating VMs and their associated
VMDKs to a remote location, although VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) handles disaster
recovery in a more automated and transparent fashion.
vSphere 5.1 introduced Enhanced vMotion which moves both the VM and its associated VMDK at
the same time.
Automating Storage vMotion
You can invoke Storage vMotion using scripts to automate a series of repetitive processes. One
user's example is a PowerShell script that runs through a list of VMs and their associated files, and
applies Storage vMotion sequentially to each VM to move it to another storage resource. Many
VMware user sites offer other examples of scripts that can make using Storage vMotion less of a
manual process.
-vSphere Replication :
What is vSphere Replication & How Does it Help in Disaster Recovery in Virtual Machines?
VMware vSphere Replication is a hypervisor-based, asynchronous replication solution for
vSphere virtual machines. It is fully integrated with VMware vCenter Server and the vSphere Web
Client. vSphere Replication delivers flexible, reliable and cost-efficient replication to enable data
protection and disaster recovery for all virtual machines in your environment.
Use Cases:
• Data protection locally, within a single site
• Disaster recovery and avoidance between two sites
• Disaster recovery and avoidance to a service provider cloud
• Data center migration
-VMware vShield Endpoint :
vShield Endpoint improves performance by offloading virus- scanning activities from each virtual
machine to a secure virtual appliance that has a virus-scanning engine, as well as the stored
antivirus signatures.
-vSphere Fault Tolerance :
What is Fault Tolerance?
VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance (FT) provides continuous availability for applications (with up to
four virtual CPUs) by creating a live shadow instance of a virtual machine that mirrors the primary
virtual machine. If a hardware outage occurs, vSphere FT automatically triggers failover to
eliminate downtime and prevent data loss. After failover, vSphere FT automatically creates a new,
secondary virtual machine to deliver continuous protection for the application.
Protect Your Applications Regardless of Operating System or Underlying
Hardware
vSphere Fault Tolerance safeguards any virtual machine (with up to four virtual CPUs), including
homegrown and custom applications that traditional high-availability products cannot protect. Key
capabilities include the following:
• Compatible with all types of shared storage, including Fibre Channel, Internet Small
Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI), Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and network-
attached storage (NAS).
• Compatible with all operating systems supported by vSphere.
• Works with existing VMware vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler and VMware
vSphere High Availability (HA) clusters for advanced load balancing and optimized initial
placement of virtual machines.
• Contains a version-control mechanism that allows primary and secondary virtual machines
to run on vSphere FT-compatible hosts at different, but compatible, patch levels.
Simple to Set Up, Start and Stop
vSphere FT can safeguard any number of virtual machines in a cluster because it leverages existing
vSphere HA clusters. Administrators can start or stop vSphere FT for specific virtual machines with
a point-and-click action in the vSphere web client. Use vSphere FT for applications that require
continuous protection during critical times, such as quarter-end processing.
-Distributed Resource Scheduler :
Improve vSphere workload management by grouping VMware ESXi hosts into resource clusters to
segregate the computing needs of different business units.
Enable VMware DRS to Manage Workloads
Group VMware ESXi hosts into resource clusters to segregate the computing needs of different
business units. VMware vSphere clusters allow you to:
• Provide highly available resources to your workloads.
• Balance workloads for optimal performance.
• Scale and manage computing resources without service disruption.
