Vcenter - changing datastores -

[davebowie]

Hello all,

     I have a Vcenter (v.5)server managing 4 Esxi hosts (v.5) using two different datastores - when I 'migrate' a virtual machine to change datastores alone, which requires it to be powered off, what is happening?  Is this considered Vmotion?  Or is storage Vmotion happening?  I'm asking this question because two hosts are on one blade enclosure and the other two are on a different blade enclosure - I'd like to setup a faster connection between the blade enclosures (right now I'm pretty sure the migration from datastore to datastore is going out the vmk0 network interface setup to use vmotion, which is a 1GB NIC, so it's slow as you can imagine transferring a 50Gig VM) - like a 10Gb fiber connnection directly connected from one blade enclosure to the other - but in order to do that, I need to make sure I understand what's going on here - is the datastore change going out the vmk0 that's setup to use VMotion?

Thanks,

Dave Bowie

[Troy_Clavell]

Hello and welcome to the Forums!

when you migrate a VM and "change datastore" that is a storage vMotion

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - Moving a VM that is powered off from one datastore to another datastore is a 'cold migration' - vmotion allows you to move a VM while it is running from one ESXi host to another - this is also called 'hot migration'. Storage vmotioin utilizes the vmotioin technology allowing you to move a VM from one datastore to another while it is running - but note the VM does not change ESXi hosts -

Depending on what type of SAN/NAS system you are using you can actually rely on the storage device to do the moving between datastores - this was first started with vSphere 4.1 and expanded with vSphere 5

[davebowie]

Ok - more Vmware terminology issues - so storage Vmotion sounds like a separate add on at this point that allows you to Vmotion running machines to different datastores - (the previous post seems to contradict this)

How would I 'rely on the storage device to do the moving between datastores' ?? Can you point me in the direction of some really good documentation? Or explain a little further?

Thanks,

Dave

[eeg3]

To rely on the storage device, the SAN has to support VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration): FAQ

[weinstein5]

as eeg3 indictaes the SAN would need to support the VAAI which like storage vmotioin requires a higher license level within vsphere - it requires enterprise plus license and vcenetr -

[davebowie]

My SAN does not support such - unfortunately -

So I've had an idea, since changing a datastore with 100Gb files potentially could take hours - I setup a 10g fiber (X-over if you will) from one blade enclosure to the other - added the vmnic 3 / vmk1 (the 10gb adapter)to the ESXI hosts (blades) set the Vmotion checkbox (I'm aware this may not be considered 'vmotion') and unchecked vmotion on vmnic1 / vmk0 (this is a 1gb adapter) - relocated the vm from one datastore and host (since both hosts do no have access to both datastores I am forced to change the hosts as well) and it refuses to use the 10gb adapter I setup specifically for that.  I also CANNOT tell by looking at the performance tab in ESXI which vmnic? (I've isolated the NIC's every which way to Sunday) is handling the traffic - I see some spuratic traffic, but nothing that looks like a 50GB file being copied over the course of 40 mins, at all!  Is vmotion traffic or relocation traffic not mean't to appear in the Network/Real-time performance tab?  Where is all this data going, and through what pipes?

Perhaps uncheck the management traffic box for vmk0 on both ESXI hosts and check it in vmk1 (the vmotion enabled nic)???

Thanks Dave

[PJudgeAAM]

Did you get a solution to this?

I'm facing the same question, needing to move about 100 VMs from local datstores on old ESX 4.0 hosts to new ESXi 5 hosts. They will all be (temporarily) in the same cluster, but there will not be any shared storage. I would like to confirm which path that the vmdk files have to traverse - over the vswitch with the VM port group uplinks or the vmkernel switch links - I assume that the service console is not used!

Thanks