I have been running into issues on my home lab when it comes to load balancing. Apparently with the release of the VSphere 5.1 there is a new feature that allows you to migrate running images between hosts without shutting them down first.
The requirements are as follows
Requirements and Limitations for vMotion Without Shared Storage
A virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the virtual machine files and disks to be migrated with vMotion in the absence of shared storage.
vMotion in an environment without shared storage is subject to the following requirements and limitations:
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The hosts must be licensed for vMotion. |
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The hosts must be running ESXi 5.1 or later. |
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The hosts must meet the networking requirement for vMotion. See vSphere vMotion Networking Requirements. |
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The virtual machines must be properly configured for vMotion. See Virtual Machine Conditions and Limitations for vMotion in the vSphere Web Client |
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Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be raw device mappings (RDMs). See Storage vMotion Requirements and Limitations. |
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The destination host must have access to the destination storage. |
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When you move a virtual machine with RDMs and do not convert those RDMs to VMDKs, the destination host must have access to the RDM LUNs. |
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Consider the limits for simultaneous migrations when you perform a vMotion migration without shared storage. This type of vMotion counts against the limits for both vMotion and Storage vMotion, so it consumes both a network resource and 16 datastore resources. See Limits on Simultaneous Migrations in the vSphere Web Client. |
Migration with vMotion in Environments Without Shared Storage
You can use vMotion to migrate virtual machines to a different host and datastore simultaneously. In addition, unlike Storage vMotion, which requires a single host to have access to both the source and destination datastore, you can migrate virtual machines across storage accessibility boundaries.
In vSphere 5.1 and later, vMotion does not require environments with shared storage. This is useful for performing cross-cluster migrations, when the target cluster machines might not have access to the source cluster’s storage. Processes that are working on the virtual machine continue to run during the migration with vMotion.
You can place the virtual machine and all of its disks in a single location or select separate locations for the virtual machine configuration file and each virtual disk. In addition, you can change virtual disks from thick-provisioned to thin-provisioned or from thin-provisioned to thick-provisioned. For virtual compatibility mode RDMs, you can migrate the mapping file or convert from RDM to VMDK.
vMotion without shared storage is useful for virtual infrastructure administration tasks similar to vMotion with shared storage or Storage vMotion tasks.
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Host maintenance. You can move virtual machines off of a host to allow maintenance of the host. |
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Storage maintenance and reconfiguration. You can move virtual machines off of a storage device to allow maintenance or reconfiguration of the storage device without virtual machine downtime. |
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Storage load redistribution. You can manually redistribute virtual machines or virtual disks to different storage volumes to balance capacity or improve performance. |
Migrate a Virtual Machine to a New Host and Datastore by Using vMotion in the vSphere Web Client
You can move a virtual machine to another host and move its disks or virtual machine folder to another datastore. With vMotion, you can migrate a virtual machine and its disks and files while the virtual machine is powered on.
You can perform vMotion in environments without shared storage. Virtual machine disks or contents of the virtual machine folder are transferred over the vMotion network to reach the destination host and datastores.
To make disk format changes and preserve them, you must select a different datastore for the virtual machine files and disks. You cannot preserve disk format changes if you select the same datastore on which the virtual machine currently resides.
Prerequisites
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Verify that your hosts and virtual machines meet the necessary requirements. See Requirements and Limitations for vMotion Without Shared Storage. |
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Required privilege: Resource.HotMigrate |
Procedure
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Right-click the virtual machine and select Migrate.
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Select Change both host and datastore and click Next. |
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Select the destination resource for the virtual machine migration. |
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Select a destination host or cluster for the virtual machine, and click Next. Any compatibility problems appear in the Compatibility panel. Fix the problem, or select another host or cluster. Possible targets include hosts and fully automated DRS clusters. You can select a non-automated cluster as a target. You are prompted to select a host within the non-automated cluster. |
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Select the format for the virtual machine’s disks.
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Assign a storage profile from the VM Storage Profile drop-down menu. Storage profiles define the storage capabilities that are required by the applications running on the virtual machine. |
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Select the datastore location where you want to store the virtual machine files.
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Select the migration priority level and click Next.
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Review the information on the Review Selections page and click Finish. |
vCenter Server moves the virtual machine to the new host and storage location. Event messages appear in the Events tab. The data that appears in the Summary tab shows the status and state throughout the migration. If errors occur during migration, the virtual machines revert to their original states and locations.