So, you have completed the digital transformation for your infrastructure and have installed your VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC. What next?
Most customers at this point will be looking to migrate workloads from an end of service, end of life solution and over to the new VCF platform.
Datacenter migrations of the past of been a complicated and labour intensive process. but if you have purchased the VMware Cloud Foundation Enterprise Edition software package, you in luck. It just so happens that the HCX Advanced edition software is included with the VCF Enterprise Edition SKU.
VMware HCX enables:
Application migration
You can schedule and migrate thousands of vSphere virtual machines within and across data centers without requiring a reboot.
Change platforms or upgrade vSphere versions
With HCX, you can migrate workloads from vSphere 5.x and non-vSphere (KVM and Hyper-V) environments within and across data centers or clouds to current vSphere versions without requiring an upgrade.
Workload rebalancing
Workload rebalancing provides a mobility platform across cloud regions and cloud providers to allow customers to move applications and workloads at any time to meet scale, cost management, compliance, and vendor neutrality goals.
Business continuity and protection
Using HCX capabilities, administrators can protect workloads by replicating them to other HCX enabled sites. Workload migration is available on-demand, or it can be scheduled for business or maintenance planning.
Note: Always consult your VMware or partner account manager before choosing the right software and features required for your business needs.
HCX Advanced enables three migration methods: vMotion and Bulk Migration and Cold Migration. Even though the Cold Migration option is not listed in the option menu below, that method is utilised when the virtual machine is powered off.
VMware HCX Bulk Migration
This migration method uses the VMware vSphere Replication protocols to move the virtual machines to a destination site. The Bulk migration option is designed for moving virtual machines in parallel. This migration type can set to complete on a pre-defined schedule.
The virtual machine runs at the source site until the failover begins. The service interruption with the bulk migration is equivalent to a reboot.
VMware HCX vMotion
This migration method uses the VMware vMotion protocol to move a virtual machine to a remote site. The vMotion migration option is designed for moving single virtual machine at a time.Virtual machine state is migrated. There is no service interruption during the VMware HCX vMotion migration.
VMware HCX Cold Migration
This migration method uses the VMware NFC protocol. It is automatically selected when the source virtual machine is powered off.
The HCX Enterprise licensing introduces two additional migration types:
VMware HCX Replication Assisted vMotion
VMware HCX Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) combines advantages from VMware HCX Bulk Migration (parallel operations, resiliency, and scheduling) with VMware HCX vMotion (zero downtime virtual machine state migration).
VMware HCX OS Assisted Migration
This migration method provides for the bulk migration of guest (non-vSphere) virtual machines using OS Assisted Migration to VMware vSphere on-premise or cloud-based data centers. Enabling this service requires additional HCX licensing.
In addition to the enhanced vMotion features, HCX Enterprise also allows for some interesting traffic engineering and large scale migration features:
The version you may need will depend on your specific requirements. More to come on this in future posts.
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