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With the new vSphere 5.1 a new vMotion option has been added (only in the new Web Client) that combine vMotion and Storage vMotion in a singe hot migration step to migrate between hosts/clusters without shared storage! This could increase the mobility of the VMs and usage also of local storage (for some cases). Both VM state and VM files are transported across network using the vMotion vmkernel interfaces (so a good network design could be necessary).

The requirements are:

  • Hosts must be managed by same vCenter Server
  • Hosts must be part of same Datacenter
  • Hosts must be on the same layer-2 network (and same switch if VDS is used)
  • Hosts must have the same CPU or have the same EVC baseline (like for the vMotion across clusters)


Operational considerations:

  • Enhanced vMotion is a manual process
  • DRS and SDRS do not leverage enhanced vMotion
  • Enhanced vMotions count when considering concurrent limitations for both vMotion (max 8 concurrent vMotions per host) and Storage vMotion (max 2 concurrent Storage vMotions per host)
  • Max of 2 concurrent Enhanced vMotions per host (because of the limit of no more than 2 concurrent Storage vMotions per host)
  • Enhanced vMotion will leverage multi-NIC when available (in the same way as vMotion from v5.0)
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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.