What Is Storage vMotion & How Does it Work?

Storage vMotion is technology inside the VMware hosting platform that enables data centers to migrate virtual machines (VMs) without sacrificing performance. IT technicians can relocate mission-critical VM data to a different storage location while the VM continues to be continue to exist their server. 

The resulting transfer occurs with none downtime or service interruption to the top user. With the assistance of storage vMotion, IT teams can now perform essential system tasks without sacrificing system efficiency or data integrity.  

Chances are you’ll be aware of the concept of vMotion technology but unsure of the specifics of how storage vMotion works. VMware’s storage vMotion is just certainly one of three kinds of VMware vMotion methods available for data migration. 

The method begins with storage vMotion copying the information from the virtual machine you would like to transfer using vSphere’s modified block tracking (CBT) technology. The CBT technology is important to this step since it helps preserve the integrity of your data because the VM is copied.  

From there, the server will query the modules created by CBT a second time to create a replica of the VM in the brand new goal location. This process occurs repeatedly until each the unique VM and the destination copy are in sync. Once the 2 copies match, the unique VM is suspended, and the system is pointed to the brand new location of the VM’s image. 

How long this process takes will rely upon several aspects. Your VM’s disk image size might be crucial factor, but specifications like network speed and bandwidth also play a job. Often, nevertheless, transfers done with the storage vMotion in VMware occur in a matter of seconds and are unnoticeable to the top user.

Learning the technology behind storage vMotion is great, but what’s storage vMotion in VMware actually used for? How can it help your team with day-to-day IT operations?

Below are three, real-world scenarios that make clear what’s VMware vMotion’s best use:

As an IT manager, your job is to place plans and procedures in place for nearly every eventuality. Unfortunately, the one thing we will’t rely upon is the weather. Natural disasters are unavoidable and, with the world becoming more depending on data day-after-day, their effects will be drastic.

Naturally, the perfect method to prepare is to have a plan in place for migrating data to auxiliary servers. Nonetheless, what if that server may very well be positioned a whole lot or hundreds of miles away from the pending weather event?

With Storage vMotion, that’s entirely possible. IT managers can migrate data to locations distant from the anticipated weather impact zone. What’s more, this transfer can occur quickly and simply without taking the unique server offline. In consequence, disaster preparedness and planning will be seamlessly integrated into on a regular basis server operations. 

Storage vMotion can migrate data to balance your servers’ processing workload higher. Large virtual disk images will be spread across multiple VMs with more available resources. 

A more evenly-distributed processor workload will optimize server performance and resource usage. It is going to also increase the longevity of your IT assets by improving life cycle management.

The power to simply migrate VMs while they’re still live is a powerful argument for why your enterprise needs VMware. IT teams who implement VMware’s storage vMotion technology aren’t confined to the normal data storage environments. 

Typically, adding storage or reconfiguring your storage environment requires adding disks or arrays. Scaling your capability in this fashion can drastically affect server productivity. Storage vMotion permits you to expand storage capability without being tied to a selected storage platform. 

Yes. Storage vMotion migrates data via the vMotion network. However the true answer to this query runs just a little deeper than that.

Certainly one of the advantages of storage vMotion technology is that it prioritizes system data while conducting a migration. The info inside your system might be broken down into cold and hot data:

• Hot data are the virtual snapshots used most frequently in line with storage vMotion. 
• VMware will then take the less-used snapshots and label them as cold data. 

By prioritizing data in this fashion, storage vMotion ensures that only critical content is migrated via the first vMotion network. Any data that’s not crucial (cold) will be sent over an auxiliary management network.

Implementing storage vMotion in your data center will be an excellent tool to enhance your operational efficiency. Nonetheless, it’s vital to notice that using this technology does have some limitations. 

Here’s a breakdown of the general impacts storage vMotion could have in your system’s performance:

• Reduce server downtime.
• Migrate data at distance for higher disaster planning and preparedness.
• Easily migrate VMs to latest storage.
• Optimize and allocate pools of resources robotically.
• Relocate VMs from underperforming or failing IT assets.

• Data centers might not be ready for storage vMotion.
• Uses a considerable amount of network resources.
• May affect performance of other VMs on the network.
• Relies on the vSphere suite of tools.

Storage vMotion doesn’t require any downtime. Completing an information transfer with storage vMotion permits you to migrate VMs while they’re still live. It is a handy tool relating to regular system updates and maintenance.

IT maintenance tasks are likely to be very intrusive. They require an amazing amount of network resources and, in consequence, require lots of server downtime. Storage vMotion reduces the disruptions brought on by maintenance and upgrades by allowing data to be easily migrated to a brand new storage location.

Our expert team at Liquid Web can offer you all of the resources and expertise it is advisable to implement storage vMotion in your data center. We’ll put our years of industry experience to give you the results you want. Discover more about Multi-Tenant VMware Private Cloud.