Migrate VMs via vMotion cross vCenter on VMware vSphere 6.7

6. Migrate a virtual machine between 2 VMware vCenter Servers

For this tutorial, we will migrate our "Win 10 v2004 x64" virtual machine from the physical site in Brussels to the physical site in Paris.
In other words, the virtual machine will be migrated from the vCenter server "brux-vcsa" to "paris-vcsa".

As you can see, our virtual machine is currently powered on and it is currently running on our host "brux-esxi1.informatiweb.lan" which is managed via the vCenter Server "brux-vcsa.informatiweb.lan".

For the test, we opened a window in this virtual machine.

To migrate this virtual machine, select it and click: Actions -> Migrate.

In the "[VM name] - Migrate" window that appears, select "Change both compute resource and storage" to migrate the RAM, as well as the files (virtual hard disks, configuration file, ...) of the your virtual machine.

Select the VMware ESXi host linked to your remote vCenter Server (VCSA) and click Next.
In our case, we are going to migrate our virtual machine to our VMware ESXi host "paris-esxi1.informatiweb.lan" which is linked to our remote vCenter Server "paris-vcsa.informatiweb.lan".

Select the storage you want to use on the destination VMware ESXi host.

As usual, you will be able to change the virtual disk format when you migrate a virtual machine, if you wish.

Select the data center or folder where you want to add this virtual machine in the remote vCenter Server (VCSA).
In our case, we select our "DC-Paris" data center since we have not created a folder in the "VMs and Templates" tab of our remote vCenter Server.

Select the virtual network to which you want to connect this virtual machine after it has been migrated to the destination VMware ESXi host.

As the wizard tells you, virtual network names are unique per data center.
As a reminder, so that your virtual machine can continue to access the network normally without intervention on your part, you should use L2 or L3 bridges (as explained in step "3.2. Use of the same IP addressing (L2 / L3 bridges)" of this tutorial).

For vMotion priority, this allows you to prioritize a vMotion migration over others that are currently in progress.
However, if there is none at the moment, the migration will start immediately in both cases.

A summary of the configuration of this migration appears.
Click Finish.

During the migration of this virtual machine, 2 tasks will appear at the bottom of the VMware vSphere Client:

• Initiate the vMotion receive operation: whose target is the virtual machine being migrated and the server indicated corresponds to the source VMware vCenter Server (VCSA) server (in our case: brux-vcsa.informatiweb.lan).
• Replace the virtual machine: whose target is the migrated VM again, but whose server indicated corresponds to the destination VMware vCenter Server (VCSA) server (in our case: paris-vcsa.informatiweb.lan).

Note that the virtual machine being migrated will appear temporarily on the 2 VMware vCenter Server (VCSA) servers concerned.
Indeed, as you can see in the image below, our "Win 10 v2004 x64" virtual machine appears powered on on our source vCenter Server (VCSA) and powered off on the destination server.

Note that the affected virtual machine will remain usable throughout its migration.

A little later, the progress of the "Initiate vMotion receive operation" task will also have started.

The migration continues.

Note: if you select the virtual machine being migrated on the destination vCenter Server, you will see that it is temporarily unavailable.
Indeed, during the migration, the virtual machine concerned only remains accessible from the source server.

From a moment on, if it is a live migrated virtual machine (VM powered on), you will see the message "Migrating the active state of the virtual machine" in the "Details" column of the "Replace virtual machine" task.

Once your virtual machine migration is complete, the status of the "Initiate vMotion receive operation" and "Replace virtual machine" tasks will be "Completed".

If you were connected to your virtual machine console via "VMware Remote Console" (VMRC) or "VMware Workstation Pro" (for example), you will notice that the connection to it has been lost.
However, this is only due to the way VMware allows you to access a virtual machine's console.
Hence the appearance of the message "Waiting for connection" if you use "VMware Remote Console" (VMRC).

To resolve the problem, simply restart the console from the VMware vSphere Client by clicking on the "Console" icon of your virtual machine.

For example, select "VMware Remote Console (VMRC)" by clicking Next.

Ignore the invalid security certificate warning if you know it is appearing because of a self-signed certificate.

As expected, your virtual machine is still running and its state has been preserved.