Dell EMC VxRail Appliance, Operation Manual

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Migrating workloads onto VxRail
The best strategies for moving compute and storage workloads onto VxRail depends on the
environment and workload availability requirements. Different workloads often require different
migration strategies. The same strategies can be applied when migrating workloads between
VxRail environments for workload redistribution.
Considerations
When considering migration strategies, data and storage are often the first topic that comes to
mind. There are, however, other considerations as well. If the workload can be taken offline for
a period of time (cold migration), a simple shutdown, backup and restore strategy work fines. If
minimal downtime is required (warm migration), use tools like RecoverPoint for VM to replicate
the workload and then perform a minimally disruptive switchover. If the workload cannot be
taken offline (hot migration), use vSphere vMotion to keep the workload online during the
migration.
While this document does not contain an exhaustive list of considerations, take note of the
following:
 Physical and logical network connectivity. VLANS may need to be configured on the
physical switches connecting the target VxRail, and port groups for the application
environment may need to be configured on the virtual distributed switch (VDS) in vCenter.
 Access to network services and related applications. Consider all the services that are used
by the application virtual machines including DNS and NTP, and how these may change in
the new environment. If there are dependencies on other applications or services, how the
migration impacts these should be considered as well.
 Snapshots will need to be configured on the target VxRail. If the snapshots are used on the
source, you must reconsolidate and make the snapshots persistent.
 Backup processes and procedure. VxRail supports most backup technologies, but some
reconfiguration may be necessary after the migration. As part of migration planning,
reconsider and update current strategies.
Using vSphere vMotion
With vSphere Storage vMotion, a virtual machine and all its associated disk files can be moved
from one datastore to another while the VM is up and running. Using vSphere Storage vMotion
to move workloads onto a VxRail environment can be done while the workload is online.
Consider the following vMotion requirements when planning your migration strategy:
 Both the source and target vSphere clusters must be managed by the same vCenter
instance. Only VxRail clusters with external vCenter Servers can leverage this approach.