Understanding Metro vMotion

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information about Metro vMotion, which increases the permissible latency time for vMotion.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x

Resolution

In vSphere 4.1, vMotion is supported only when the latency between the source and destination ESXi/ESX hosts is less than 5 ms RTT (round-trip time).For higher latencies, not all workloads are guaranteed to converge.

With Metro vMotion in vSphere 5.0, vMotion can be used to move a running virtual machine when the source and destination ESX hosts have a latency of more than 5ms RTT. The maximum supported round trip time latency between the two hosts is now 10ms. Metro vMotion is only available with vSphere Enterprise Plus license.