Unable to migrate VMs from one ESXi host to another ESXi host

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• You have a cluster of two or more ESX/ESXi hosts
• Your virtual machines (VMs) are configured to use a local datastore (or other storage that is not shared by all relevant hosts)
• When attempting to migrate VMs, the migration wizard only presents one ESX/ESXi host (the source host)
• When attempting to migrate VMs, the migration wizard does not present the intended destination host

Environment

• VMware ESX/ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Cause

• This is expected behavior if the destination ESX/ESXi host does not have access to the VM's datastore(s).
• For VMs to be able to do a compute-only migration between the hosts, they need to share the same datastore (both hosts involved in the vMotion).

Resolution

The VM must reside on storage accessible to both hosts (source and destination).

Workarounds:

• Storage (only) vMotion the VM(s) on the source host to a shared datastore and then proceed with vMotion (if a shared datastore is availalbe)
• Do both Compute and Storage vMotion, also known as "shared-nothing" vMotion

Additional Information

Checking ESXi configuration:

1. Click on the ESXi host
2. Click on Datastore tab in the window on the right to check if you have shared datastores configured 

Checking VM configuration:

1. Right-click on a VM
2. Select Edit Settings
3. Select VM Options
4. Expand General Options to see if VMs are using local or shared datastores

Additional documentation:

• vSphere vMotion Shared Storage Requirements
• vMotion Migration Types