vMotion failure at 20% within or between clusters

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VMware vSphere ESXi

VMware vMotion operations between clusters are consistently failing at exactly 20%.

You may also observe the following:

vCenter reports the below failure message:

“vMotion failed because the destination host did not receive data from the source on the vMotion network.”

Using the ncat CLI command from the source ESXi host to the destination vMotion VMkernel IP on port 8000 fails:
```
# nc -zv <destination_vmotion_vmk_ip> 8000 
  failed: Connection timed out
```

VMware vCenter Server (7.x / 8.x)
VMware vSphere ESXi (7.x / 8.x)

This issue is caused by one of the following configuration discrepancies:
- Host Firewall: The vMotion rule (TCP port 8000) is disabled in the ESXi host security profile.
- Physical Network: A physical firewall, switch or other connectivity issue is blocking TCP port 8000 traffic.

Follow these steps to align host configurations and enable required traffic:

Verify Host Firewall Settings
Ensure the vMotion service is allowed through the ESXi firewall:
1. Log in to vCenter Server.
2. Select the affected ESXi host and navigate to Configure > System > Firewall.
3. Locate the vMotion rule and verify it is enabled for both Incoming and Outgoing traffic.
4. If disabled, click Edit and select the checkbox for vMotion.
Test Port Connectivity
1. From the source ESXi host, run the following command to confirm port 8000 is open to the destination:
  nc -zv <Destination_VMK_IP> 8000
2. If the connection still times out, engage the physical network team to ensure the vMotion VLAN is correctly tagged and port 8000 is allowed on the physical infrastructure.
  Note: For software updates, ensure you are running the latest GA release. See Download Broadcom products and software for steps to download this release.

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