HCX - Migrating VMs from vVol to VMFS across VCF Versions (5.x to 9.0)

Products

• VMware HCX

Issue/Introduction

• This article clarifies the supported migration paths, tools, and limitations when moving workloads from vVol-based storage to VMFS-based storage across vCenter Server instances with HCX.
  
  
• When attempting to migrate Virtual Machines (VMs) from a vSphere Virtual Volume (vVol) datastore on a legacy VCF 5.x environment to a VMFS-based datastore on a new VCF 9.0 environment, administrators may encounter compatibility errors or "Not Supported" flags during the validation phase of a Live vMotion.

Environment

VMware HCX

Resolution

Migration support depends entirely on the state of the VM (Powered On vs. Powered Off) and the migration type being used.

HCX is the primary tool for VCF-to-VCF migrations. However, vVol-to-VMFS transitions are restricted to specific HCX migrations.

• HCX Bulk Migration:[Supported]
  • Bulk migration is fully supported for moving workloads from vVol to VMFS. This method uses host-based replication to sync data in the background while the VM is powered on. Downtime is minimal, occurring only during a brief "Switchover" reboot. A key benefit is that HCX automatically handles the disk format conversion from vVol objects to standard VMDK files on the destination VMFS datastore.
    
    
• HCX vMotion / RAV: [Not Supported]:
  
  • Migration to or from vVOL datastores is not supported.

Note: You can clone a running VM to the new environment, but the source VM remains active and the destination VM will be a point-in-time copy.

Additional Information

Restrictions for Replication Assisted vMotion