Extrasphere solution is a free analogue of VMware vMotion technology. Extrasphere provides unique technology of VM disks and configuration migration without downtime for a standalone VMware ESXi 5.0+ host. The migration of VM disks is totally downtime-free, while for configuration migration a very short pause of VM is required. Despite VMware, Extrasphere doesn't require vCenter presence and thus enables users to get vMotion capabilities even for standalone ESXi hosts including hosts under VMware Hypervisor (Free) license.
All operations can be done without having VMware vCenter and you also won't need expensive vSphere license with Storage vMotion feature - Extrasphere supports even vSphere Hypervisor (free) license.
Extrasphere provides core VM migration functionality for free.
Main features:
- Virtual disks migration across single ESXi host datastores without VM downtime.
- Virtual disks and VM configuration (.vmx) migration across single ESXi host datastores with short downtime. Downtime is required only to suspend/resume VM in the end of process.1
- Virtual Disks and VM configuration (.vmx) migration across two ESXi hosts with shared datastore. Migrated VM is suspended/resumed in the end of the process if the target ESXi host supports source host CPU flags, if not then VM is shutdown/powered on instead suspending/resuming.1
- Virtual Disks and VM configuration (.vmx) migration across two ESXi hosts without shared datastore. This is done via special Extrasphere "Resharer" virtual appliance deployed on the target ESXi host. Migrated VM is suspended/resumed in the end of the process if the target ESXi host supports source host CPU flags, if not then VM is shutdown/powered on instead suspending/resuming.
For successful VM migration the following requirements must be set:
a) Firewall must allow both incoming and outgoing traffic on port 22 (TCP/UDP).
b) VM virtual hardware version must be supported by the target host
c) Migration to non-shared datastore requires "Extrasphere Resharer" to be configured on the target host.