vMotion with Cisco ACI Virtual Edge

This chapter contains the following sections:

Guidelines for Using VMware vMotion with Cisco ACI Virtual Edge

You cannot move the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge VM with VMware vMotion, but you can move guest VMs on the same host with vMotion. Follow the guidelines in this section for using vMotion with guest VMs sharing the same host as Cisco ACI Virtual Edge.

vMotion Configuration

We recommend that you configure vMotion on a separate VMkernel NIC with a separate EPG that uses native switching mode.

Cross-VMware vCenter vMotion Support

Microsegmentation with Cisco ACI for Cisco ACI Virtual Edge is supported for cross-VMware vCenter and cross-VDS vMotion.


Note
When you do a cross-VMware vCenter vMotion of endpoints, you may experience a few seconds of traffic loss.

Guidelines for Using Cross-VMware vCenter and Cross-VDS vMotion

  • The source and destination VMware vCenter Server instances and ESXi hosts must be running version 6.0 or later.

  • The source and destination vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) version must be same.

  • Refer to VMware documentation for prerequisites for cross-VDS and Cross-VMware VCenter vMotion.

vMotion support with Cisco ACI Virtual Edge

Cisco ACI Virtual Edge supports cross-VMware vCenter and cross-DVS when Distributed Firewall is not enabled on the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge domain. Be aware of the following vMotion limitations when Distributed Firewall is enabled:

Table 1. vMotion When Distributed Firewall is Enabled

Type of vMotion

Intra-VMM (Intra-DVS)

Inter-VMM (Cross-DVS)

Cross-vCenter

Supported

Supported

Single-vCenter

Supported

Supported

Cross Cisco ACI Multi-Site

Not supported

Not supported

Stale VM Entry After Cross-Data Center VMware vMotion

After you migrate VMs using cross-data center VMware vMotion in the same VMware vCenter, you may find a stale VM entry under the source DVS. This stale entry can cause problems, such as host removal failure. The workaround for this problem is to enable "Start monitoring port state" on the vNetwork DVS. See the KB topic "Refreshing port state information for a vNetwork Distributed Virtual Switch" on the VMware Web site for instructions.