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Automating new Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication using Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) API

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Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication is the newest migration type that has been added to the Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) solution, which was also demonstrated during the VMworld US 2018 keynote (watch here). Unlike the traditional Bulk Migration, which also uses vSphere Replication to perform the initial replication, Cloud Motion with VR does not incur any downtime during the VM switch over. This is possible with our most beloved vSphere feature, vMotion!

With Bulk Migration, the VM on the source vCenter Server must be shutdown before the newly replicated VM on the destination vCenter Server can be powered on or else a network conflict will occur. Using Cloud Motion with VR, the VM is simply vMotion'ed from the source vCenter Server to the destination vCenter Server and because the VM's storage has already been replicated, the only thing that needs to transfer is the memory state of the VM.


All three HCX Migration Types can be scheduled from the HCX UI using the vSphere Client or automated using the HCX API. The latter option is definitely ideal for customers with large number of migrations but it can also help with smaller migrations as it reduces the amount of user input required when using the UI and ultimately, this reduces user errors.

To help demonstrate the HCX Migration APIs, I have updated my VMware HCX PowerShell Module to include the following two new functions:

  • New-HcxMigration
  • Get-HcxMigration

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Automating Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) Manager OVA deployment

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Feedback on my recent Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) Automation articles has been very positive, thanks to those who have reached out. One area that I have not had a chance to spend much time on which a few of you have pinged me about is the automating the actual deployment of the HCX Manager, which is provided to customers as an OVA image. In this article, I have created a basic PowerCLI script called deploy_hcx_manager_ova.ps1 that demonstrates using the Import-VApp and Get-OVFConfiguration cmdlets to import the OVA along with specifying the required OVF properties. The script will also wait for the HCX Manager to be ready by checking the VAMI URL located at https://[HCX-MANAGER]:9443 

Lastly, for those of you who are new to HCX or would like a step by step walk through of setting up HCX, Emad Younis just kicked off a new blog series on learning about HCX, which I highly recommend folks check out here.

Here are the instructions on using the PowerCLI script to automate the HCX OVA deployment:

Step 1 - Download the latest HCX Manager OVA from HCX Cloud (you will need to login with your cloudadmin credentials)

Step 2- Download the PowerCLI HCX deployment script here.

Step 3 - Edit the script with your HCX configuration and deployment details

Step 4 - You will need to connect to your vCenter Server by using the Connect-VIServer cmdlet and then run the deployment script using the following command:

.\deploy_hcx_manager.ova.ps1


Once the deployment is successful, you can now open a browser to https://[HCX-MANAGER]:9443 and login using the admin credentials that you had specified in the script. I also plan to do a follow-up to this blog post on automating the initial configuration using the HCX VAMI APIs, so stay tuned.

Create vCenter Alarms for monitoring HCX migration events

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With the Hybrid Cloud Extension (HCX) solution, customers can migrate workloads immediately or have them scheduled at a later date and time of their choosing. Most customers will most likely not migrate all their workloads at once, but instead migrate them in different phases or waves based on their own internal schedules. The HCX "Migration" tab in the vSphere Client is a great place to get an overview of all the active, failed, planned and completed migrations and you can get additional details for each migration such status, percentage, amount of data transferred, etc.

Having said that, you probably also do not want to just sit there and constantly watch for progress, especially if something fails. The good news is that HCX already includes some default vCenter Alarms that are generated when a migration fails. There is one for vMotion/Cloud Motion, Cold Migration as well as Bulk Migration and currently these alarms only trigger a UI indication that something is wrong using the red critical icon on the VM in question.

Since these are vCenter Alarms, you also have the option of adding additional actions such as sending an email alert to a particular user or group, an SNMP trap which can then be monitored by your operations team or even run a command within the vCenter Server. Simply updating the default alarm which is defined at the vCenter Server level, you can proactively get notified when an HCX migration fails without having to constantly watch the UI. You may have also noticed the alarm definition is using a numeric ID which is highlighted in the screenshot above. This maybe useful if you wish to leave the default alarms alone and create a brand new alarm, you just need to use those IDs.

Another useful scenario to consider is getting notifications for a successful migration which can then help with transitioning users to the new VM running on VMC or even trigger automated VM and application verification before end users are even notified. Along these similar lines, you can imagine another scenario to consider is with using Bulk Migration and/or Cloud Motion with vSphere Replication. Both methods initially start off by replicating the VM's data from the source vCenter Server to the destination vCenter Server and then either a Cold Migration or vMotion is performed based on the configured scheduled.

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