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Migrating Virtual Machines Between Parallels Servers

The standard migration procedure allows you to move stopped, paused, suspended, and running virtual machines. Migrating a stopped, paused, or suspended virtual machine includes copying all virtual machine-related files from one Parallels server to another and does not differ from copying a number of files from one server to another over the network. In its turn, the migration procedure of a running virtual machine is a bit more complicated and can be described as follows:

  1. After initiating the migration process, all virtual machine data are copied to the destination server. During this time, the virtual machine on the source server continues running.
  2. The virtual machine on the source server is stopped.
  3. The virtual machine data copied to the destination server are compared with those on the source server, and if any files were changed during the first migration step, they are copied to the destination server again and rewrite the outdated versions.
  4. The virtual machine on the destination server is started.

There is a short downtime needed to stop the virtual machine on the source server, copy the virtual machine data changes to the destination server, and start the virtual machine on the destination server. However, this time is very short and almost unnoticeable to users.

The following session shows you how to move the MyVM virtual machine from the local Parallels server to the destination server ts7.test.com:

# pmigrate v MyVM v ts7.test.com/MyVM

Migrate the VM MyVM to test.com

root@ts7.test.com's password:

Operation progress 100%

The VM has been successfully migrated.

You can also use pmigrate to migrate the MyVM virtual machine from a remote Parallels server to the local one:

# pmigrate v ts7.test.com/MyVM v localhost

root@ts7.test.com's password:

Migrate the VM MyVM to localhost

Operation progress 100%

The VM has been successfully migrated.

This command move the MyVM virtual machine from the ts7.test.com server to the local server.

Note: For more information on options that you can pass to pmigrate, refer to the Parallels Command Line Reference.