vMotion VMware vMotion enables the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime, continuous service availability, and complete transaction integrity. It is transparent to users. vMotion advantage: Automatically optimize and allocate entire pools of resources for maximum hardware utilization and availability. Perform hardware maintenance without any scheduled downtime. Proactively migrate virtual machines away from failing or underperforming servers. Virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the virtual machine files and disks to be migrated with vMotion in the absence of shared storage. vMotion in an environment without shared storage is subject to the following requirements and limitations: The hosts must be licensed for vMotion. The hosts must be running ESXi 5.1 or later. The hosts must meet the networking requirement for vMotion. See vSphere vMotion Net