Method and system for the transparent migration of virtual machine storage

摘要

A method and a computer system is provided for performing migration of virtual machines which minimize downtime of the virtual machine to be migrated and further ensure file system consistency and transparency to the virtual machines and services running in them. This is achieved by storing a disk image used by said at least one virtual machine (20) to be migrated on a local storage device (60) of a source host(10). The disk image is transferred to a destination host (80) while the virtual machine (20) to be migrated keeps running on the first host device (10). During the disk and memory transfer any changes made tc the disk image stored in the local storage device (60) are detected and transferred to the destination host device (80). The disk image transferred to the destination host (80) is modified in response to all changes transferred to the destination host device (80). Once all changes have been applied to the transferred disk image the migrated virtual machine (100) on the destination host device (80) is started at the current state of the virtual machine (20) running on the source host (10) by using the modified disk image.