VMDK migration

[sosher]

Hi
How can you migrate a volume/vmdk from one datastore to another ?
what will be the steps needed ?
Scenarios include

• backup restore,
• moving volume/vmdk from one host to anohter
• moving from datastore to anohter

Thanks.

[kerneltime]

These are good questions that are on our radar. @sosher we will be publishing documentation in the coming weeks for the cross compatibility with existing workflows around datastores.

[msterin]

@kernetime is correct, stand by for the docs.
As a quick summary though:

• backup/restore is supported via creating a Docker volume with -o attach-as=persistent. Unfortunately Docker volume command does not allow to change properties for existing volumes, so it can be changed only with ESX side vmdkops_admi.py. The (attached) volume then can be backed up with any existing backup tool.
• moving between hosts is automatic on volume usage as long as datastore is shared between hosts
• moving between datastores - for offline volumes it can be accomplished with simple copy, for online we do need to document it , it's a little tricky today

[ashahi1]

Steps performed:

1. Create a volume named - Volume11

root@photon-machine [ ~ ]# docker volume create -d vsphere:latest --name Volume11 -o attach-as=persistent
Volume11
root@photon-machine [ ~ ]#

2. Docker volume ls and docker volume inspect

root@photon-machine [ ~ ]# docker volume ls
DRIVER              VOLUME NAME
vsphere:latest      Volume11@sharedVmfs-0
root@photon-machine [ ~ ]#
root@photon-machine [ ~ ]# docker volume inspect Volume11
[
    {
        "Driver": "vsphere:latest",
        "Labels": {},
        "Mountpoint": "/mnt/vmdk/Volume11",
        "Name": "Volume11",
        "Options": {
            "attach-as": "persistent"
        },
        "Scope": "global",
        "Status": {
            "access": "read-write",
            "attach-as": "persistent",
            "capacity": {
                "allocated": "13MB",
                "size": "100MB"
            },
            "clone-from": "None",
            "created": "Mon Jul 31 14:23:32 2017",
            "created by VM": "photon-VM2.3",
            "datastore": "sharedVmfs-0",
            "diskformat": "thin",
            "fstype": "ext4",
            "status": "detached"
        }
    }
]
root@photon-machine [ ~ ]#

3. Ran a container with volume mounted and wrote data to it.

root@photon-machine [ ~ ]# docker run -it --volume-driver=vsphere:latest -v Volume11@sharedVmfs-0:/vol1 --name ub ubuntu
root@5c7fdb22d082:/#
root@5c7fdb22d082:/# echo "Hello">vol1/test
root@5c7fdb22d082:/# cat vol1/test
Hello
root@5c7fdb22d082:/#

4. While container is running, took snapshot of the vm.
5. After snapshot finished successfully, to see if the volume is part of the snapshot, checked the dockvols folder where the volume is located and see if there is a delta disk for the volume.

[root@sc-rdops-vm01-dhcp-20-85:/vmfs/volumes/59779d5c-1f1a28a6-4b34-02000231f630/dockvols/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111] ls
Volume11-000001-b4bc1235cc332172.vmfd  Volume11-000001.vmdk                   Volume11-flat.vmdk
Volume11-000001-delta.vmdk             Volume11-bf722fb875090b87.vmfd         Volume11.vmdk
[root@sc-rdops-vm01-dhcp-20-85:/vmfs/volumes/59779d5c-1f1a28a6-4b34-02000231f630/dockvols/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111]

[msterin]

@ashahi1 - So what's the conclusion ?

[ashahi1]

@msterin Idea was to verify if persistent volume is part of the snaphot of the vm. After snapshot finished successfully, we have a delta disk for the volume in the dockvols folder, so we can conclude that volume is part of the vm snapshot.

[ashahi1]

Closing this issue.