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There is a new free tool available for VMware ESXi users, which is interesting, as it kind of, does vMotion for free. I'd rather say the tool does “quick migration”. There is a small downtime because the VM has to be paused for a short period of time and then resumed on the other host.

There are scripts around which can do the same, but you know, the tool has an GUI, and I don't really know any other utility which does that, for free.

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Update: Apparently the file is infected with a trojan: Win32/Maltule.C!cl One of our readers put a comment on the post. I contacted them so they can have some explanation. For now, wait and see the answer I'll get from Extrasphere.

Update 2: I got some news from Extrasphere folks which now making sure that the app is clean. At the beginning it was one of our commenters, then myself, who had a positive scan via Windows defender. There is no more problems with the package. The build is now including sha256 fingerprint.

“The SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) is one of a number of cryptographic hash functions. A cryptographic hash is like a signature for a text or a data file. SHA-256algorithm generates an almost-unique, fixed size 256-bit (32-byte) hash. Hash is a one way function – it cannot be decrypted back.”

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Update 3: have released beta version of Extrasphere 2.0. There are two new features added: HotClone and HotMirror. HotClone is free trial of HotMirror.

The video from Extrasphere shows and they do a demo of their free utility called Extrasphere App. The tool does svmotion, vmotion (with small downtime) and storage nothing vmotion (with small downtime). All this without vCenter server! In fact, their tool works with ESXi Free version.

What I found on their site is quite interesting. They're independent software developers.

Quote:

We are a small group of independent developers who are focusing on applications for managing vSphere environments. Our primary goal is to provide a tool which allows system admins to perform regular/urgent maintenance tasks with their vSphere environments overcoming natural vSphere platform/tools limitations. All application funcationality is done using native vSphere APIs which might be inaccessible (or it's hard to get it) from GUI/CLI but still available for usage.

Let me detail on what the tool can do for an environment where you manage several individual ESXi hosts with local storage but also connected to shared storage.

Extrasphere App – The Features

VM disks migration to another datastore located on the same host (NO downtime). Basically, a storage vmotion, without vCenter, without svmotion license…

VM migration to another standalone host using shared storage (NFS) – suspend/resume used

VM migration changing both host and datastore – suspend/resume used

The video shows all 3 use cases and also, their tool can do THICK to Thin conversion of VMDK disks without downtime….

The only requirements is SSH enabled on the hosts…. It's detailed and showed in the video.

Check it out …

Extrasphere App – The requirements

SSH activated on the host

The app is available for 3 platforms:

Android

Mac OS

Windows

As they suggested I'll be placing a link to their tool on my Free Tools page too. -:).

I did not have time to personally test this tool. I will do.

Source: Extrasphere.ru webpage. Check it out!

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