Zero copy migration from VMware to Kubernetes
summary
Forklift is a Kubernetes operator that migrates VMs to KubeVirt using virt-v2v for guest conversion and NBDKit for mount-and-convert, with options VDDK, storage copy offload via VMKFSTools, and NetApp Shift (Trident) zero‑copy cloning. Measured gains include a 1 TB Hitachi test dropping from 95 minutes to 4.4 minutes (≈21×) and lab peaks around 1.5 GB/s; fallback transfer still runs ~4–5× faster than straight network copy. Warm migration reduces downtime with repeated snapshots; final cutover remains required.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Zero copy migration intro
- 1:47Why cross-hypervisor migration
- 3:53virt-v2v for VM conversion
- 5:59NBDKit and side cache
- 8:07Cold migration limits and Forklift
- 9:33Warm migration for downtime
- 12:25High IOPS VM challenges
- 13:49Storage copy offload with VMware
- 17:24Zero copy with NetApp
- 20:33Live migration demo
- 22:58Q&A on NetApp Shift
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