What's new in the migration toolkit for virtualization 2.10

The migration toolkit for virtualization 2.10 (MTV) is now generally available and expands on capabilities introduced in the recent release to better support your virtual machine (VM) migration journey with minimal downtime and reduced risk. With updates to storage offloading, your organization can efficiently plan and execute your VM migrations with MTV 2.10.

Faster migrations, greater confidence with storage offloading

Speed is a critical component of a VM migration. Storage offloading is now available in Technology Preview in MTV 2.10. For large-scale migrations, network bandwidth is often a primary bottleneck. Storage offloading eliminates this constraint by leveraging the power of existing storage arrays to manage the data transfer. 

Instead of pushing data over the network, MTV's plug-in module coordinates with the storage provider to move VM disk data directly over the storage system. This results in significantly faster migrations, reduced downtime, and greater reliability.

Learn more about storage offloading.  

Updates to storage offloading in MTV 2.10

• Warm migrations are now supported in Developer Preview: Previously limited to cold migrations (in Technology Preview), MTV 2.10 now supports storage offloading with warm migrations. You can keep critical VMs running while data is migrated quickly and safely, with minimal downtime during the cutover. Please verify with your account team if this option makes sense for your migration plan.
• Expanded ecosystem of certified storage providers: We are pleased to welcome Pure and Dell to our growing list of certified storage providers. This is in addition to existing support for Hitachi, HPE, and NetApp, providing customers with even more choice and the ability to use their trusted, existing storage infrastructure for offloaded migrations.

Additional updates in MTV 2.10

Beyond storage offloading, MTV 2.10 delivers several features to improve the overall migration experience:

• Live cross cluster migration of VMs: With MTV 2.10, you can now live migrate VMs from one OpenShift cluster to another. This feature is currently in Technology Preview and offers continuous availability of VMs during the migration process.
• Migration to namespaces with UDN: With MTV 2.10, you can migrate VMs to existing user-defined networks (UDNs), simplifying network mapping and preserving static IP addresses. This support offers smooth and low-risk migrations while keeping original network configurations intact.
• BTRFS (B-tree file system) VM migrations are now supported: VMs running BTRFS can now be migrated with MTV. This extended support offers increased flexibility to safely move your VMs to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization.
• New learning section: With MTV 2.10, we added a new menu titled Tips and Tricks. It's designed to help users with their learning experience as they navigate their migration journey. Topics covered include: How to migrate your VMs, how to select the right migration type, troubleshooting and terminologies, and more.
• Support for network-bound disk encryption (NBDE): MTV 2.10 now offers support to migrate encrypted VM disks from VMware to Red Hat OpenShift. This prevents users from rebooting the VMs to obtain a decryption key, offering smoother VM migrations.
• AI integration (Developer Preview): Looking toward the future of intelligent IT operations, model context protocol (MCP) is now available in Developer Preview. This integration allows AI assistants to gain a deeper, context-aware understanding of your migration plans, opening the door for AI-powered assistance and automation in your modernization projects.

Learn more

Keep on learning how you can simplify and accelerate your VM migration journey to a modern, scalable platform with MTV:

• Product documentation: MTV 2.10
• Blog: What's new in Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization 4.20
• Webinar: Unlock your virtualization potential: Discover what's new in migration and modernization with Red Hat OpenShift
• Overview: Ease your VM journey with the migration toolkit for virtualization
• Assisted migrations: Guided migrations with Red Hat services