Lifecycle of a migrating VM

This page explains the lifecycle and states of a migrating virtual machine (VM) instance throughout the migration process.

Lifecycle of a migrating VM

When you create a migrating VM using Migrate to Virtual Machines, the VM stays active for 100 days from the time that the VM appears in the VM Migrations tab. A migrating VM is considered active if the VM is in the FIRST_SYNC, ACTIVE, PAUSED, CUTTING_OVER, FINAL_SYNC, CUTOVER, or FINALIZING states. For more information about these states, see States of a migrating VM. You can use the migrating VM during this time to perform your migrations.

A 100 days after a migrating VM is created, the VM moves to the EXPIRED state. The VM stays in the EXPIRED state for 30 days. The EXPIRED state is similar to the PAUSED state. In this state, the VM stops cycling, but its resources aren't deleted. If you need more time to complete your migration, you can extend the lifespan of the migrating VM by an additional 100 days. You can only extend the lifespan of a migrating VM two weeks before the VM expires and throughout the expiration period (between 86 to 130 days from the creation of the VM). If you don't extend the lifespan of the VM during this period, the VM expires as shown in the following figure.

Note: You can only extend the lifespan of a migrating VM once. Any VM that you create for a migration using Migrate to Virtual Machines will have a total lifespan of 200 days at the maximum (including the extension).

Lifecycle of a migrating VM

If you don't extend the lifespan of the migrating VM between 86 to 130 days, the VM moves to the FINALIZED_EXPIRED state. You cannot recover a VM from the FINALIZED_EXPIRED state. Similar to the FINALIZED state, a FINALIZED_EXPIRED VM will have its allocated resources deleted.

Note: If the VM is in the PENDING, READY, ERROR, or FINALIZED states for 100 days, the VM is directly moved to the FINALIZED_EXPIRED state.

Extend the lifespan of a migrating VM

To extend the lifespan of a migrating VM, follow these steps:

1. Open the Migrate to Virtual Machines page in the Google Cloud console: Go to the Migrate to Virtual Machines page
2. Select the VM Migrations tab. A table of available source VMs appears.
3. Select one or more VMs.
4. Click Migrations to open the menu, and then click Extend migration.

The state of the selected VMs will now be set to ACTIVE and the lifespan is extended by a 100 days.

States of a migrating VM

The following table describes the various states that a migrating VM exists in during and after a migration.

VM Status	Description
ACTIVE	The replication is active, and the replication is running or scheduled to run.
CUTOVER	The replication was paused by you and no cycles are scheduled to run.
CUTTING_OVER	The source VM was stopped and replicated. The replication is paused.
ERROR	The replication process encountered an unrecoverable error and was aborted.
EXPIRED	The migrating VM is moved to the EXPIRED state a 100 days after creation. The VM stays in this state for 30 days. In this state, the VM stop cycling, but its resources won't be deleted.
FIRST_SYNC	Migration is going through the first sync cycle.
FINAL_SYNC	A cutover job is active and replication cycle is running the final sync.
FINALIZING	The migrating VM is being finalized and migration resources are being removed.
FINALIZED	The replication process is complete and the migrating VM is finalized.
FINALIZED_EXPIRED	The migrating VM is expired and finalized.
PENDING	The VM in the source is being verified.
PAUSED	The source VM was stopped and replicated. The replication is paused.
READY	The source VM was verified and the VM is ready to start replication.