Moving VMs in remote site through vCenter in a different location

[EHurst1]

I have two esxi hosts in a remote site (Alabama), and vCenter in the main data center (Michigan). Can I use that vCenter to move VMs from one host to another? If yes, does it route data from host A to vCenter and then back to host B? Or should I set up vCenter on one of the remote hosts to move the vms locally?

[Andrea Consalvi]

Yes, you can use your vCenter in Michigan to move VMs between your ESXi hosts in Alabama, but the way traffic flows depends on how your setup is configured.

By default, vMotion transfers data directly between the hosts, not through vCenter. So as long as your ESXi hosts in Alabama can communicate directly with each other over a high-speed, low-latency network, vMotion should work fine without routing traffic through vCenter in Michigan.

vCenter only manages the process but doesn’t handle the actual VM traffic. As long as your ESXi hosts can communicate directly, vMotion will work fine, and there’s no need to move vCenter unless you have high network latency issues between Alabama and Michigan.