What is VM live migration?

VM live migration refers to the process of moving running virtual machines (VMs) from one physical host to another without interrupting their operations. This functionality is crucial in virtualized environments, as it allows administrators to balance loads, perform maintenance, or recover from hardware failures seamlessly. The process involves transferring the state and memory of the VM across the network while it continues to operate, ensuring minimal downtime and a smooth experience for users.

This capability enhances system reliability and flexibility, enabling organizations to optimize resource utilization. The technology is typically used in data centers and cloud infrastructures, where uptime and performance are critical.

The other options represent different concepts that do not align with the characteristics of live migration. For instance, moving data from cloud storage to local storage is about data management, whereas backing up data refers to creating copies for recovery purposes. Cloning virtual machines involves duplicating them rather than migrating them during operation.