Abstract: A method of “warm” migrating a virtual machine (VM) on a source host to a target virtual machine on a destination host. The method begins by mirroring contents of disk onto a target disk associated with the target VM. Transfer of the RAM contents is then initiated. Unlike live migration strategies where data transfer occurs at a high rate, the RAM contents are transferred at a low transfer rate. While the contents of the RAM are being transferred, a shutdown of the virtual machine is initiated. This operation flushes to disk all of the remaining RAM contents. Before the shutdown completes, those remaining contents, now on disk, are mirrored to the target disk. Once that mirroring is finished, the shutdown of the virtual machine is completed, and this shutdown is mirrored at the destination host. To complete the warm migration, the target virtual machine is then booted from the target disk.