Abstract: Techniques for managing the migration of virtual machine instances are described herein. A migration of a first virtual machine instance is started by preparing an appropriate target location to receive the first virtual machine instance. Next, a second virtual machine instance at the target location is enabled by first copying state information from the first virtual machine instance to the second virtual machine instance, by next creating connections between the second virtual machine instance and resources associated with the first virtual machine instance, and by finally starting packet forwarding between the two virtual machine instances. Finally, the first virtual machine instance is locked, the copy is finalized, and the second virtual machine instance is started.

Abstract: Techniques for managing the migration of virtual machine instances are described herein. A migration of a virtual machine from a source host to a destination host is determined to be predicted to fail. The migration is cancelled by stopping the virtual machine at the destination host as a result of said determination.

Abstract: A virtual machine running on a source host is determined to be migrated away from the source host. The virtual machine is migrated away from the source host at least by a target host being selected for the virtual machine and a state of the virtual machine being copied from the source host to the target host while the virtual machine continues to run on the source host. The virtual machine is further migrated from the source host by a change to the state of the virtual machine t running on the source host that resulted during the copying being propagated to the target host. The virtual machine is run on the target host such that the virtual machine running on the target host includes the change to the state.

Abstract: A migration of a virtual machine running on a source host is determined to be performed for the virtual from the source host to a target host. The virtual machine is migrated from the source host to the target host at least by copying a state of the virtual machine from the source host to the target host while the virtual machine is running on the source host. Packets are caused to be forwarded to the virtual machine running on the target host.