Cross-platform virtual machine migration

A method for migrating virtual machines, comprising:

• receiving, for one virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines connected via a virtual network, a request to migrate the virtual machine from a source hypervisor on a first distributed computing platform to a target hypervisor on a second distributed computing platform, where the first and second distributed computing platforms are independent and separately authenticated;
• in response to the request, migrating virtual machine on the source hypervisor to the target hypervisor;
• receiving, at a migration agent running on the target hypervisor, virtual network parameters that were used by the virtual machine to connect with the virtual network while running on the source hypervisor;
• and
• communicating, from the migration agent of the target hypervisor, to migration agents associated with the other virtual machines, that the virtual network parameters for the virtual machine are now associated with physical network parameters of the target hypervisor to maintain connectivity of the virtual machine to the virtual network.

A distributed computing system, comprising:

• a plurality of first platform guest groups, each comprising one or more virtual machines and a migration agent running on a hypervisor, where the hypervisors of the first platform guest groups are on a first distributed computing platform;
• a plurality of second platform guest groups, each comprising one or more virtual machines and a migration agent running on a hypervisor, where the hypervisors of the second platform guest groups are on a second distributed computing platform, the first and second distributed computing platforms being independent and separately authenticated, where at least some of the virtual machines are connected via a virtual network;
• and
• a migration domain including the migration agents and virtual machines of the first and second guest platform groups, the migration domain being configured to:
• route network traffic to and from the virtual network for a virtual machine while such virtual machine is on a source hypervisor of one of the first platform guest groups, such routing being achieved using a virtual IP-MAC binding for the virtual machine;
• receive, at the migration agent on the source hypervisor, a request to migrate the virtual machine from the source hypervisor to a target hypervisor of one of the second platform guest groups;
• in response to such request, migrate the virtual machine on the source hypervisor to the target hypervisor;
• receive, at the migration agent of the target hypervisor, the virtual IP-MAC binding;
• communicate from the migration agent of the target hypervisor to one or more of the other migration agents, that the virtual IP-MAC binding is now associated with physical network parameters of the target hypervisor instead of those of the source hypervisor;
• and
• route network traffic to and from the virtual network for the virtual machine while such virtual machine is on the target hypervisor, such routing being achieved using the same virtual IP-MAC binding.