Cold Migration

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What Does Cold Migration Mean?

Cold migration is the process of migrating a system that has been turned off or rendered non-operational for a time. This is in contrast to the practice of live migration or hot migration, where the migration occurs during the system’s normal operations.

Techopedia Explains Cold Migration

The terms cold and hot migration are often applied to the migration of virtual machines in a virtualized system. With cold migration, the use of data stores is more flexible. Like any kind of less engaged migration, cold migration for virtual machines may allow for more effective transfer with less complexity. However, it may require downtime as the system needs to be powered down.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.