Is There a Live Migration Tool for Kubernetes Like VMware vMotion?

There's a feature from CAST AI that may be just what you're looking for! They offer a Container Live Migration tool that does zero-downtime pod migration between nodes, essentially giving you vMotion functionality for Kubernetes. It'll require some setup since it needs their specific CRIO fork and CNI, but if you're really in need of such a feature, it's worth a look.

It seems that true live migration for pods isn't really common, except in certain container runtimes like Kata. If you're looking to move pods proactively, you might want to check out the descheduler. It's not exactly live migration since it evicts pods, allowing them to be rescheduled, but it's a step in that direction. For maintenance, the usual method is to drain nodes, which isn't live migration per se, but helps maintain service availability by failing over to other instances.

Considering your needs, you should check out KubeVirt. It lets Kubernetes handle VMs like regular resources, which might suit legacy applications better if they can't adapt to containerization. I used KubeVirt for deploying around 700 VMs, and while it didn’t require live migration, it could be worth exploring for your setup.

Typically, having multiple replicas is how this is managed. Can you clarify what issue you're trying to resolve? It sounds like you might be approaching it with a stateful mindset, which is kind of contrary to how Kubernetes usually operates.

To be straightforward, there aren't any tools exactly like vMotion for Kubernetes needs. Most setups thrive on keeping applications stateless and need to be designed with multiple replicas. When maintenance is required, draining the node works well. If your applications are stateful, make sure your storage is configured to support such tasks. You’ll want to have measures like Pod Disruption Budgets in place to manage your pod availability during these processes.