Which of the following is a typical artifact of virtualization that allows moving a running VM between physical hosts without downtime?

• A. Live Migration
• B. Snapshot
• C. Clone
• D. Backup

Answer: (A)

Live migration lets you move a running virtual machine from one physical host to another with minimal downtime. It does this by transferring the VM’s memory and device state to the destination while the guest keeps running on the source. A pre-copy phase continuously copies memory pages that are being changed, followed by a brief final synchronization to transfer the last modified data and complete the relocation. Because the disk and network state stay intact (often thanks to shared storage and virtual networking), the service remains almost uninterrupted for users.

Snapshots, clones, and backups aren’t about moving a live VM. A snapshot captures a point-in-time image, but doesn’t relocate the running VM. A clone creates a separate copy, not a relocation of the existing instance. A backup protects data, not the live execution or movement of the VM.