Seamless Transitions: A Comprehensive Review of Live Migration Technologies

Abstract: Live migration, a technology enabling seamless transition of operational computational entities between various hosts while preserving continuous functionality and client connectivity, has been the subject of extensive research. However, existing reviews often overlook critical technical aspects and practical challenges integral to the usage of live migration techniques in real-world scenarios. This work bridges this gap by integrating the aspects explored in existing reviews together with a comprehensive analysis of live migration technologies across multiple dimensions, with focus on migration techniques, migration units, and infrastructure characteristics. Despite efforts to make live migration widely accessible, its reliance on multiple system factors can create challenges. In certain cases, the complexities and resource demands outweigh the benefits, making its implementation hard to justify. The focus of this work is mainly on container based and virtual machine-based migration technologies, examining the current state of the art and the disparity in adoption between these two approaches. Furthermore, this work explores the impact of migration objectives and operational constraints on the usability and efficacy of existing technologies. By outlining current technical challenges and providing guidelines for future research and development directions, this work serves a dual purpose: first, to equip enthusiasts with a valuable resource on live migration, and second, to contribute to the advancement of live migration technologies and their practical implementation across diverse computing environments.