Patent ID: 8370473

Claim:
A method of computing, comprising: identifying a target location for live migration of virtual machine services from a source location; identifying candidate paths from the source location to the target location, the candidate paths comprising a series of hops via intermediate locations; choosing optimization criteria for evaluation of the candidate paths; performing an analysis of the candidate paths according to the chosen optimization criteria, selecting a migration path from the candidate paths responsively to the analysis; generating a migration plan comprising the steps of: in a first hop along the migration path: delivering the virtual machine services to an operating system from the source location; migrating the virtual machine services a first time via a data network from the source location to an intermediate location; and delivering the virtual machine services to the operating system from the intermediate location; in a second hop along the migration path: migrating the virtual machine services a second time from the intermediate location to the target location via the data network; and delivering the virtual machine services to the operating system from the target location; executing the first hop: thereafter making a determination of feasibility of continued migration using the second hop; and responsively to the determination of feasibility executing the second hop in the migration path, wherein breaks in the virtual machine services to the operating system while migrating the virtual machine services a first time are less than a predefined limit, and breaks in the virtual machine services to the operating system while migrating the virtual machine services a second time are less than the predefined limit.