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Vector Retrieval Service for Milvus:Data migration

Last Updated:Jun 22, 2026

Alibaba Cloud Milvus supports multiple data migration solutions that allow you to migrate data between external databases and Alibaba Cloud Milvus without service disruption.

Supported scenarios

Scenario

Documentation link

(Cloud migration) Migrate a self-managed Milvus database to Alibaba Cloud

Data migration between Milvus instances

Data migration between Alibaba Cloud Milvus instances

Key migration requirements and limits

Pre-migration preparations (required)

  1. Operation status control

    Cluster type

    Requirement

    Description

    Source cluster

    Stop all data modification operations

    Includes write, delete, and update operations. The cluster must be in a read-only state to prevent data inconsistencies during migration.

    Destination cluster

    Pause all data operations

    Includes query, write, delete, and update operations. The cluster must remain unavailable to avoid data conflicts during migration.

  2. Version compatibility

    Requirement

    Specification

    Source cluster version

    Must be later than 2.3.6 (≥ v2.3.7)

    Destination cluster version

    Must be the same as or later than the source cluster version

Migration task limits

  1. Task management

    • Concurrency limit: Only one migration task can run at a time.

  2. Data scope

    • Database limit: Each migration task can migrate collections from only one database.

    • Collection limit: Each migration task supports a maximum of five collections.

    • Total data size: The total number of entities across all collections cannot exceed 500 million.

  3. Data state

    • Source instance requirement: The collections to be migrated must be in the loaded state.

    • Destination instance requirement: The destination instance must be empty with no existing entity data.