A method of migrating a virtual machine (VM) having a virtual disk from a source data center to a destination data center includes generating a snapshot of the VM to create a base disk and a delta disk in which writes to the virtual disk subsequent to the snapshot are recorded, and copying the base disk to a destination data store. The method further includes, in response to a request to migrate the VM, preparing a migration specification at the source and transmitting the migration specification to the destination, the migration specification including a VM identifier and a current content ID of the base disk, and determining that a content ID of the copied base disk matches the current content ID of the base disk included in the migration specification and updating the migration specification to indicate that the base disk does not need to be migrated.