When we go to vmotion from a 3.0.2 machine to a 3.5 box, we get a combatability warning displayed below. Is there any reason to be concerned about this message or is it simply updating the .vmx file to make it compabtable with 3.5? When we migrate it to a 3.5 box will be able to vmotion it back to a 3.0.2 box after this modification?
Kyle
it's kind of a warning message, but can be safely ignored.
Hello Kyle,
I have not tried to vmotion between two different versions of ESX (not a best practice, I can assume). I would create a test vm on the cluster and try it out to see what happens first. That would probably be the safest route.
Regards,
Harley Stagner
I'm pretty sure I know a handful of people that run a mix environment until they fully convert to 3.5, so I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be any issues vmotioning between 3.5 and 3.0.2 as long as we don't update the vmtools
Kyle
it's kind of a warning message, but can be safely ignored.
Thanks Troy, so it is just modifying the config of the machine to run in the new host (3.5) but it can still go back and forth between 3.0.2 and 3.5.
Kyle
yup, no probelm at all go back and forth
We see the same warning during our upgrade from 3.0.1 to 3.5 U2. We've tested and can VMotion back and forth without problems. We VMotion the VMs to the upgraded server and then upgrade the host and have had no problems.
Thanks guys, I had no doubts it could. Of course now that my boss wanted me to show him, it wont VMotion... time to call up vmware and figure out whats going on.
Kyle
Check your VM network names - 3.5 used a different default than 3.0.1 so I had to sync the names in order for VMotion to work.
That was the first thing I checked, vmotion group, lan port groups all match up
Kyle
Have you looked at /var/log/vmwre/vpx/vpxa.log on the host server you are VMotioning from to see what error is generated?
We had a typo in the VMkernel gateway that caused VMotion to fail and the log helped us pinpoint the issue.