Does VSphere 6.5 supports the Dell servers R720?

[lions1855]

We are looking to extend, for DR purposes, the current VSPhere 6.5 environment to another Data Center. In case there is an unexpected event, then, the remote site could assist continue to provide computing and VMware services to our users.

Our current VSphere cluster uses Dell Servers R730xd, and everything is working just fine locally with 10Gb backbone. The remote site is going to have the same network capabilities. However, the link between our location and the remote site is just a dedicated 1Gb circuit.

The first question is: Can R720 be mixed with R730xd on this VSphere 6.5 for DR purpose? Moreover, two, do you see any issues with the backbone speed between our location and the remote data center?

Thanks

[BenFB]

Is the quantity of CPU and memory between the R730xd and R720 the same (e.g. They all have 512 GB of memory and 16 cores?). If they have near identical memory and the number of CPU cores mixing them is less of an issue. If there is a big difference DRS will have trouble balancing the cluster. I believe VMware used to refer to different hardware configurations in the same cluster as in imbalanced cluster and recommended against it. I recently had a cluster of R730 that all had 512 GB of memory but some had 28 core and other had 32 core CPU. We would find that the 28 core systems were always running hotter and had a higher vCPU:pCPU ratio.

The VMware HCL shows that the R720 are at least compatible with 6.5 U2. If you are going to do this at least make sure all the hosts are running the same version of ESXi. Depending on the CPU you may need to enable EVC mode.

VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search

[lions1855]

Thanks for this information, it is very valuable. We are looking at using the R720 just if the situation requires to use them. We will try to keep our VM infrastructure on the newer servers. And, not to use the R720 for production, again, it is just for DR situations that we need to get out of a pickle.

The servers have pretty much the same specs except for the amount of RAM and type of CPU. The newer servers have 256Gb, and Intel Xeon CPU E5-2650 v4 @ 2.20GHz. The older servers, R720, PROCESSOR, E52665, 2.4, 20M, SNB, 115W, C2, 128Gb of RAM.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks

[b34ny]

We're using a mix of Dell R720 and R730 hosts in a production 6.5 U2 environment of 7 total hosts.  We have had no issues with 6.5 to speak of (we're running NVIDIA GPUs as well).

[BenFB]

For your situation it sounds like you understand the risks and should go with it. Just make sure to lower the EVC level on the cluster to allow the R720 in case you need them.

What type of desktops will you be running on them? If your users are moving between the two hosts they could see a pop-up that Windows detected new hardware and a restart is needed. For linked clones in mixed clusters we make sure the parent has been powered on once on each type of CPU to detect the hardware so the user never notices.

[lions1855]

Thanks...we use windows 10 desktop link clones. The applications installed on these vdis are office 2016, firefox, chrome, some basic business apps like lotus notes, and adobe acrobat.