VMware Cloud Community
cans
Contributor
Contributor
‎09-30-2017 02:31 AM

CPU Generation and guest OS support

Hello,

We currently renewal our ESXi hardware.

One of our way is to buy servers that includes last Intel Skylake CPUs and running it with ESXi 6.0U3 version (so on ESXi side it's not a problem).

But, must of our VMs are running guest os that don't support Skylake architecture (btw it's a x86 64bits processor, not really a new architecture) like RHEL 6.5, Windows 7, ..

I don't really find links that say 'no problem' or 'it's a problem' so i'm asking the question: what VMTN thinks about this point ? Smiley Happy

It's really a big deal or I'm worrying for nothing ?

Thanks !

3 Replies
DavoudTeimouri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
‎09-30-2017 11:50 AM

I think, there is no problem about running older guest on newer CPU generation.

I have Windows XP SP3 machine on SkyLake.

Actually, I have not seen any notice about that on VMware Guest OS Compatibility Guide.

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Davoud Teimouri - https://www.teimouri.net - Twitter: @davoud_teimouri Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teimouri.net/
cans
Contributor
Contributor
‎10-03-2017 02:00 PM

Ok, thanks for your reply.

Hope this will be the same with our RHEL6 guests Smiley Happy

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership
‎10-05-2017 12:40 AM

ESXi can be configured to hide certain instruction sets if there is any issue, but I have had DOS and NT4 servers running on modern hardware just for fun.  you should have no problems.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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