Migrating VMs from a non-EVC cluster to an EVC cluster

[RoscoT]

Hello all,

I've walked into an environment that has a single cluster of 9 hosts without EVC turned on:

Host	Processor Family	Processor	ESX(i) Version
Host1	Penryn	Xeon E5450	4.0.0 Update 2
Host2	Penryn	Xeon E5450	4.0.0 Update 2
Host3	Penryn	Xeon E5450	4.0.0 Update 2
Host4	Nehalem	Xeon X5550	4.0.0 Update 2
Host5	Nehalem	Xeon X5550	4.0.0 Update 2
Host6	Nehalem	Xeon X5560	5.0.0 Patch 1
Host7	Westmere	Xeon E5630	5.0.0 No patches
Host8	Westmere	Xeon E5630	5.0.0 No patches
Host9	Westmere	Xeon E5606	5.0.0 Patch 6

I'm looking to create two clusters, one for the three Penryn processor hosts (dev) and a separate one for the six Nehalem/Westmere hosts (prod).

If I put one of the Nehalem hosts into maintenance mode, remove it from the current cluster and place it in a new cluster with EVC turned on with the EVC mode set to "Nehalem", will I then be able to vMotion VMs from the other two Nehalem hosts in the current cluster to the new EVC enabled cluster?

I understand that the VMs on the Westmere hosts will need to be powered down before migrating them to the new Nehalem EVC cluster but will I be able to VM motion the VMs from the Penryn hosts to the new Nehalem cluster?

Also the Nehalem hosts contain two processor types: X5550 and X5560. Would this have any impact on vMotioning VMs from a non-EVC cluster to a new Nehalem EVC cluster?

TIA

[PhillyDubs · Accepted solution]

"If I put one of the Nehalem hosts into maintenance mode, remove it from the current cluster and place it in a new cluster with EVC turned on with the EVC mode set to "Nehalem", will I then be able to vMotion VMs from the other two Nehalem hosts in the current cluster to the new EVC enabled cluster?"

Yes. You are going from Nehalem to Nehalem, no issues.

"I understand that the VMs on the Westmere hosts will need to be powered down before migrating them to the new Nehalem EVC cluster but will I be able to VM motion the VMs from the Penryn hosts to the new Nehalem cluster?"

Yes. As long as the current instruction set is lesser than or equal to Nehalem, you can do this.

"Also the Nehalem hosts contain two processor types: X5550 and X5560. Would this have any impact on vMotioning VMs from a non-EVC cluster to a new Nehalem EVC cluster?"

As long as the non-evc cluster is Nehalem(or lesser), it should not be an issue. All you are doing with EVC is masking which instruction sets can be offered to the virtual machines.

[RoscoT]

Thanks for the reply. Just what I needed and nice and clear. Cheers!