Very slow vmotion between ESX4.1 and ESXi 4.0

[thomasross]

After upgrading to ESX 4.1U1, vmotion is vey slow (magnitude of 5-6 times) when vmotioning between an ESXi 4.0 (261974) host and ESX 4.1U1(348481).

vmotion between the ESX 4.1U1 hosts is OK.

vmotion between ESXi 4.0 is OK

vmotion from ESX 4.1U1 to ESXi 4.0 is OK

But, vmotion is excrucuiating slow when going from ESXi 4.0 to ESX 4.1U1

Is my best option at this point to upgrade the remaining two servers to 4.1U1?   It will take days to vmotion the VMs off them, but vmotion seems to work, it is just very very very slowwww.

Thanks!

Tom

[AndreTheGiant]

Your 4.0 hosts are quite old (the build is really low). Maybe this could be the reason.

I suggest to upgrade them as soon is possible.

[thomasross]

Thanks, Andrew,

Yea, tech support said the same thing. I'm in the process of doing that. Should be done this week.

I'm actually glad it looks like a build problem and not some other weird thing going on.

Thanks,

TOm

[AndreTheGiant]

You can use vmkping to verify that network is working.

Of course I suppose that you are using at least a diffent logical address for vMotion network.

[Stu_McHugh]

It might be worth checking your network config.  Are you running 1 GB Full?  It also might be worth forcing it to that from the switch end but becareful not to lose the connection!

Stuart

[thomasross]

Thanks, but I checked that already. We are running 1 GB full. vmotin from this server to another 4.0 server runs fine. And going from another 4.1 to this server is fine. Both 4.0 servers have the same issue. The slow vmotion only occurs going from a 4.0 server to a 4.1

Andrew has suggested it may be related to the build number. Iwill find out if that is it in a couple days when I upgrade the last 2 servers in this cluster.

Thanks!

Tom

[thomasross]

While these responses have all been very helpful and thoughtful, none has resolved this issue.

But, I do appreciate the responses and for keeping me on track.

I've upgraded all esx and esxi hosts to the same buld  - 4.1 update 1

I've put vmotion on its own separate vlan and it is sharing a teamed pair of nics (POrt ID) with the service console.  Both 1 GB full.

I changed three esx hosts that were using IP Hash to Port ID for the service sonsole/vmotion vmnics

But I still have the same problem. vmotin works fine until I vmotion from an esxi to an esx host. The esxi hosts are newer with a slightly different cpu, the model is the same, and the esxi hosts are on one physucal cisco switch , while the esx hosts are on another.

I'm about to connect a crossover cable between two servers and see if I still have the same problem.

vmotion works OK between esx hosts and between esxi hosts. It also works ok from esx to esxi. But going from esxi to esx is excrucuatingly slow. A 16 GB ram VM will vmotion successfully , but it will take 2 hours. A 2 GB VM that takes 1 min anythere else takes 15-20 minutes.

Thanks again!

Tom