host profiles and EVC?

[beckhamk]

We have severa hosts 5300/5400 intels in an evc cluster. We made a host profile from one of these servers. We then added a new 5600 intel server to vc, but not into the evc cluster. we then applied the host profile rebooted. We were surprised to see that vmware allowed us to vmotion a vm from a host in the evc cluster to the 5600 host without any complaints.

My questions is do the hsot profiles modify the host server to match the evc settings also?

[AntonVZhbankov · Accepted solution]

EVC is not included to Host Profile. EVC is actually CPUID masking on VM level. So that's not a surprise that you can VMotion VM from EVC cluster to newer host.

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MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[beckhamk]

Thats what i was thinking was going on. So if i clear the cpumask it wont allow vmotion to go back. But if we a new cluster, do we have to shutdown each vm and clear the cpumask for it to have the correct new cpu mask for the new cluster?

[AntonVZhbankov]

Let me explain how it works. Suppose we have two different clusters built with CPUs of different generations.

Cluster 1: G1, G2, G3 and G4.

Cluster 2: G3 and G4.

EVC level for Cluster 1 would be G1 - lowest level for oldest CPUs.

EVC level for Cluster 2 would be G3.

When you VMotion VM from Cluster 1 to host with G3 CPUs VM will continue to run fine because G3 CPU can all the stuff G1 can. The same thing if you VMotion VM to Cluster 2. But if you want VM to use all the new features that appeared after G1 you have to power VM off and start in G3 level cluster so new CPUID mask will be applied that would hide less features.

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MCSA, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru