Host swap-out

[Kahonu84]

Aloha,

In the semi-near future we will be swapping out our four PowerEdge 2950's for three R710's. I want to run by all of you the process as I see it.

1. Completely set up R710s for production environment. Assign bogus hostnames and IP's.

2. Put 2950 in Maintenance Mode.

3. Shut off 2950.

4. Remove 2950 from cluster.

5. Rename and Re-IP 710.

6. Reboot 710.

7. Add 710 to cluster.

Repeat steps 2-7 for two remaining 2950/710 pairs.

8. Put ESX4 in Maintenance Mode.

9. Shut down ESX4.

10. Remove ESX4 from cluster.

Please critique..

Mahalo,

           Bill

[vmroyale]

Hello.

The big thing that stands out is have you looked into EVC mode compatibility for the mixed 2950s and 710s? 

Good Luck!

[Troy_Clavell]

you canot use different hostnames and IP address for the new server, create a new cluster and add the new hosts into the new cluster?  Or are you reusing the hostnames and IP's from the old systems?  If re-using, I would tend to retire a host, then build a host with the re-used hostname and IP.... .seems a bit cleaner.

My only concern is the guests.  How are you going to get them from the old hosts to the new? There may be some issues with the CPUID Mask.  Can we assume the new hosts have a different CPU then the old?

[Kahonu84]

The 2950's are 5410's and the R710's are 5620's. My cluster EVC is set to XEON Core 2 mode. If I am reading this -

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100321...

correctly, they should be able to co-mingle.

Am I reading correctly??

Bill

[vmroyale]

Yes, you are.  That part looks good then.

[Kahonu84]

IPs and hostnames will be re-used.. Once I am in an all R710 state, would there be any advantage to changing the EVC mode to Xeon 32nm Core i7?

[Troy_Clavell]

I don't use EVC, so I can't speak of the advantage/disadvantage of each EVC Baseline.  I think what is most important is you have a baseline that enables vMotion compatibility.

[vmroyale]

Troy is correct.

"EVC masks only those processor features that affect vMotion compatibility. Enabling EVC does not prevent a virtual machine from taking advantage of faster processor speeds, increased numbers of CPU cores, or hardware virtualization support that might be available on newer hosts." - from p.216 of the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide. The actual Vmware hypervisor will have access to all processor functionality and will not be impacted by this.

[Kahonu84]

Aloha Troy -

Hope all is well. I think the above messages establish the fact that EVC-wise - I'm good to go.

Bill