Can't enable EVC mode

[vadm168]

Hi,

vSphere 6.5

I have a cluster consisting of 4 ESXi hosts with identical hardware (CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2698 v4 @ 2.20GHz). I have many VMs running on them already and I'd like to enable EVC mode on the cluster. According to Intel site, I should be able to set EVC mode to Broadwell. However, when I try to set it to Broadwell and Haswell, they both failed with:

"The host cannot be admitted to the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode. Powered-on or suspended virtual machines on the host may be using CPU features hidden by that mode."

In fact, what's weird is Broadwell is the latest CPUs I have here so I can't imagine there are VMs running on newer processor than that. If it's indeed some VMs are using instruction sets newer than these two processor types, is there a way to find out which VMs are the offending VMs? I know there are Powercli that can collect VM EVC mode but since the cluster is not EVC-enabled, as far as I know Powercli output will show VM's EVC mode empty.

thanks,

[vijayrana968]

You have VMs running on one of the hosts with CPU features sets greater than the Broadwell EVC mode so it won't allow you to enable this EVC mode. Power off VMs > Enable EVC > Power On VMs.

[vadm168]

vijayrana968,

Thanks but the real question is how do I find out all the VMs in the cluster that CPU feature sets higher than Broadwell.I have many VMs in the cluster and can't shut them all down.

[a_p_]

Which vCenter Server build, and which ESXi build is in use?

Are all your hosts running the same BIOS/CPU microcode version, and have the same CPU related BIOS settings?

André

[RickVerstegen]

Select the cluster or host in the inventory.

Click Virtual Machines tab.

If the EVC Mode column does not appear, right-click any column title, select Show/Hide Columns and select EVC Mode.

The EVC modes of all running or suspended virtual machines appear in the EVC Mode column.

[vadm168]

RickVerstegen

Since the EVC is not enabled at the cluster level, EVC Mode column under Virtual machines is empty.

[vadm168]

a.p.,

All ESXi hosts in the cluster have the same build: VMware ESXi, 6.5.0, 8935087. VCSA is on 6.5 8024368. Let me collect BIOS/CPU microcode versions and update this thread.

thanks,

[SupreetK · Accepted solution]

On the enable EVC wizard when you select the EVC mode (before clicking on ok), are all the four hosts showing the above error or only few of them? In the vpxd.log, EVC admission failure will fail with the event 'vim.fault.EVCAdmissionFailedVmActive'. Look for this parameter and check its following lines. It should tell us what features of the CPU is not allowing the EVC to be enabled. Once this is obtained, need to check the parameter 'VM Features Required' in the vmware.log for all the VMs to see which VMs are using the above features reported in the vpxd.log. If only a few hosts are reporting the EVC incompatible error, we can check the vmware.log of the VMs running on only those host(s).

Cheers,

Supreet

[Emke53]

Hello together,

I know i am late to the party and there is already a solution, but I had a similar problem with a different cause.

Setting:

VCSA 7.0.3 (Build 22357613 - Patch U3o) on a Fujitsu Primergy 2530 M5 installed with ESXi 7.0.3 (Build 22348816 - Patch U3o)

So I tried to activate EVC on a cluster with six hosts - all hosts are 2530 M5's. I had a Problem with only one specific host which kept EVC activation to end in an error. It was said that there are powered-on VMs with different EVC CPU Mode, but all VMs on that specific hosts seemed finde with the genereation I wanted to use.

My solution was, that there was one single VM, that hadnt had an entry for the EVC CPU Mode - some old Linux VM. Since the VM had no entry, the Cluster EVC activation somehow always failed. So i just shut down the VM and i worked fine. After booting the VM back up in the EVC activated cluster, it directly had the EVC Mode Entry, that was missing.

So keep an eye out for powered-on VMs, that doesnt have an entry for EVC Mode. Perhaps they cause the same issue for your enviorment.

[Saravanan_N]

Its too late for me to update on this , anyway , if we need to find the VMs which are using the instruction set that not allowing to enable the EVC, RUN the RV tools report and find the section "min Required EVC Mode Key" , this section will show us which VM required the minimum EVC mode key. if any VM shows the latest EVC mode than the mode which you are trying to enable that's the VM not allowing you to enable the EVC mode. 

Power off that VM and enable the EVC mode.