Hello Everyone,
We recently added to new ESVMX Servers to an existing cluster, servers are DL380-G5 Quad E5450 model. These new servers are unable to VMotion with the existing ESX Servers in the cluster, existing servers are DL380-G5 Quad E5345 model. Has anyone ran across this issue? I installed VMotion Info and the instruction sets seem to be the same.
Exact error message: The CPU of the host is incompatible with the CPU feature requirements of virtual machine; problem detected at CPUID level 0x1 register 'ecx'.
With u2 vmware has added what they EVC - Enhanced VMotion Compatability - that possibly can handle this CPU incompatibility a little - if you are not running u2 than the CPUs need to be compatible - I believe HP maintains a vmotion copatbility chart on their website -
You might be able to do a "Off-Line" VMotion/Migration. However you would not be able to do a "Live" VMotion. VMWare states that you must have same hardware, usually they mean same CPU. Hope this may help.
What I mean "Off-Line" VMotion, shutdown or turn off the VM and move that vm to the other host.
They are not vmotion compatible. I think you have to mask out sse4 on the E54xx to make it work.
With u2 vmware has added what they EVC - Enhanced VMotion Compatability - that possibly can handle this CPU incompatibility a little - if you are not running u2 than the CPUs need to be compatible - I believe HP maintains a vmotion copatbility chart on their website -
We in fact created a new ESX 3.5U2 EVC enabled cluster starting with the e5450 servers. We then upgraded each e5345 to ESX3.5u2 and VMotioned the virtual machines from the original cluster onto the EVC enabled cluster. We are now able to VMotion between the e5345 and e5450 chipsets.
Thank you everyone for your assistance. Please feel free to reach out to me if you need further explanation.
Thanks BigHug for your response. We ended up upgrading all the servers
to ESX 3.5u2 and created a new Cluster with EVC enabled and then
vmotioned all the VM's into the new Cluster and now we are able to have
both e5345 and e5450 chipsets live together in the same cluster with
vmotion compatibility. All this with zero impact to the virtual
machines.
Thanks,
Jose L Alvarado
Manager, Server Engineering
MediaWorks, NBC Universal
Office (818) 777-2441 | Mobile (818) 266-5523
in esx 3.x and 4.x you can always use cpuid mask changing (if for example VMware EVC did not work (for me for example not working because I have some old servers).
CPUID mask changing You doing in properties of every vmachine (yep this is disadvantage) Options\CPUID Mask\Advanced
info about usage here you can find in googl by typing: vmware cpuid mask change
kind regards
Dawid Fusek