Host ESX Versions in Cluster...

[johnlockie]

I have a general question...

If I have a 3 host cluster, and 2 hosts are on 3.5.0 (no update), and another host is 3.5.0 update 3 will the entire cluster default to 3.5.0?

I ask this because I realized I have a couple hosts that were not updated as I had previously thought, and while trying to deploy VMWare View for development we cannot use linked clones. I suspect this is because the cluster is not 3.5.0 with proper update. VCenter is updated to update 4 (2.5.0), and while I have one host that is compliant with View requirements (the updated ESX 3.5.0 U3 host)

While this is somewhat irrelevent since we are working on updating the entire cluster to 3.5.0 U4, and the VCenter server to 2.5.0 U4 it did raise a question in my mind to understand how the cluster works when you have multiple hosts with different versions....maybe this is why we have trouble with vmotion between the updated host and other hosts....!! =O

[Troy_Clavell]

it really shouldn't affect vmotion between hosts, but as you said, if all the hosts in the cluster don't meet the requirements for View and linked clones than you need to get your environment updated.

...but if nothing else, getting all the ESX hosts on the same build will help in administration.

[johnlockie]

Interesting. Our proc's in the 2 older version hosts are 5335 Intel Xeon's and the newer host is 5440 Intel Xeon.

I am thinking now that a combination of version mismatch and processor types is causing the conflict. We are getting ready to put in new 5440's in to the old hosts, and in the process will go ahead and upgrade ESX....then we should have no issue with vmotion, enhanced vmotion, or view products....

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

yes, if you have incompatible CPU's than vmotion will be affected, but the build of 3.5 base or U2 will not cause vmotion to stop.

The only way to get the 53xx and the 54xx to vmotion is to enable EVC, http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1991 or override the mask, http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1993

[johnlockie]

Yes. I had trouble enabling enhanced vmotion. I took for granted that the versions were all the same (U3).

After doing some more investigating (largely for View Linked Clones enablement) I realized that the hosts are not matching versions. This mismatch in versions is why I could not enable enhanced vmotion, and why it seemed like the CPU's were mismatch (and we got a lot of errors when running SiteSurvey).

I think we got some bad consulting because all of these issues were never brought to my attention by one of our partners. So what I did was purchase new processors (not needed I know, but still worth the investment for our company), and then prepare a plan to upgrade ESX hosts and VCenter....once these things are done I trust 100% that VMotion will work (even without using EVC, but we will be able to enable EVC for future needs) and View will be able to use linked clones via view composer, etc.

Sounds like if a certain functionality is dependent on a version of ESX then ALL HOSTS in the cluster must be running that version (or greater). So having a single host with an older version of ESX will essentially "down grade" the cluster....thanks.