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  • 1.  EVC with Intel X5650 - Westmere Intel ES - Sandy Bridge

    Posted Feb 15, 2013 10:39 AM

    Hello all,

    I have four servers connected on a single cluster with Intel CPU X5650 - Westmere - and I need to connect more two servers that uses the intel ES -Sandy Bridge processor.

    Question:

    1 - It's necessary to enable EVC mode to allow the creation of a cluster between Westmere and Sandy Bridge ?

    2 - If EVC is necessary, is there a way to avoid the virtual machine to restart ?

    Best Regards,

    jgsilva9000



  • 2.  RE: EVC with Intel X5650 - Westmere Intel ES - Sandy Bridge

    Posted Feb 15, 2013 10:52 AM

    You would need to enable EVC to support the new servers in the current cluster.  You could try this method to avoid shutting down VMs.

    Q: Is there a way to enable EVC without shutting down all your VMs?

    A: Yes, there is, but deppending on the size of your environment it might or might not be right for you. First VMotion all VMs of a host in the cluster. Then moving the host into a newly created cluster. Enable EVC on this cluster and then VMotioned VMs from the old cluster to the new cluster, emptying yet another host which could then be moved to the new cluster. In this way, you can enable EVC without bringing VMs down.

    Remark: Be sure to start with the “oldest” host, because this will make your baseline. At this time (nov-2008), there isn’t much difference in cpu families that will cause different baselines, but in the feature there will be.

    There is a drawback to this method however, permissions for groups and DRS /HA rules you’ve created at the cluster level, are lost and there is no way to export and import them to the new cluster. You have to re-enter these rules by hand. So, depending on the number of rules you have created, this method might work for you.