Large esxi cluster

[pan1268]

Hello Experts,

Actually, we are breaking one large cluster for 14 esxi hosts into 2 clusters ( version ESXI 5.5 ). We have the EVC enabled in the cluster owing to the 2 ESXI hosts uses different CPU. I would follow the following steps for this task

1) Disable HA and set DRS to manual on the existing cluster (Cluster 01)

2) Create New Cluster (Cluster 02)

3) Enable EVC on the new cluster ( Cluster 02 ) with the same EVC settings as in CLuster 01.

3) Drag and drop the identified ESXI hosts from Cluster01 to Cluster02 ( along with Virtual Machines)

4) Enable HA and DRS on both the clusters

5) Isolate the data store mapping. Meaning cluster 01 should see only Cluster 01 datastores and Cluster 02 should see only Cluster 02 data stores.

Please advice if I need to take anything else into consideration.

Many thanks in advance.

[vasan22in]

Hello,

Please be clear, how many ESXi hosts are in the EVC enabled cluster01..? Because you mentioned only 2 ESXi hosts are in cluster01 with EVC enabled.

The scenario is,

If you want to enable EVC in a cluster, the prerequisite is all VMs in the cluster to be powered off. Refer the below link

vSphere Documentation Center

Make sure,

1) If you migrate ESXi hosts from cluster01 to cluster02, host must be in maintenance mode.Don't migrate VMs along with ESXi host.

2) After you migrate ESXi host, try to vmotion a VM from cluster01 to cluster02. If vmotion success proceed all using the same.

3) If vmotion fails, suspend or power off all VMs on cluster01 host, put the host in maintancence mode and migrate that host to cluster02 and then poweron all VMs.

[RajeevVCP4]

EVC enable on whole cluster not individual host.

2. If you have vAPP or resource pool on existing cluster , you need to create it on second cluster.

3. You can enable EVC later after adding the host, if there is need.

[pan1268]

Hi ,

Many thanks for replies.

My apologies for creating little misunderstanding here. Actually, I would simply like to split one large EVC enabled cluster into 2 small clusters. And, just would like to confirm what steps should I follow.

Many thanks in advance.

[RAJ_RAJ]

Hi ,

Migrate vms from hosts to another , remove esxi host from cluster

Create new cluster add the servers enable EVC  . There should not be any vm in running state .

migrate the vms to new cluster (shared storage required ) , or do migration in power off state with out shared storage

if you have down time just power off vms remove from existing cluster

create new cluster , add esxi hosts and enable evc, power on vms