1 / 25

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility. Product Support Engineering. VMware Confidential. Module 2 Lessons. Lesson 1 – vCenter Server High Availability Lesson 2 – vCenter Server Distributed Resource Scheduler Lesson 3 – Fault Tolerance Virtual Machines Lesson 4 – Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

lamontc
Download Presentation

Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Enhanced vMotion Compatibility Product Support Engineering VMware Confidential

  2. Module 2 Lessons • Lesson 1 – vCenter Server High Availability • Lesson 2 – vCenter Server Distributed Resource Scheduler • Lesson 3 – Fault Tolerance Virtual Machines • Lesson 4 – Enhanced vMotion Compatibility • Lesson 5 – DPM - IPMI • Lesson 6 – vApps • Lesson 7 – Host Profiles • Lesson 8 – Reliability, Availability, Serviceability ( RAS ) • Lesson 9 – Web Access • Lesson 10 – vCenter Server Update Manager • Lesson 11 – Guided Consolidation • Lesson 12 – Health Status VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  3. Module 2-4 Lessons • Lesson 1 – Overview of Enhanced vMotion Compatibility • Lesson 2 – Compatibility Matrix • Lesson 3 – EVC Baselines • Lesson 4 – Requirements for EVC • Lesson 5 – Enabling EVC on a Cluster • Lesson 6 – Troubleshooting EVC VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  4. OEM VMotion Compatibility Matrix Source: www.dell.com; Similar matrices are available for HP and IBM servers VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  5. Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) • EVC allows vCenter to enforce VMotion compatibility between all hosts in a cluster by forcing hosts to expose a common set of CPU features (baseline) to Virtual Machines. • EVC automatically configures servers whose CPUs feature Intel FlexMigration and AMD-V Extended Migration technologies to be VMotion-compatible with servers that use older CPUs. • EVC ensures that all hosts in a cluster present the same CPU feature set to Virtual Machines, even if the actual CPUs on the hosts differ. • This prevents migrations with VMotion from failing due to incompatible CPUs. VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  6. Detecting CPU Features • OS or application software executes CPUID machine instruction • CPUID instruction reports many system properties: • Vendor (e.g. Intel or AMD) • CPU family, model, stepping • Supported CPU features, e.g.: • NX/XD (No execute; memory protection from malware) • AMD-V/VT-x (Virtualization support in hardware) • SSE3 (CPU instructions to optimize streaming applications) • Number of CPU cores, cache size, and many other properties VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  7. EVC Benefits • Enables VMotion across CPU generations • New CPUs are automatically configured to be compatible with earlier versions. • Makes it much easier to add new hardware to existing clusters. • Simple • No manual CPUID masking required VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  8. App OS Intel Core 2 VM ESX ESX Intel Core 2 CPU Future Intel CPU Intel EVC Cluster With Different Generation CPUs • VM sees Intel Core 2 level CPU features and can migrate to any host in the EVC cluster Intel EVC Cluster ESX Intel Core 2 45nm CPU VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  9. App OS Opteron Rev E VM ESX ESX ESX AMD Barcelona CPU Future AMD CPU AMD Rev E CPU AMD EVC Cluster With Different Generation CPUs • VM sees AMD Opteron Rev E CPU features, can migrate to any host in the EVC cluster. AMD EVC Cluster VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  10. EVC Baselines • Baseline: a set of CPU features that is supported by every host in the cluster • Baseline is the least common denominator of all hosts, or less • In ESX 3.5 u2, one baseline per CPU vendor • Intel: CPU features supported by Merom cores • AMD: CPU features supported in Opteron Rev E/F • In VI4, it is expected that two or more baselines can be defined, e.g.: • Intel: Merom, Penryn (SSE4.1), Nehalem (SSE4.2) • AMD: Rev E/F and Greyhound (SSE4A, ABM) VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  11. EVC Baselines (ctd) • Multiple baselines allow the user to choose: • Greater compatibility (fewer cpu features) • More features (less cpu compatibility) • Additional baselines will be introduced for new CPU generations VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  12. EVC baselines & CPU Models • VMware KB article 1003212 lists specific CPU models and which baselines they support • http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003212 • Examples: • Intel Core 2 • Intel Merom baseline: 73xx (Tigerton), 51xx (Woodcrest) • Intel Core 2 45nm • Intel Penryn baseline: 74xx (Dunnington), 54xx (Harpertown) • AMD 2nd Generation • Opteron Rev E/F baseline: 2yy, 8yy, 22yy, 82yy • AMD 3rd Generation • Greyhound baseline: 23yy, 83yy VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  13. App ESX OS Core 2 45 nm VM Intel Core 2 45nm CPU ESX ESX Intel Core 2 45nm CPU Intel Core 2 CPU EVC Cluster With Intel Core 2 45nm (Penryn) Baseline • VM cannot migrate to an Intel Core 2 (Merom) based CPU • It can migrate to an Intel Core 2 45nm (Penryn) based CPU outside the cluster Intel EVC Cluster (Core 2 45nm baseline) ESX Future Intel CPU VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  14. Determine CPU Model • vCenter will display model information for CPUs that already have ESX installed • For new servers that do not have ESX installed, use some of the freeware utilities such as CPU-Z. The E54xx CPUs are ‘Harpertown’ processors from the Penryn series VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  15. EVC & CPU Features • EVC does not affect CPU features • Number of cores per CPU. For example, a Greyhound (quad core) CPU does not lose 2 cores when it’s added to a Rev E/F (dual core) EVC cluster • Cache size • Hardware virtualizationsupport (VT-x, AMD-V, nested paging) • Clock speed. Thus, EVC does not cause any performance penalties • Worst case scenario from implementing EVC: a VM cannot take advantage of new CPU instructions, e.g. SSE 4.1 VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  16. Requirements For EVC • EVC requires ESX 3.5 update 2 or later. • EVC requires Intel CPUs with Core 2 micro architecture and newer, e.g. • Merom: 73xx (Tigerton), 51xx (Woodcrest), 53xx (Clovertown) • Penryn: 74xx (Dunnington), 54xx (Harpertown) • EVC requires AMD second generation Opteron CPUs and newer, e.g. • Rev E/F: models 1yy, 2yy, 8yy, 12yy, 22yy, 82yy • Greyhound: models 13yy, 23yy, 83yy • EVC requires a homogenous cluster; either all Intel or all AMD hosts. • Applications on VMs must be well-behaved. • The applications must be written to use the CPUID machine instruction to discover CPU features. VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  17. Enabling EVC On A Cluster (ctd) VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  18. Using EVC • Once EVC is enabled for a cluster: • All hosts already in, or entering the cluster, are automatically configured to match the EVC cluster baseline. • VC will not allow hosts to enter the cluster which are not capable of exactly matching the cluster EVC requirements. • VMotion will never fail due to CPU incompatibility since all hosts present identical features through EVC baselines . VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  19. ESX ESX Intel Pentium 4 AMD CPU EVC Maintains Complete VMotion Compatibility • Cannot add a host with incompatible hardware • All hosts CPUs must be from the same vendor • CPUs must be on par with the cluster baseline or newer Intel EVC Cluster (Merom Baseline) VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  20. App OS Core 2 45nm VM ESX Intel Core 2 45nm CPU EVC Maintains Complete VMotion Compatibility (ctd) • Cannot add a host with running VMs • The VM could be using CPU features that are not present in all hosts in the cluster. • Must migrate or power off VMs on the ESX that you wish to add to the cluster. Intel EVC Cluster (Core 2 Baseline) VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  21. ESX 3.0.x Opteron Rev F CPU EVC Maintains Complete VMotion Compatibility (ctd) • Cannot add a host with incompatible ESX version • Host must have ESX 3.5 update 2 or newer installed AMD EVC Cluster (Rev E/F Baseline) VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  22. Troubleshooting EVC • VMware CPUID utility • Bootable CDROM • Reports raw CPUID data and “interesting” features • http://www.vmware.com/download/shared_utilities.html • Intel processor identification utility • http://support.intel.com/support/processors/tools/piu/ • CPU-Z, a freeware utility for displaying CPU features • www.cpuid.com • VMotion Info tool • Displays CPU info of servers in a vCenter deployment • www.run-virtual.com VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  23. Troubleshooting EVC • Error: Incompatible CPU: “The following hosts have CPUs that do not support EVC. Remove these hosts from the cluster.” • What troubleshooting steps would you take to solve this problem? • You have to unmask the CPU features of all the ESX servers. If any of the bits are masked, you cannot enabled EVC. VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  24. Lesson 2-4 Summary • Learn how to enable EVC on a Cluster • Learn how to create EVC Baselines • Learn how to troubleshoot EVC VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

  25. Lesson 2-4 - Lab 4 • Module 2-4 Lab 4 – VMware vCenter Enhanced vMotion Compatibility • Enable EVC on a Cluster • Checking EVC compatibility • EVC settings • Troubleshooting EVC VI4 - Mod 2-4 - Slide

More Related