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Enabling EVC on a cluster when vCenter is running in a virtual machine (1013111)

Purpose

This article provides the steps to enable Enhanced vMotion Capability (EVC) on a cluster when vCenter Server is installed on a virtual machine running in the cluster.

Resolution

To enable EVC on a cluster when vCenter Server is installed on a virtual machine running in the cluster:

Warning: VMware does not recommend using these steps for a vCenter Server virtual machine that is running on a Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS). The vCenter Server virtual machine should be moved to a standard vSwitch before proceeding with these steps.

Note: To use EVC, you must have ESX 3.5 Update 2 or higher. These instructions will work only if the vCenter Server virtual machine is running on an ESX host that is presenting the same CPU features as the ESX host in the new EVC cluster.

Connect to the vCenter Server using the VMware Infrastructure (VI) Client or vSphere Client.
Create a new empty cluster which does not contain any ESX hosts.
Enable EVC on this new empty cluster.
Migrate all virtual machines off of one ESX host in the existing cluster.
Put the host into Maintenance Mode.
Drag and drop the ESX host into the EVC cluster.
Exit Maintenance Mode.
Using the VI Client or vSphere Client, directly connect to the ESX host which is hosting the vCenter Server virtual machine.
Right-click the vCenter Server virtual machine and click Edit Settings.
Click the Options tab.
Click General Options.
Note the location and name of the virtual machine configuration file (.vmx) on the datastore. This information is required in step 17 and afterward.
Power off the vCenter Server virtual machine.

Note: With vCenter Server 4.1 and 5.0, it is possible to add a host with running virtual machines to an EVC cluster as long as none of the virtual machines on the host are running instructions not supported by the EVC baseline. If any virtual machine is running an instruction not supported by the baseline, a warning will be displayed. For more information, see the vSphere Datacenter Administration Guide for 4.1 and vSphere 5 Documentation Center.
Right-click the vCenter Server virtual machine and click Remove from Inventory.
Using the VI Client or vSphere Client, connect directly to the ESX host which is in the EVC cluster.
Browse the datastore which contains the virtual machine configuration file for the vCenter Server virtual machine (as noted in step 13 above).
Right-click on the virtual machine configuration file and click Add to Inventory.

This action adds the vCenter Server virtual machine to the Inventory of the ESX host which is in the EVC cluster.
Power on the vCenter Server virtual machine.
Using the VI Client or vSphere Client, connect to the vCenter Server.

You now have vCenter Server running in a virtual machine on an ESX host which is in an EVC cluster. All other virtual machines are running on ESX hosts which are outside of the EVC cluster.
To add the ESX hosts which are outside of the EVC cluster into the EVC cluster, the virtual machines must be moved from each of those ESX hosts.You can attempt to migrate those virtual machines (while powered on) to an ESX host which is already in the EVC cluster.

If this migration fails (for example, due to the EVC baseline configuration), power off the virtual machines and then migrate them to an ESX host in the EVC cluster.
Once all of the virtual machines have been moved from an ESX host, right-click the ESX host and click Disconnect to disconnect it from the vCenter Server Inventory.
Drag and drop the disconnected ESX host into the EVC cluster.
Right-click the ESX host and click Connect to connect it to the vCenter Server Inventory.
Repeat steps 20-23 for each ESX host in turn until all ESX hosts are part of the EVC cluster.

Additional Information

For related information, see:

Update History

03/13/2013 - Added note to use standard vSwitch for vCenter Server before running through procedure.

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