Module 2-4 - EVC

25
Enhanced vMotion Compatibility Product Support Engineering VMware Confid ential  

Transcript of Module 2-4 - EVC

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Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

Product Support Engineering

VMware Confid ential 

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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 – vAppsLesson 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

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OEM VMotion Compatibility Matrix

Source: www.dell.com; Similar matrices are available for HP and IBM servers

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Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC)

EVC allows vCenter to enforce VMotion compatibility betweenall 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.

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Detecting CPU Features

OS or application software executes CPUID machine instructionCPUID 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

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EVC Benefits

Enables VMotion across CPU generationsNew 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

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Intel EVC Cluster With Different Generation CPUs

VM sees Intel Core 2 level CPU features and can migrate toany host in the EVC cluster 

ESX

Intel Core 2 CPU

ESX

Intel Core 2

45nm CPU

ESX

Future Intel CPU

App

OS

Intel Core

2 VM

Intel EVC Cluster 

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AMD EVC Cluster With Different Generation CPUs

VM sees AMD Opteron Rev E CPU features, can migrate toany host in the EVC cluster.

ESX

AMD Rev E CPU

ESX

AMD Barcelona CPU

ESX

Future AMD CPU

App

OS

Opteron

Rev E VM

AMD EVC Cluster 

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EVC Baselines

Baseline: a set of CPU features that is supported by every hostin 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)

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EVC Baselines (ctd)

EVC Baseline Compatible CPUs

Intel® Core™ 2 

(Merom)

Intel® Core™ 2 

Intel® 45nm Core™ 2 

Intel® 45nm Core™ 2 

(Penryn)

Intel® 45nm Core™ 2 

AMD Second Generation Opteron™ 

(Rev. E/F)

 AMD Second Generation Opteron™ 

 AMD Third Generation Opteron™ 

AMD Third Generation Opteron™ 

(Barcelona)

 AMD Third Generation Opteron™ 

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

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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

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EVC Cluster With Intel Core 2 45nm (Penryn) Baseline

VM cannot migrate to an Intel Core 2 (Merom) based CPUIt can migrate to an Intel Core 2 45nm (Penryn) based CPU

outside the cluster 

ESX

Intel Core 2 CPU

ESX

Intel Core 2

45nm CPU

ESX

Future Intel CPU

Intel EVC Cluster (Core 2 45nm baseline)

ESX

Intel Core 2

45nm CPU

App

OS

Core 2

45 nm VM

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Determine CPU Model

vCenter will display model information for CPUs that alreadyhave ESX installed

For new servers that do not have ESX installed, use some of thefreeware utilities such as CPU-Z.

The E54xx CPUs are „Harpertown‟

processors from the Penryn series

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EVC & CPU Features

EVC does not affect CPU featuresNumber 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 virtualization support (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

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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.

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Enabling EVC On A Cluster (ctd)

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Using EVC

Once EVC is enabled for a cluster:1.  All hosts already in, or entering the cluster, are automatically

configured to match the EVC cluster baseline.

2. VC will not allow hosts to enter the cluster which are not capable of 

exactly matching the cluster EVC requirements.

3. VMotion will never  fail due to CPU incompatibility since all hostspresent identical features through EVC baselines .

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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 

ESX

AMD CPU

Intel EVC Cluster (Merom Baseline)

ESX

Intel Pentium 4

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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.

ESX

Intel Core 2

45nm CPU

App

OS

Core 2

45nm VM

Intel EVC Cluster (Core 2 Baseline)

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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)

ESX 3.0.x

Opteron Rev F CPU

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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 

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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.

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Lesson 2-4 Summary

Learn how to enable EVC on a Cluster 

Learn how to create EVC Baselines

Learn how to troubleshoot EVC

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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