communities.vmware.com-How do I set EVC Level on a Cluster with a VCSA and no shared storage

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How do I set EVC Level on a Cluster with a VCSA and no shared storage communities.vmware.com/thread/542497

2 Replies Latest reply on Aug 28, 2016 12:37 PM by chs1 This question has been Answered.

chs1 Aug 27, 2016 12:22 PM Bit of a puzzler here- any advice appreciated. In my Homelab I have an existing cluster containing a single host running ESXi 6. On this host is (amongst other things) the VCSA VM. I have added a second ESXi6 host and joined it to the vCenter. This host has older hardware with an older EVC level. I can't enable EVC on the cluster because the old host does not have the capabilities of the new host. The old host has VMs running which may be using the enhanced capabilities of the higher EVC level, one of these is the VCSA. "The host cannot be admitted to the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode. Powered-on or suspended virtual machines on the host may be using CPU features hidden by that mode." I can't vMotion the VCSA to the old host because I can't enable EVC and it won't migrate without it. If I turn it off, I lose vCenter and can't migrate it. "The virtual machine requires hardware features that are unsupported or disabled on the target host" I've read through the Knowledgebase article "How to enable EVC in vCenter Server (1013111)" but I don't currently have shared storage so can't disable the VM in one host and bring it back up in a second which is in the cluster. My understanding of that article is that I would need the second host to be able to see the disk where the VCSA currently resides. Additionally all the other articles/discussions I have come across always assume that the "new" host has newer hardware. My current thinking is 1. Put some shared storage in and follow the procedure shown in KB1013111 2. Power down the VCSA, use the host web client to move the files from the datastore to 1/3

my laptop, then back up to the less-able host. Power it on and set EVC on the cluster. 3. Dump the VCSA and setup a replacement instance on the less-able host. Reconfigure everything. Does anyone have any better ideas?

Correct Answer by chs1 on Aug 28, 2016 12:37 PM OK, answering my own question here, but hopefully someone will find this useful in the future. Option 4 worked. Using SCP to do a host-host local datastore transfer of the powered down and unregistered VCSA Virtual Machine files. Rough steps: 1 Using VCSA setup a new cluster containing just the second host (the one with older hardware) and turn on EVC appropriately. 2 Enable Secure Shell access on both hosts 3 Shutdown all VMs including the VCSA on the first host 4 Remove VCSA from inventory (Unregister) using web client on first host 5 SSH into second host 6 Enable SCP through the firewall with esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r sshClient -thanks http://jim-zimmerman.com/?p=723 for that snippet 7 Use SCP to copy VM files from local datastore on first host to local datastore on second host. For example- in SSH session on second host, something like this: mkdir /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/LABVC1 scp '[email protected]:/vmfs/volumes/Datastore2/LABVC1/*.*' /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/LABVC1/ 8 Connect to web client on second host and register the copy of the VMX file to inventory 9 Turn on the VCSA VM. When prompted say "I moved it" 10 Wait for VCSA to spin up then move the first host into the cluster with the second host. 11 (remember to go back and delete the old copy of the VCSA from the datastore on the first host and disable SSH on both hosts if it's not required.) 2/3

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