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How to enable EVC when VCenter Server is running on VM in a Nutanix Cluster

March 18, 2019 at 2:24 pm Leave a comment

As part of the Nutanix best practices we need to enable the EVC on the VSphere Cluster.  In that sense , when the VCenter Server it self a VM , you will be dragged in to  a chicken and egg situation.  Because , when a host contains powered on VM , you will not be able to add the host to the EVC enabled Cluster. Thus , to overcome this condition , you could follow the below guidelines. (You may need to disable the Admission Control temporarily and enable it again until you finish all the steps)

1) Add the hosts to the DataCenter .

2) Create the HA / DRS Cluster .

3) Enable EVC on the cluster based on your processor architecture.

4) Pick up any host and shutdown the running VM’s and the CVM ( Please keep in mind , you can shutdown only one CVM at a time).

5) Then drag & drop the host to the Cluster , the  host will be added to the cluster without any hassle.

6) Power on the VM’s and the CVM ( wait till the CVM completes the boot)

7) Now , VMotion the VCenter VM to the host which is part of the Cluster already.

8) That’s it repeat  steps 4 ,5 & 6 for the remaining hosts.

Hint:

# In case if you have forgotten to enable EVC before you put the Cluster in to production , and now you are in a situation , that you need to expand your Nutanix Cluster and enabling EVC becomes mandatory to add the new nodes to the existing ESXi cluster.In this case , you could do the additional steps given below to achieve the intended result. ( Again , you may need to disable the Admission Control temporarily and enable it again until you finish all the steps)

1) Create a new Cluster (without EVC)

2) Select a host and VMotion  all the Production VM’s running on that host to other remaining hosts.

3) Shutdown the CVM

4) Put the host on to the Maintenance Mode

5) Drag and Drop the host to the new Cluster

6) Exit from the Maintenance Mode & Power on the CVM.

7) Then VMotion the VCenter VM & Other VM’s to this host.

8) Do the steps 2 – 6 for other remaining hosts.

9) Reconfigure your old cluster with proper EVC mode.

10) Then repeat 2 – 6 for all the hosts.

Source :

Refer https://www.virten.net/2013/04/intel-cpu-evc-matrix/ for the guidelines on EVC modes

Video Reference : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSfzafr1ndA

Entry filed under: Nutanix, VMware. Tags: esxi 6.x, evc nutanix, vcenter 6.x, vmware evc.