How to live migrate VMware virtual machines across different CPU brands

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How to live migrate VMware virtual machines across different CPU brands

Posted by Alessandro Perilli | Monday, November 24, 2008 | 6 Comments

Performing a virtual machine live migration across different vendors' CPUs is probably one of the most wanted feature for several customers that can’t just replace their entire hardware set every time that a new generation of CPUs hits the market.

The topic is so hot that a recent demonstration of its feasibility performed by AMD in collaboration with Red Had immediately became a point of discussion.

VMware (and its investor Intel) commented the effort saying that a cross-CPUs live migration is a too risky operation for the stability of the virtualized workloads.

True or not the virtualization professionals that decide to take the risk may achieve the goal through the so called CPU masking technique.

Mike DiPetrillo, Principal Systems Engineer at VMware, discusses the topic and kindly shows how to turn off CPU checking in VI 3.5 in a couple of different ways.

It would be nice if virtualization.info readers could comment this post reporting the nasty effects of these CPU masking approach.

Labels: VMware

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6 Comments

Anonymous Monday, November 24, 2008 8:50:00 PM

I think Mike DiPetrillo did a pretty good job in his blog explaining the possible nasty effects of CPU Masking, did you not read the article you linked to?

Alessandro Perilli Monday, November 24, 2008 9:05:00 PM

Of course.
My goal is to have a list of named applications that crash. Mike's post doesn't provide such information.

Anonymous Tuesday, November 25, 2008 11:04:00 AM

Hmmm, without entering inside technical issues... I m quite sure that, nowadays, companies will never try VMotion between different CPU brands on their production environments. So, the real interest is low and it should be interesting only for technical advance.

Anonymous Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:13:00 PM

I think the folks at Xen have a good point in their argument against this type of thing. By turning off cpu features to force compatibility you are sacrificing performance. You just turned off one or more features the CPU vendor developed for a reason, and now your throwing that away. To take this argument to an extreme I will ask a rhetorical question – why do we not force the CPU’s to emulate first generation Pentium Pro’s or a 486dx to ensure compatibility?

Bas Penris Wednesday, November 26, 2008 11:26:00 AM

I very much disagree with that. The interest is very high. It will allow you to just buy a new box without having to search for specific hardware.

Massimo Re Ferre' Wednesday, November 26, 2008 6:08:00 PM

>why do we not force the CPU’s to emulate first generation Pentium Pro’s or a 486dx to ensure compatibility?

Because you don't have to go that far. Anyway...compatibility at this point is MUCH more important than it is raw performance. Plus how much sacrifice are we talking about here? 2%? 5%? Give me compatibility all day.....

Massimo.

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