Virtual Machine with hardware version 16 and above running on Icelake Hosts reports minimum EVC requirement as Cascade Lake even with Cluster/Per-VM EVC disabled

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• Virtual Machine (VM) Hardware version is 16 or above
• VM is registered on ESXi host with maximum supported EVC mode as Icelake
• Enabling Icelake EVC mode on the cluster, fails with error : The target host does not support the virtual machine's current hardware requirements. AVX512VPOPCNTDQ is unsupported.
• vpxd.log

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS info vpxd[47036] [Originator@6876 sub=Default opID=l8w3d8ag-12075351-auto-76teh-h5:71458976-6f] [VpxLRO] -- ERROR task-31157933 -- evcdomain-c3632668 -- vim.cluster.EVCManager.configureEvc: vim.fault.EVCAdmissionFailedVmActive:
--> Result:
--> (vim.fault.EVCAdmissionFailedVmActive) {
-->    faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->    faultMessage = <unset>,
-->    productName = <unset>,
-->    productVersion = <unset>,
-->    faults = (vmodl.MethodFault) [
-->       (vim.fault.FeatureRequirementsNotMet) {
-->          faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->          faultMessage = <unset>,
-->          featureRequirement = (vim.vm.FeatureRequirement) [
-->             (vim.vm.FeatureRequirement) {
-->                key = "cpuid.avx512vpopcntdq",
-->                featureName = "cpuid.avx512vpopcntdq",
-->                value = "Bool:Min:1"
-->             }
-->          ],
-->          vm = <unset>,
-->          host = 'vim.HostSystem:C3F40076-A0AA-47D4-A26F-DA8E83DA452E:host-3402279'
-->          msg = ""
-->       },
-->       (vim.fault.FeatureRequirementsNotMet) {
-->          faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->          faultMessage = <unset>,
-->          featureRequirement = (vim.vm.FeatureRequirement) [
-->             (vim.vm.FeatureRequirement) {
-->                key = "cpuid.avx512vpopcntdq",
-->                featureName = "cpuid.avx512vpopcntdq",
-->                value = "Bool:Min:1"
-->             }
-->          ],
-->          vm = <unset>,
-->          host = 'vim.HostSystem:C3F40076-A0AA-47D4-A26F-DA8E83DA452E:host-3402279'
-->          msg = ""
 

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

The Icelake EVC mode does not include support for AVX512VPOPCNTDQ and was introduced for VMs using hardware version 16 and above. Powering on such a VM on a Icelake host will prevent the host from being added to a Icelake EVC cluster.

Resolution

To enable Icelake EVC Mode on an existing cluster of Icelake Hosts:

• Power off VMs with hardware version 16 and above
• Enable Icelake EVC Mode on the cluster

OR

Downgrade the Virtual Hardware version to 15 or lower for the impacted VMs using the steps mentioned Downgrading the virtual machine hardware version in ESXi

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Enabling Icelake EVC mode on the VM/Cluster with Icelake hosts that have VMs on hardware version 16 or higher requires downtime on the VMs