AES instructions (AES-NI) are unsupported or disabled in the BIOS

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• • Unable to add the ESXi host to an EVC-enabled cluster, encountering an error related to EVC.
    
    
  • The CPU series and hardware model of the affected ESXi host match those of other hosts in the cluster. Despite this, an error message appears: "AES instructions (AES-NI) are unsupported or disabled in the BIOS."
    
    
  • Error message in vSphere UI:

The host's CPU hardware does not support the cluster's current Enhanced vMotion Compatibility mode. The host CPU lacks features required by that mode. AES instructions (AES-NI) are unsupported or disabled in the BIOS. See KB 1034926. See KB 1003212 for more information. Host is of type: vendor intel family 0x6 model 0x55

Environment

vSphere 7.0
vSphere 8.0

Cause

The cluster has Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) mode enabled with the AES-NI feature active. However, the affected host either lacks AES-NI support or has the feature disabled in the ESXi host BIOS.

Resolution

Proceed to engage the hardware support to enable the AES-NI feature in the ESXi host BIOS. When such option is not available in BIOS, it usually means that AESNI is always enabled.
Refer to Enable AES Native Instructions (AESNI) in BIOS for vSAN Encryption for details.