Migration failure for HWv21 VMs between hosts runs Ice Lake and Sapphire/Emerald Rapids CPUs

Products

• VMware vCenter Server 8.0

Issue/Introduction

• Attempts to migrate (vMotion) a Virtual Machine using Hardware Version 21 from an Intel Ice Lake host to an Intel Sapphire/Emerald Rapids host fail during the compatibility check.
• The following error message is displayed in vCenter:

  com.vmware.vim.vmfeature.misc.rrsba_no com.vmware.vim.vpxd.vmcheck.featureRequirementsNotMet.useClusterOrPerVmEvc

• In the vpxd.log, you may see entries similar to: CompatCheck results: (vim.vm.check.Result) [ (vim.vm.check.Result) { vm = 'vm-####', host = 'host-####', error = (vmodl.MethodFault) [ (vim.fault.FeatureRequirementsNotMet) { faultMessage = [ (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) { key = "com.vmware.vim.vmfeature.misc.rrsba_no" } ... ] } ] } ]

Cause

Virtual machines using Hardware Version 21 enable the RRSBA_NO (Restricted RSB Alternate) feature by default to advertise guest vulnerability status and prevent migration from non-vulnerable to vulnerable hosts.

Intel Sapphire/Emerald Rapids processors do not support this specific feature in the same way Ice Lake does. Because migration between different CPU generations is not guaranteed without Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC), the compatibility check fails to prevent potential guest instability.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, you must enable Intel Ice Lake EVC Mode at the cluster level. This creates a common CPU baseline that allows VMs to move seamlessly between Ice Lake and Emerald Rapids hosts.

Steps to Enable EVC

1. Identify HWv16+ VMs: Note that a secondary issue may prevent enabling Ice Lake EVC if any Virtual Machines with Hardware Version 16 or higher are currently powered on in the cluster.
2. Power Off VMs: Power off all Virtual Machines with Hardware Version 16+ that are currently residing on hosts within the cluster.
3. Enable EVC:
   • Navigate to the Cluster in the vSphere Client.
   • Select Configure > Configuration > VMware EVC.
   • Click Edit and select Enable EVC for Intel Hosts.
   • Select the Intel "Ice Lake" Generation from the VMware EVC Mode dropdown.
4. Power On VMs: Once the EVC mode is successfully applied, power the Virtual Machines back on.

Note: If you cannot power off all VMs at the cluster level, you may consider Per-VM EVC, though Cluster-level EVC is the recommended best practice for mixed-generation clusters.