We have several Gen9 Simplivity Nodes we just setup and plan on using those for DR. We are replicated from an older CPU cluster to the Gen 9. I know when EVC is turned on to a lower CPU generation that all VMs on the hosts must be off before it gets enabled on the cluster. But how does this work when each of the simplivity nodes has the Omnistack VM residing on them? I am worried that when I turn off both Omnistack VMs that storage becomes unavailable. Can someone provide a procedure for this?
You're correct, all VMs have to be powered off before EVC can be enabled. This also includes OVC VMs because they are treated as regular VMs by vCenter Server.
The correct procedure is as follows:
1. Disable vSphere HA
2. Change DRS mode to Manual
3. Power Off all VMs except OVCs
4. Right click on each HPE Simplivity ESXi node and choose "All Simplivity Actions -> Shut Down Virtual Controller.." to shutdown OVCs one by one.
5. Enable EVC mode
6. Power On all OVCs one by one. Wait between 10-15 minutes for each OVC to let all services to startup.
7. Login to any OVC and run svt-federation-show. Confirm that all OVCs are Alive and Connected.
8. Confirm that all ESXi nodes in the cluster can access the same Simplivity datastores.
