I need to replace my XenServer 6.1 resource pool hardware. I currently run Intel hardware and I have to move to AMD hardware (corporate politics and budget stuff, blah blah blah).
I have downtime available so I can use cold migration – live migration is not required. I will also have the new hardware (AMD) alongside the old hardware (Intel).
The XenServer docs say there may be problems exporting from one arch and importing to another "may not work" – http://docs.vmd.citrix.com/XenServer/6.1.0/1.0/en_gb/guest.html#importing_vms – but mentions nothing about simply turning off the VM on one arch and then powering it back on new arch.
VMs are a mix of OS – some Windows, some Linux, multiple versions.
Is this something that can be done with no problems, or are there problems I need to be aware of?
Best Answer
Moving offline and booting on a different architecture should work fine. You don't say what operating system you have, but Windows should simply detect and install drivers for the new processor.
With that said, there's no guarantee. The problem is that the CPU is paravirtualised, rather than fully virtualised, meaning the virtual machine does have some exposure to the real instruction set.
Ultimately, the only thing to do is try. For machines that don't work, you will need to do a P2V style process using XenConvert.
Live migration, on the other hand, is a different topic as it's incredibly picky about processor similarity even in the same processor family, let alone manufacturer!