Enhanced VMotion Announcement

I was supposed to be in this session!  I’m so mad…I had another obligation, someone to whom I’d committed to do something, so I couldn’t make the 5:00PM session yesterday during which VMware announced “Enhanced VMotion,” which is designed to alleviate some of the CPU compatibility concerns that have become a bit more visible in the last few months.

In reading the SearchServerVirtualization.com article on this announcement (which is the only reference I’ve seen thus far to the new capabilites), it looks like this may build on top of already-announced enhancements by Intel and AMD (Intel calls theirs FlexMigration, and I think AMD is calling theirs AMD-V Extended or similar).  No specific information was provided on a timeline, but given that ESX 3.5 is currently in beta it sounds like a likely addition to that product’s feature set.

I’ve discussed VMotion compatibility issues here before, so I’m glad to see both hardware vendors as well as VMware addressing these potential concerns.  As I have the opportunity to gather more information, I’ll update this post.  In the meantime, anyone with additional information is asked to add their info in the comments.