Migrating off of VM-FEX

[rlaplante@bhfs.com]

Hello All,  Hope your day is going well.

I manage a Flexpod environment that was installed roughly 3 years ago.  At the time It was 3ea. chassis, 2ea. Nexus 5k, 20ea. B200 M3 blades all running ESXi 5.0, UCS Firmware 2.0 1(c), NetApp FAS etc.  We have performed several updates over the last few years to maintain basic versions patches and the like.  We are now on UCSM 2.2 (6c) and ESXi 5.5 GA.  We have unfortunately reached a point where either VMware - Cisco (both) cannot support VM-FEX going forward and I have heard that UCSM version 3. something or another will not support VM-FEX at all.

So we need to migrate off of VM-FEX in a production environment (sounds fun).  We are not looking at ESXi 6 NSX or Cisco ACI yet.

Has anyone attempted, completed or is putting this process off until absolutely required?

Thanks

[Walter Dey]

Hi Russel

Are you aware of

Release 2.2(7b) adds support for the following:

• VM-FEX Support—Support for ESX VM-FEX added. The support matrix in the Hardware and Software Interoperability Matrix for this release provides more details.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/unified_computing/ucs/release/notes/ucs_2_2_rn.html#pgfId-309272

[rlaplante@bhfs.com]

I did not know specifically about 2.2(7b).  That in itself does not solve the issue for me.  Basically I am also stuck on ESXi 5.5 GA.  U1 through U2 are documented as being supported by all parties but tickets into TAC for communication issues etc that were escalated proved otherwise.  Of course, calls to VMware for issue on U2 are known and the fix it U3, that is not supported on VM-FEX.  It gets to be a tangled web.  Lets say IMNSHO, 'Flexpod' was a great marketing idea but in practice isn't that flexible.

Then an at length conversation with a local SE / product specialist said that VM-FEX was a good idea at the time but did not get that much traction and is being deprecated.  Time to move off of it.

[#4]

Curious how you made out as I need to look at doing the same.  Don't see too much on the web about it. 

thanks

Jason

[nelson.balbo]

Hi Guys,

I need to remove vm-fex without down time. Someone could help me with a guide?

Thanks!