Remote restart requirements

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To successfully remote restart virtual machines by using PowerVC, you must ensure that the source and destination hosts are configured properly.

The following requirements must be met in order to remote restart a virtual machine:
  • PowerVC remote restart capability is required at the host and virtual machine level.
  • Remote restart must be enabled on the virtual machine. You can set this option while deploying or resizing the virtual machine.
  • Remote restart must be enabled on the host. You can verify support on the host details page. You cannot change this setting by using PowerVC.
  • The source and destination hosts must have the same management type (PowerVM NovaLink or Hardware Management Console (HMC)).
  • You must be an administrator.
  • The new and old hosts must be members of the same host group.
  • The Virtual I/O Servers on the target host must be members of the storage connectivity group specified on the virtual machine.
  • PowerVC must be managing two or more hosts.
  • The source and destination hosts must have all of the appropriate virtual switches that are required by networks on the virtual machine.
  • The virtual machine state must be in Active, Error, or Shutoff with no task state. When you select to remote restart all virtual machines, PowerVC resets their state to Active and task state to None if their current state does not meet the remote restart requirements.
  • The hosts and virtual machines must be capable of simplified remote restart capability.
  • Only soft pinned virtual machines can be remote restarted. You cannot remote restart the hard pinned virtual machines. When soft pinned virtual machines are moved during host maintenance or remote restart, PowerVC automatically migrates the virtual machines back to the original host once the host is back to operating state.
  • If soft pinned virtual machines is moved to a different host and if the host to which it is initially pinned is operating, then you cannot migrate the virtual machine to a new host.
  • HMC managed hosts have these additional requirements:
    • Automated remote restart is supported on POWER8® processor-based servers or later (firmware 820 or later).
    • The HMC must be running with HMC 820 SP1 or later.
    • Remote restart for virtual machines with shared storage pools must use HMC 840 and VIOS 2.2.4.0.
    • The virtual machine remote restart state must be Remote restartable before the source host is down. For details on remote restart states of a virtual machine, see the Simplified Remote Restart documentation.
    • The source host compute service must be down or the host must be in Error, Power off, Error - dump in progress, or FSP unreachable state. If the host is in FSP unreachable state, verify that the host is actually down before initiating the remote restart process.
    • Only virtual machines that are using dedicated processors or assigned to the default processor pool can be remote restarted.
  • NovaLink managed hosts have these additional requirements:
    • The hosts must be running NovaLink 1.0.0.14 or later.
    • Remote restart capability must be enabled when you create the virtual machine.
    • The source host compute service must be down or the host must be in Power off state.
Notes:
  • For newly deployed virtual machines, you must wait an hour until the remote restart state is Remote restartable or remove the virtual optical device before performing a remote restart operation. The wait time is also applicable if Simplified Remote Restart needs to be enabled before removing the virtual optical device. To remove a virtual optical device, ensure that RMC is active on the virtual machine, then follow the steps in Removing virtual optical devices topic.
  • When the virtual machine is on a system that is being managed by both HMC and NovaLink, you might need to remove the virtual optical device and run refdev, and reactivate the profile to get the virtual machine's accurate remote restart status.
  • Affinity score checking is ignored during remote restarts.