VM hardware version 18 is not supported by destination host (version 7.0)

[morit]

Hi,
a customer is getting following error when they are running a full VM recovery.

“VM hardware version 18 is not supported by destination host (version 7.0)”

They already opened a support case and case ID is # 04742624
Here is the setup details.

VBR SW Version : 10.0.1.4854 P20201202
Hypervisor version : VMware ESXi 7.0.1, 16850804
vCenter version : 7.0.0

We’ve checked below KB article, but it does not mention about vCenter version.
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2143838

Should the customer upgrade vCenter version from 7.0.0 to 7.0.1 ?

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Mori.

vCenter version should not matter, however you can do a quick test - add an ESXi host as a "Standalone" type and try restoring on a host directly.

/Cheers!

[nikolaj]

hi morit,

I agree with @Egor Yakovlev in that vCenter version should be irrelevant, however this could be a similar case as with ESXi 6.7:

Similarly, vCenter 6.7 or vCenter 6.7u1 can be used to manage ESXi 6.7u2 hosts as long as hardware version 15 VMs are not in use. For customers looking to create, run, and manage hardware version 15 VMs, both the ESXi hosts in the cluster and vCenter need to be upgraded to at least 6.7u2.

[morit]

Thank you for the advice.
Will check the customer to try a quick test.
I have one quick question.
When adding an ESXi host as a "Standalone" type, do they need to remove the existing vCenter server first?

[wishr]

Hi Mori,

No, you should be able to add it without removing vCenter.

Thanks

[Egor Yakovlev]

Got a confirmation from QA: we do treat vCenter API version in the first place, as in some cases where cluster is selected as a target we cannot predict in advance which host will be used, which at the end might lead to unsupported configurations. Yet another case study of what is technically possible, might be a very bad idea
Upgrading vCenter will solve the case!

[morit]

Thank you for the advise.
Full VM restore was completed successfully after vCenter was upgraded to 7.0.1.