Some virtual machine configurations that you might be using in your on-premises data center are not supported in the SDDC. Others are supported with limitations.
Use vSphere Virtual Machine Administration in the VMware vSphere Documentation as your guide to creating, configuring, and managing workload VMs in VMware Cloud on AWS. Because VMware Cloud on AWS is a service, some VM configuration options documented in vSphere Virtual Machine Administration aren't available for use in a cloud SDDC even though they might be mentioned in a help topic or listed in the vSphere Client when you right-click a workload VM and choose Edit Settings. But with a few exceptions, which we document here, you can use the guidance provided in that document when you configure, deploy, and manage workload VMs in the SDDC.
For other limits imposed by VMware Cloud on AWS, see VMware Configuration Maximums.
| Configuration Option | References | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| vSphere vMotion Notifications | vSphere vMotion Notifications for Latency Sensitive Applications | vMotion Notifications are not supported on VMware Cloud on AWS. |
| Enable hyperthreading in a virtual CPU. | Virtual CPU Configuration and other topics. | To mitigate security vulnerabilities, including the ones discussed in VMware Knowledge Base article 55806 and VMware Knowledge Base article 55808, VMware Cloud on AWS manages CPU hyperthreading on i3.metal hosts. |
| Change CPU identification masks. | Virtual Machine Hardware Available to vSphere Virtual Machines | You cannot change CPU ID mask of a VM in your SDDC. |
| Change virtual disk type. | Change the Virtual Disk Configuration | VM disk type is managed by the VMware Cloud on AWS storage policy. Thin provisioning is the default. Thick and EagerZeroedThick disk formats are not supported. For more information, see Using vSAN Policies. |
| Configure virtual hardware. | Virtual Machine Hardware Available to vSphere Virtual Machines | You cannot create a VM that includes any virtual hardware device that requires a physical change to the host. This includes things like serial ports, USB drives, and floppy drives. |
| Add a SCSI controller. | Virtual Machine Controller Configuration in the VMware Host Client | You can add a SCSI controller but cannot use virtual SCSI bus sharing. |
| Map a raw LUN or logical disk. | Raw Device Mapping | VMware Cloud on AWS does not support external block storage. You cannot deploy a VM that uses an RDM disk in a cloud SDDC. |
| Add a network adapter. | Network Adapter Basics | VMware Cloud on AWS supports only E1000E, VMXNET3, and PVRDMA adapters. |
| Configure a PCI passthrough or DirectPath I/O device. | DirectPath I/O | This feature is not supported in VMware Cloud on AWS. |
| Encrypted VMs. | Virtual Machine Encryption | This feature is not supported in VMware Cloud on AWS. |
| VMs where multiple MAC addresses are configured for a single vNIC. | Understanding MAC Discovery | Because VMware Cloud on AWS configures the NSX MAC learning policy without MAC learning, VMs cannot have multiple MAC addresses on the same vNIC. |
On-premises VM Configurations that are Blocked or Limited in a Cloud SDDC
Certain VM configuration options can prevent the host from entering maintenance mode, interfere with vMotion, or otherwise prevent VMware from performing service upgrades. These configurations, which are permitted on premises, have limited support or no support the cloud SDDC. If you upload a template with an unsupported configuration from your on-premises content library to your cloud SDDC, VMs created from the template will not power on in the SDDC.
| Configuration Option | Support | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| VM includes a serial port with network output | None | This configuration is blocked in the cloud SDDC |
| VM disk enables both multi-writer and Changed Block Tracking (CBT) | None | This configuration is blocked in the cloud SDDC. |
| VM includes an SR-IOV adapter | None | This configuration is not supported in the cloud SDDC. |
| VM includes a parallel port | None | Parallel ports are not supported for physical device or file output. |
| VM uses virtual or physical bus sharing | Limited | Physical bus sharing configurations are supported on hardware version 11 and later. |
| VM mounts a VMware Tools ISO and initiates a tools installation or upgrade. | Limited | vMotion is not allowed during VMware tools installation or upgrade. If vMotion required by SDDC maintenance is blocked by VM in this state, the system allows a few minutes for the operation to complete. If the operation does not complete, the system terminates the upgrade or installation and unmounts the ISO image to unblock the maintenance event. You'll need to manually re-start the installation or upgrade process after the maintenance is complete. |
| Securing Virtual Machines with Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) | Limited |
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