I've gone back and forth in my head, I guess you can do a force shutdown but would that truely be a clean shutdown? I doubt the ESX server would allow you to do a clean shutdown if it is still running VM's on it. I think if you do a force shutdown, HA will kick in and you can run your test. The true test is the pull the plugs, even though it is hard on the server hardware... isn't that what you have service contracts for? I can try and get my R&D configured here today and run a trial on your theory though if you want.

• Kyle

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Tom Howarth
VMware Communities User Moderator

That's correct, HA will not kick in. But they don't have to pull the plug, won't simply pulling out the management Network do the same thing? What happens if an ESX server loses connectivity how would VC know if it's TRULY down or not?

Also this is a controlled method, the ONLY way to truly test this is to ACTUALLY pull the plug, otherwise when disaster happens, you won't get a TRUE method of what happens.. so even if this conjecture works like we THINK, it won't matter, because they don't to test like it SHOULD be tested. Pull the plug! That's the only way. It should be random, not on one particular server.

Steve you are the man! You know it's working.. prove it!

I would assume that when you run shutdown from the command line it just kills all running processes.