Guys and gals,

here's the scenario:

3 x ESXi 3.5 (latest patches applied yesterday) hosts in a cluster with HA enabled.
vCenter Server is a VM as is the separate SQL server supporting it.
DNS seems to be OK (2 of the three physical servers providing are visible and resolving OK).
Network traffic seems normal.
Equallogic ISCI SAN.

How do I get both HA AND Autostart to stay enabled on these hosts for the VMs? Is it at all possible?
I know how to configure Autostart on each host but the minute I try to add HA to the cluster after having configured Autostart everything goes a little bermuda triangle. Seems like VI will let me have both on but if I restart a host Autostart is disabled on this host. Or, before I restart if I try to vMotion a VM randomly it will reset itself.

The reasons I need both are:

so that during normal running if a host fails then the VMs will start up on another host - which works perfectly when Autostart isn't involved
so that following a UPS initiated shutdown (using a VIMA VM and lawm scripts - thanks for these - to gracefully stop all VMs and all hosts) when power is restored the hosts and then VMs power up automatically

Is it just me or is this not just the simplest and most completely obvious requirement that both pieces of VI should integrate and co-operate rather than fight and seem to co-exist in an almost Schroedinger-esque world of working/not working?

I've tried all sorts of combinations, orders of configuring, poring over log files and random guesses but nothing seems to be stable for any length of time. The VMs in question will be supporting an entire factory's infrastructure so I really have to understand whether I'm reaching for a black-woman-president situation here or just not quite understanding something fundamental.

Any ideas which don't involve "have you turned it on and off again" gratefully received.