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glowery
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Setting up Notifications for DRS Recommendations

We currently have an active VDI deployment and recently implemented DRS.  We are only using it with a manual automation level as we don't want our VDI VMs constantly moving around, we simply wanted to see how well we were doing at balancing the workload of our four hosts in the cluster.  So far I have been unable to find any information about creating alerts/notifications for when we have new DRS migration recommendations.  Does anyone have any tips on how to do this or is this simply a feature that is unavailable?

Thanks in advance for any info!

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vThinkBeyondVM
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I just checked some custom alarm available in latest vCenter &  I do not see any alarm that we can set for DRS recommendation generated. However, I could find that custom alarm can be set for Storage DRS recommendation.

I will take this feature request forward as its one of important feature to be added.

Workaround can be :

1. It is better if you set DRS to "fully automated mode" & set Migration threshold to mid-point ie."Priority 3". 3 is recommended and most used migration threshold setting across enterprises.

      Setting it too aggressive leads to more vMotion. Migration threshold can be set 1 through 5 . You can choose whichever suits you.

2.Manual check for  recommendations. It is painful.

I will suggest you to read this white paper: It is must read :http://www.globalknowledge.nl/content/files/documents/White-Papers/virtualisatie-White-Paper-Ten-vSp...


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Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
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Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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glowery
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks for the response vickyvision2020!  I've seen the Storage DRS recommendation before but we're not currently using this feature as we do not have a Datastore cluster setup.

As for setting DRS for our current environment to fully automated.  As I mentioned in my original post, this is a VDI environment and we sometimes have end users experience a slight VM "hang" or "freeze" when they are migrated to a different host.  This is the reason for setting our migration automation level to manual.  I don't want end users to be moved around automatically (even with a more conservative threshold) because of this experience.  I suspect their might be something wrong with our vMotion configuration too because of this problem when migrating, but I'd rather leave DRS set to manual than risk having end users upset that their VM appeared to freeze for a moment (because DRS was automatically migrating it).

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vThinkBeyondVM
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I have initiated communication with engineering team on DRS recommendation alarm.

I understand your concern. At the moment,  monitoring DRS recommendations is the only option you have. However, even though if you keep it manual and there is considerable cluster imbalance, you have to  apply the recommendations. I agree that in some cases, you can drop some of recommendations (ie. vMotion will be initiated). I suggest to keep migration threshold to mid-point (3) even though DRS is in Manual mode. It is better to resolve vMotion network issue.


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Thanks & Regards
Vikas, VCP70, MCTS on AD, SCJP6.0, VCF, vSphere with Tanzu specialist.
https://vThinkBeyondVM.com/about
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly my own. I am solely responsible for all content published here. Content published here is not read, reviewed or approved in advance by VMware and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of VMware.

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