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vincentc
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DRS - Load balancing

Hi

New to this. Running ESX4.0. 3 hosts in HA + DRS.

HA works fine. With DRS from what I understand, the VM should be automatically spread accross the 3 hosts, which is not the case at the moment.

I setup DRS Automation to 'Fully automated'. Is there anything else I need to do?

If I take one host under Maintenance mode, all the VM are vmotionned automatically to the less busy host. But when I exit from Maintenance mode and everything is back to normal, no VM comes back, nor any split between the 3 hosts

I setup DRS Automation to 'Fully automated'. Is there anything else I need to do, or is it my misunderstanding?

Thanks

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AntonVZhbankov
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Take a look at DRS Deepdive to understand how DRS works.


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chadwickking
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DRS does load balance your VM's according to resource utilization. I would suggest adding more VM's or start putting some load on them - then see what happens. DRS will not "evenly" balance all things out if there isn't a "real" significant gain by performing the vmotion.

Cheers,

Chad King

VCP-410 | Server+

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vincentc
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Thanks Chad

I would have thought that after a host went to maintenance mode and the VM been automatically moved, there would be some settings to at least re-balance the vm accross all the hosts.

At the moment I have 17 VM on one host and 34 on the second host, and the 3rd one got none.

Is DRS just used for moving the VM automatically when going to maintenance mode?

Regards

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weinstein5
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You have to remember DRS is not load balancing per se -it allows virtual center to monitor the resource consumption of your VMs and to insure the resources are being delivered to the VMs that need them - so in your situation all of the VMs running in your environment are receiving the their required resources so they will still where they until you manually move them or the load becomes such that one of hosts becomes so high that it is not able to satisfy the resource demands of the VMs -

The automatic moving of the VMs when placing a host into maintenance is just one of the perks when the DRS cluster is fully automated -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
AntonVZhbankov
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Take a look at DRS Deepdive to understand how DRS works.


---

MCITP: SA+VA, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

EMCCAe, HPE ASE, MCITP: SA+VA, VCP 3/4/5, VMware vExpert XO (14 stars)
VMUG Russia Leader
http://t.me/beerpanda
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