Group Vm’s

[Ridanh]

Hi,

i am using esxi 6.5

I would like to group certain critical VM’s so that when I perform maintenance and Powerdowns, the vms automatically start up without me having to do it manually. 

I have tried to look for the group tab but it is not visible within the client. 
I have also tried to enable auto start for the vms I need, however I receive a message 

‘VMware cannot communicate with the remote host, either due to network errors or because the host is not responding’

any ideas on how I can resolve this all alternate solutions on what I need to achieve?

Thank you

[virtual-sith]

Did you try to remove host from the inventory and add host to the inventory?

[Ridanh]

Hi,

im not able to try that as there are too many associated vm’s that are needed within the host. 

are there any alternate ideas that i can implement?

[Lalegre]

Hello @Ridanh,

I got that you want to power-on the VMs automatically after they are shut down. Do you have vCenter or is this a standalone host?

[Ridanh]

Hi,

yes I am using vCentre. 

As a test I did try to configure autostart to see how it would behave but I received the below error message

‘VMware cannot communicate with the remote host, either due to network errors or because the host is not responding’

I have critical vms that I would like to Group so that when we have a power down rather than having to start The vms individually, I can send a ‘power on command’ through the web client to that group of vms and they all start at the same time. eg dhcp, wsus, domain controller

are there any other ideas on how I can achieve what I need?

ideally I wouldnt want to reboot the host to bring the vms back up with auto start.

Thanks

[StephenMoll]

Sounds like you want to be looking at something like vApps (Managing Multi-Tiered Applications with vSphere vApp (vmware.com)), but vCenter is struggling to communicate with hosts, you probably need to sort that out first.

[Lalegre]

@Ridanh,

Seemed someone faced this same error with autostart: https://tomaskalabis.com/wordpress/vmware-vcsa-6-7-configuring-autostart-ends-with-cannot-communicat...

[Ridanh]

Hi,

That’s great thank you. 
Would you know if the current VM’s within the host will be affected in any way if I remove and add the host from inventory?

[StephenMoll]

Shouldn't matter.

If the VM registrations stay with the host as it is removed, they will be re-added to vCenter when the host is added back in.

If the worst happens you might need to re-register the VMs into vCenter using the VMX files in the Datastore.

[Lalegre]

@Ridanh,

If you remove the host and re-add it nothing will happen in terms of connectivity as the VMs will still be running on the ESXi. However, if you have vCenter and vMotion, you could evacuate the VMs to other running ESXi in order to avoid downtime.

Also, take into consideration that when the VMs get registered again into vCenter (in case they were unregistered with the ESXi) they will get a new moRef ID, meaning that will be recognized as a new VM for backup solutions / monitoring solutions that use that ID.

[Ridanh]

That’s great thank you all for the advice and help. 

[Ridanh]

Hi All,

just revisiting my original post. 
I am trying to group a number of vm’s,  

I have read that the group tab will only be sure when connected directly to the host. 
I have created a host and I still cannot see the group tab. 
Any ideas on where this could be or what I need to do to enable this option?