After power off / power on all vms start on same host

[itsak]

Hello.

I have a small VMware cluster with 3 hosts running ESXi 6.0 and a shared datastore.

Due to a planned power outage I had to completely power off / power on the cluster.

Although before the power off my vms were equally split among the 3 hosts, after the power on they ended-up in the same host.

This host was the last one to power off, because it hosts my vcenter server (which is a vm).

I assume that as long as the other two hosts were powered-off, all vms were migrated to the last running host (although they were already shutdown). Is that correct?

Any ideas how I can prevent this from happening again?

This is my shutdown process in case it helps you:

1. Shutdown all vms except vcenter server

2. Shutdown hosts 1 & 2 from vsphere.

3. Shutdown vcenter server.

4. Command line shutdown host 3.

Thank you in advance

Kiriaki

[VMARA]

What about your Cluster ? Is it DRS enabled ? and what is the automation level?

I believe yu haven't turn on thr DRS. THat might be the reason.

Eith the steps that you have followed seems ok. I think its a Cluster config issue. Check your DRS status.

[itsak]

Hello.

Unfortunately my license (vSphere 6 Essential Plus) doesn't support DRS, so it is not enabled.

[VMBoy79]

You need to move the VMs across host inside the cluster. Then power on the VMs. As DRS is not there Vm wont move automatically.. will come on the existing host.