HA/DRS cluster - VM migration - vSphere/ESX4

Chiefs · ‎06-16-2009

Environment:

I built an HA/DRS cluster with one ESX 4 host server with no VM running on it. I have another host outside of the cluster running 9 VMs and want to bring him into the new cluster. If just drag the host server into the cluster with i loose any connectivity on the VMs when i do this? I have production VMs that cannot go down on the host outside of the cluster. Should I disconnect the host outside of the cluster then add the host into the cluster? (BTW - both host servers are running on the exact same hardware)

I figured i would just migrate the VMs onto the host in the cluster one by one but i get an error about "insufficent memory resources" and "Insufficent resources to satisfy configured failover for HA". If I power down a VM I can migrate it over with no issues but I cannot power on the VM.

On the VMs I set the Resource Allocation Limit to the amount of 1 CPU (2659 MHz) and the RAM to 1536 MB. With no luck so then I set it to unlimited and still no luck. And then I changed the Shares to Low with no luck either. Do you think that this is because i dont have the second host in the cluster?

Thanks!

Chiefs · ‎06-18-2009

Ok, here is what i did to fix my issue.

1 - I went into the HA/DRS cluster settings and changed the Admission Control to "Allow VMs to be powered on even if they violate availability constants"

2 - vMotioned the VMs over to the host in the cluster

3 - Dragged the second host into the cluster

4 - Changed my HA cluster setting back to "Prevent VMs from being powered on if they violate availability constraints"

Also - FYI: in my ESX 3.5 environment i just dragged the host into the HA/DRS cluster with the VMS powered on and they all stayed up with no issues. I would assume that you could do this in ESX4 as well with no issues.