Restart VM order

[sc_2111]

Hi ,

Is there a way to configure ESX hosts in a cluster to start the VM in a specific order in case of a complete shutdown ( controlled or not ) and restart of the servers ?

Thanks

[Troy_Clavell]

you can set restart priorities within HA for each VM. Is that what you are asking?

[azn2kew]

I'm not sure about specific order but you can change the Restart Priority & Isolation Response for specific virtual machines. If those VMs are productions, you can specify DRS settings to group them together instead of seperating. You can set it to Priority level High, Medium and Low so that would sequentially act per your desire.

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[RParker]

Yes, you can use the automatic startup / shutdown for this. If you set a machine to the automatic startup, the VM designated as '1' will start first, and '2' will start second.. etc.

If you leave in any order, they will start up in a random order.

[sc_2111]

Hi ,

can you tell me better on this ?

I knew only about priority ( low, medium,High ) but not a way of specifying a specific order .

And also can I set a vm to restart to a specific host ( if available )

thanks

[RParker]

You can't specify a host for a VM. Part of DRS on ESX is the ability to dynamcially allocate machines properly among available resources. That's the idea behind using identical machines, because theorhetically it shouldn't matter which machine was used, since they are the same in a cluster.

If you configure Automatic startup for a VM in a cluster, and you enable Automatic Startup for all the ESX servers in a cluster, when a machine get's migrated, it will also be added to the appropriate ESX server startup. So if you add a VM as Automatic startup (rather than any order) this means you want to start a VM in a particular order. These changes should be migrated among the ESX servers in a cluster along with the VM configuration, so you don't have to reconfigure it each time.

[sc_2111]

"That's the idea behind using identical machines, because theorhetically it shouldn't matter which machine was used, since they are the same in a cluster."

I think you can agree that it's not uncommon to have different level of servers in a cluster .

Anyway thanks for your input