Automatic startup of VM's and HA

[J-D]

Hi,

there are some threads about this I know, but I have some more questions and this way I can give points.

I read that automatic startup/shutdown of VM's only works for standalone ESX servers. Indeed, if you put 2 or more ESX'en in a cluster and enable HA, you will see that the automatic startup/shutdown gets disabled. You can enable it again and this will make your VM's boot up but NOT on the ESX you want.

I want a way to have my VM's booted up automatically on ESX'es I choose. I wish HA configuration would allow default placement of VM's. The GUI only gives you configuration of "VM restart priority" and Isolation response. I set the Isolation response to "leave powered on".

What do you guys do to have HA AND automatic startup of VM's on their original host possible?

[weinstein5]

At this point I do not think it is possible - first off you will not be able to have it start on a preferred host because what if that is the host that failed -

[J-D]

so: when you turn off all your ESX servers and boot them up again, you'll have VM's running on ESX's you might not want.

So if you have no VMotion, this means shutting them down again to move them to the correct ESX.

Is anyone using 3rdparty tools or scripts for this "issue"?

I would prefer it if VMware would enhance the HA configuration so you can assign hosts to the VM's.

[weinstein5]

so: when you turn off all your ESX servers and boot them up again, you'll have VM's running on ESX's you might not want.

No - shutting down the hosts in a cluster without DRS and restarting the VMs that were running on those hosts will start up on the same hosts - I was only referring to HA in the event of a failure -

So if you have no VMotion, this means shutting them down again to move them to the correct ESX.

Yes -- with out VMoiton the two ways to move the VM form one host to another is co;d migrate or unregister the VM from the one host and reregister onthe new host - both of these have to be done with the VM powered off -

[J-D]

Something we've noticed:

an ups shutdown occurs: all VM's and ESX servers are shutdown properly (by using the config, startup/shutdown config on every ESX)

power returns and the ESX servers are blade servers which are being powered on automatically one after the other (not all at once!). This is blade behaviour when power returns.

This situation causes VM's to get started on other ESX'es than those they were appointed to before the shutdown. I can only explain this by thinking HA causes this. HA should'nt kick in as the VM's were previously shutdown and not running. What else can cause this behaviour?

[Darksun777]

For me, this "workaround" boots automatically up my VM on all Nodes in the Cluster:

- Move the VM required to startup automatically to the first ESX node

- go to Configuration --> "Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown"

- Enable "Start and Stop Virtual Machines with the System"

- Enable "Startup" for the VM and move it to the Group "Any Order"

- Save Settings

- Move the VM to another ESX Node and repeat the steps above. Do that for all ESX Nodes.

In my case, this configuration works and boots up the VM everytime any of the ESX nodes hosting this VM reboots.