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zenomorph
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ESX Advanced vs. Enterprise (DRS)

Hi there,

I need some assistance on clarifying ESX Adv. and Enterprise. I know the Enterprise version comes with added feature of "DRS" which allows the dynamic reallocation of VM's based on predefined rulesets and recommendations from the host/vCentre.

However what I want to clarify is both have HA ability, but assuming we buy "Advanced" and when a ESX host fails the ESX HA feature will kick in and the VMs moved to other ESX host. If we are using ESX Ent. then the reallocation of the VMs will be based on predefined rules and usage on the host.

But if I don't buy ESX Ent and use Adv instead is it possible for me to define the HA failover policy as to which VMs get moved to which ESX host during a HA failover assuming I have 3 ESX Adv. hosts.?

Many thanks

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VMmatty
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One more thing to remember - if HA is more important to you than VMotion/DRS (and in my mind it should be), it is available in all licensed versions of vSphere. Even the cheapest option, vSphere Standard, includes HA. You'll still need to purchase vCenter in order to use the feature, however.

If you have VMware DRS, then HA will work with DRS to place VMs on other ESX hosts in a smart fashion based on load. But the VMs will still go down hard when the ESX host crashes. As another poster already stated, HA and VMotion/DRS are completely different products with different use cases.

Matt | http://www.thelowercasew.com | @mattliebowitz

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mcowger
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No - the VMs will be brought up wherever there is room with no regard to load if you dont have DRS.






--Matt

VCP, vExpert, Unix Geek

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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AntonVZhbankov
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HA and DRS are completely different products.

HA is needed when physical server goes down with all VMs. Ha just powers on VMs from failed server.

DRS works over VMotion and VMotion can be performed only if both physical servers (source and destination) are alive.

So, DRS settings are unrelated to HA, and you can set up restart order and priority for VMs without DRS.


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VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

EMCCAe, HPE ASE, MCITP: SA+VA, VCP 3/4/5, VMware vExpert XO (14 stars)
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VMmatty
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One more thing to remember - if HA is more important to you than VMotion/DRS (and in my mind it should be), it is available in all licensed versions of vSphere. Even the cheapest option, vSphere Standard, includes HA. You'll still need to purchase vCenter in order to use the feature, however.

If you have VMware DRS, then HA will work with DRS to place VMs on other ESX hosts in a smart fashion based on load. But the VMs will still go down hard when the ESX host crashes. As another poster already stated, HA and VMotion/DRS are completely different products with different use cases.

Matt | http://www.thelowercasew.com | @mattliebowitz
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zenomorph
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What I'm trying to get at is whether we really need to DRS added feature and the cost associated with it.

Presuming I have 3 ESX host with 30 VMs I may run 10 VMs on each host. I'd like to know whether its possible without DRS to define where each VM can failover to eg. with 30VMs on 3 hosts default we may run 10 in each host. However if a single host fails we may not have to capacotu to do 100% failover so some VMs we may just want to leave them off while others we may spread over the 2 remaining Hosts.

many thanks

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casselc
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You can define a restart priority of low/medium/high/disabled at per-VM level. You can use this to ensure your essential VMs restart before non-essential services and even set some to not restart at all. Without DRS the HA process will restart VMs in order of priority until it runs out of capacity.

AntonVZhbankov
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>However if a single host fails we may not have to capacotu to do 100% failover

You can enable automatic failover capacity control as a number of hosts can die. So HA will automatically control required power and won't allow you to power VM on.


---

VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

EMCCAe, HPE ASE, MCITP: SA+VA, VCP 3/4/5, VMware vExpert XO (14 stars)
VMUG Russia Leader
http://t.me/beerpanda
depping
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that is if you've got admission control enabled.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCP | VCDX

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zenomorph
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Got it. Thanks everyone for your help.

Cheers...........

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