Script to view HA heartbeat datastores

[Gabrie1]

Noticing an unexpected behaviour, at least to me, when querying for the datastores HA is using for heartbeat. I query the cluster HA setting for the datastores it is using for heartbeat and the result doesn't always match what is shown in the vSphere HA Heartbeat monitoring. But maybe I'm looking at the wrong value.

$clusterView = $cluster | get-view
$clusterView.Configuration.DasConfig.HeartbeatDatastore

This shows me the datastores that HA should use for heartbeat. I'm just not sure if this is the running value (because that doesn't always match) or just the configured value and therefore not matches the datastores mentioned in the vSphere Web interface -> cluster -> monitor -> vSphere HA -> Heartbeat.

Anyone know if there is a different value I should query?

Some background info: We're moving to new storage arrays and after storage VMotioning datastores and wanting to unmount, our engineers often get the message the the datastore is still in use for HA heartbeating. So I wanted to report them the HA heartbeat datastores so they can change this before working on that cluster.

[LucD · Accepted solution]

You have to call the RetrieveDasAdvancedRuntimeInfo method to get at that info.
Something like this

$clusterName = 'cluster'
$cluster = Get-Cluster -Name $clusterName


$haConf = $cluster.ExtensionData.RetrieveDasAdvancedRuntimeInfo()
Get-View -Id $haConf.HeartbeatDatastoreInfo.Datastore | Select Name

[Gabrie1]

Thanks!!! Worked.

[ITSavant]

Any idea how to list the Heartbeat datastores when the policy is set to "allFeasibleDsWithUserPreference"?

PS C:\> $ClusterView.ConfigurationEx.DasConfig | Select Enabled, Option, HeartbeatDatastore, HBDatastoreCandidatePolicy | FL

Enabled : True
Option :
HeartbeatDatastore :
HBDatastoreCandidatePolicy : allFeasibleDsWithUserPreference

PS C:\> $ClusterView.RetrieveDasAdvancedRuntimeInfo() | FL

DasHostInfo :
VmcpSupported : VMware.Vim.ClusterDasAdvancedRuntimeInfoVmcpCapabilityInfo
HeartbeatDatastoreInfo :

[ITSavant]

NM I realized I had randomly selected a cluster with all VMhosts in Maintenance Mode

[LucD]

According to the API Reference, the selected datastores in that case should also be returned by the RetrieveDasAdvancedRuntimeInfo method.
Under ClusterDasConfigInfo in the heartbeatDatastore property it says

"The final set of selected heartbeat datastores is reported via heartbeatDatastoreInfo."

But your query seems to return an empty heartbeatDatastoreInfo property.
Strange 🤔

Update: ok, problem solved 😊