HA - Specify on which ESXi host the VMs must go

[normchri1920]

Hello,

I'm new to virtualisation and VMware, and I've a question. I've configured a cluster with servers and HA activate, everything work great with that, if I power off a server the VM correctly restart on the two other hosts.

My question is, is it possible ton configure each VM to go on a defined host if there is a problem. Exemple : I want that if the host 1 crash, the VM 1 goes on the Host 2 and the VM 2 goes on the Host 3. Actually if the host 1 crash, VM 1 & 2 go on the Host 2 because there's no hardware limitation I think.

Thanks for your help !

C. N.

[virtualdive]

Yes this can be achieved with the help of DRS "Host Group" affinity must rule. This rule is respected by the VMware HA as well.

[Anjani_Kumar]

You can simply create a DRS Affinity Rule to ensure the placement of your speific VM to specific hosts.

Follow the below link to configure Affinity rule.

VMware KB: Ensuring virtual machines stay on a specific ESX/ESXi host

All the best,

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful.

Anjani Kumar

-----------------------------------------

VMware, Windows

Consulant

Email ID : Anjani.kumar@vmwareminds.com

Website :   http://www.Vmwareminds.com

[normchri1920]

Thanks for your answers.

Is there a way to do that without activate DRS ? I won't use DRS because of the licenses.

[macvirtual · Accepted solution]

Hi normchri1920,

It's little bit tricky but how about use Admission Control?

I used to have same problem, and I managed it with using Admission Control and slot size controll.

To understand this technique, first you need to deeply understand what "slot size" means. Please refer vmware document.

Suppose that you have 3 hosts with same spec ( identical memory size and cpu spec), and you have 4 VMs.

And the slot size is a half size of total host resource; if you have a host holds 64GB memory, slot size will be 32GB.

4 VMs reside each hosts like below.

In this situation, If Host1 dead, VM1 will fail over to Host2 or Host3, HA behaves like below.

or

Still you can't control to witch host VM1 or VM2 fail over, but you can at least control each VMs to go to separate host.

Hopefully it works for you.

Best,

MAC

[normchri1920]

Thank you macvirtual, that's what I was looking for.

I don't care if VM 1 goes on host 2 or 3 it's just to avoid that all VM goes on only one host like actuallys.

Thanks a lot.