Passive / Active ESXi hosts in DRS group

[Biga_b]

We need to create a DRS group for our SQL VM's because of a new Microsoft support contract i'm  not happy with, and what makes the VMware environment less flexible.

6 ESXi host v5.5. About 80 VM's. 6 SQL VM's

1 ESXi host is going to be licensed for SQL. Not an ideal situation with SQL servers, I know. Still in discussion to license at least 2 ESXi host

Anyway, for the time being I need to create a kinda Passive / Active ESXi hosts situation.

I'll create a Host DRS group with 2 ESX hosts(Host1 and Host2), and a VM DRS group for the SQL VM's.

Move the SQL VM's to Host1 and disable DRS on the VM's, apply the rule, must run on host in group.

VM's will only migrate to host 2 if host1 crashes. Is this correct??

And can I enter maintenance mode for Host1 if DRS is disabled on the VM's??

Thanks

[ssumichrast]

‌if you specify a DRS rule and specify "must run on hosts" the VM may only run on those hosts, even in the event of HA failover or maintenance mode.

tthere is no good ideal setting for you really since its single node. the best you can do is use "should run on hosts".

[cjscol]

Yes that should work fine.

I think that if you put the host running the SQL servers into maintenance mode you will have to manually vMotion the SQL servers to the other node as they will not automatically move if you have disabled DRS on them, but that shouldn't be much of an issue for you.

Does the license you have for a single host say that you can re-assign it to another host (e.g. if host1 fails you can "assign" the license to host2) but you cannot re-assign it again for 90 days?