Can VMWARE HA power on VM from the host which is not up

[benirobert]

HI,

I have got a simple question to ask to you.

my VMWARE environement is composed by 3 hosts, vcenter is also a VM

when I shutdown all hosts and poweron only 2 hosts, the VM located on the third host will not come up,

is there any procedure to automate the powerup of VM which are on that host that I did not powerup,

it require me to power them up manually.

Regards

[Linjo]

So you have shared storage or not?

What type of license does the hosts have?

// Linjo

[benirobert]

I have vsphere 5 enterprise plus, and yes the storage is shared. but when it is a complete shutdown, when I powerup hosts, the VM located on a non powered up hosts will not come up

Beni

[ScreamingSilenc]

Have you enable Individual VM automation levels under vSphere DRS settings.

[benirobert]

Yes,

it is enabled

//beni

[vThinkBeyondVM]

Bit confusion on steps you performed.

Plz clarify my understanding.

"when I shutdown all hosts and poweron only 2 hosts"

Above is your statement in first post:

1. Do you mean, first you had 3 hosts with some VMs running?

2. Then you powered off all the hosts (all 3)

3. Then you powered on 2 hosts

[benirobert]

Yes Exactly,

you did really understand my questionVickyvision2020

//Beni

[vThinkBeyondVM]

Thanks Beni for clarification.

There can be some scenarios in those cases HA will not restart/Power on VMs.

1. Say vCPUs available on both powered on hosts are already assigned to all powered on VMs, then no more VMs can be restarted.

2. If you have dedicated some hosts for dedicated fail over and dedicated host(s) is down, HA will not power on the VMs at all

3. It also depends on how you have shutdown your hosts: Refer: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2014/04/04/esxi-dcui-shutdown-vs-vcenter-shutdown-host/

There are 3 ways to shutdown the hosts: 1. From web client/VI client ...2. SSH session to host ...3. From DCUI ie.ILO console.

Let me know which option did you use?

4. It also depends on how "isolation response" is configured.

5. Weather LUNs/Datastores on 3rd hosts are not accessible on 2 powered on hosts (may be after you shutdown)

Can you post screen shot on HA configuration? just let me know if you are using DRS as well?