Enable / Disable DRS on a per host basis in a cluster

[migeauxy]

Hi,

The situation is as follows : 5 Hosts ( 3 in one computer room A, 2 in computer room B ), grouped into a VMware Cluster using HA and DRS

The questions is : is it possible - and how - to keep HA Activated on all hosts, and disable DRS on the 2 hosts in the computer room B, so that if Cptr room A faild, HA works and switches all VMs on computer room B, but avoiding beeing annoyed with recommendations provided by DRS to migrate some VMs from computer room A onto the servers in computer room B ?

Of course, keeping the 5 hosts in the same VMware cluster.

Thanks for your advices

[conyards]

This isn't possible. The closest you'll be able to get is to work out some 'seperate virtual machines' rules. DRS is either on for the whole ESX cluster or off for the whole ESX cluster.

Simon

[admin]

Hmm no way that I know of to provide that level of control. You could set up a couple of dummy VMs on the computer room B ESX servers and then use DRS affinity rules to prevent VMs from being migrated to the hosts holding those VMs, not ideal though I realise.

[migeauxy]

Thanks for your answer - do you have an official paper explaining this "non-feature" ?

Customers here want an official point of vue

Thanks again

[admin · Accepted solution]

Here's a whitepaper giving a detailed overview of DRS and how it works, not sure if it will specifically mention the inability to exclude hosts from a cluster though.