Can't power up a VM on a server it's been migrated to.

[GroverJoe]

I'm in the process of migrating from vSphere ESXi 5.5 to 6.5. I have my two new hosts online and they appear to be working fine. However I'm having an odd problem.

Say I have a VM on host LAN-VMW01. I have it currently shut down. I migrate it successfully to host LAN-VMW03 because I'm going to take LAN-VMW01 offline to monkey with it (and get it physically racked).

However, after the successful migration I try to power the VM on, and the only host option I'm given is LAN-VMW01--which I just migrated it from.

As another test I took a lab VM that was currently powered on and running on LAN-VMW03. I shut it down, then tried to turn it back on and it again only gave me LAN-VMW01 as an option.

I'll throw in that we are using a SAN and using raw mapped LUNs for hard disk access. The disk volumes are visible to both servers (hence why I was able to migrate them from one to the other). Just wanted to mention that in case it's relevant.

Is there some kind of default balancing going on? I've not configured any resource pools to balance server load or anything. Thanks in advance.

[GroverJoe]

An example of this behavior:

- VM listed in the inventory of LAN-VMW03 is powered off.

- I power it on and am only presented with the option of doing so on LAN-VMW01. I go ahead and do so.

- VM migrates out of LAN-VMW03's inventory and into LAN-VMW01's and powers on.

- Once it's booted up I migrate the running VM back to LAN-VMW03.

- I shut down the VM.

- I try to power it on and once again I only have the option to power it up on LAN-VMW01.

[hussainbte]

looks like you have DRS turned ON and the cluster is giving recommendations on VM power on.

Can you not choose the 2nd host from the list while powering on and then check.

Else put DRS to manual mode and check..

please dont disable it as you will loose your Resource pool configurations

[GroverJoe]

My issue is that the other server isn't listed. Only ​LAN-VMW01​ is presented as an option when powering the VM on. DRS is currently turned ON and set to Manual.

[daphnissov]

Are you using VM-Host affinity rules for this VM? Any DRS rules that may apply to it at all?

[GroverJoe]

We have no DRS rules configured at all.

Historically (in 5.x) we'd power the VM on, be presented with the list of hosts (3 of them) and pick whatever one we wanted it to be on. Now it's only giving the host that has the least resources available (in this case currently LAN-VMW01) and *only* that host. If i want it to be running on ​LAN-VMW03​ I need to power it onto ​LAN-VMW01​ and then migrate it back.

[daphnissov]

What you're describing is a consequence of having DRS set to Manual mode. If you wanted to force it to run on that host, you should use either a soft or hard VM-Host affinity rule.