how to test ha on one vm?

[tdubb123]

How can I test HA on one vm without interrupting other vms or shutting down the esx host?

[a_p_]

Depending on your network configuration, one way to do this could be to temporarily modify the HA settings.

In your Cluster's settings go to "VMware HA" --> "Virtual Machine Options" and set the default "Host isolation response" to "Leave powered on". For the test VM, set the "Host Isolation Response" to "Power Off".

Now you can pull the network cable(s) for the Service Console to force Host Isolation.

André

[AndreTheGiant]

If you want to test host HA, you have to free on host, put you test VM and then hard reboot your host (or if you have configurated and isolation response you can also remove al network cables).

If you want to test VM HA, you can simple stop VMware Tools and see if VM will be rebooted.

Andre

[tdubb123]

no stopping vmtools did not reboot machine

[tdubb123]

Why is HA saying I still have so many slots available? I have 74 powered on vms on currently 5 hosts and mem utilizaton on all 5 hosts is shown.

[HannaL]

slot minimum size calclulation is determined by the largest reservations for mem and cpu for all vm's in the cluster. so look at the size and that will match one more more VM's in the cluster's reservation. Then vmware determines how many of those slot sizes are available in the cluster and how many are used. If you reduce the size of the largest reservation for mem and cpu it will reduce the default slot size it is using for its calculation.

Hope that helps,

Hanna

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VCP2, VCP VI3, VCP vSphere

[Duncan Epping]

i wrote a deepdive on slot sizes, might be worth reading it here:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/vmware-high-availability-deepdiv/#HA-admission

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCDX

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[HannaL]

slot size availability is not related to the memory utilization so don't focus so much on that since you have 253 availabe slots but you may want to look at the memory utilization and see what's going on there. That would concern me more than any HA emergency issues. This is a good place to start

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf-vsphere-memory_management.pdf

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere4.0.pdf

Hope that helps,

Hanna

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VCP2, VCP VI3, VCP vSphere

[Duncan Epping]

simply stopping VMware Tools alone doesn't cut it Mr Giant. VM HA also checks if there is any IO (network / storage) and if there is or very recently has been it will not reboot the VM.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCDX

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[AndreTheGiant]

simply stopping VMware Tools alone doesn't cut it Mr Giant. VM HA also checks if there is any IO (network / storage) and if there is or very recently has been it will not reboot the VM.

Interesting... so not only the VMware Tools heartbeat is used for VM HA?

It's new in vSphere or was the same also in ESX 3.5?

Andre

[tdubb123]

should i be doing my own calculations on how many slots are available in case 1 host fails? Or will vcenter display an error when the utilization is too overloaded? I have 5 hosts with 32,32,32,64,64 GB memory. I have never tested or intentionally unplug the power on one host and see if all the vms will power back on on the other 4. With the mem utilization at over 80% on 2 hosts and the others hovering around 60-70%, I am not sure if one of the 64GB hosts goes down the vms will power on on the other 4.

what do i do?

[HannaL]

The whole point of HA is to power up VM's after an ESX host crashes, its an emergency procedure which is not a per VM thing really. It's more of a per ESX host thing. What are you trying to test? Is it possibly you might be thinking of DRS? That works on a per VM level and you can test it without rebooting a VM or a host and you can also set per VM options for DRS which will migrate a VM from one host to another under certain resource constraints.

You can see all these options by selecting the cluster in the hosts and clusters view then select edit settings to see all these options. Otherwise the suggestion of putting one VM on one host and rebooting that ESX host is the only way to test HA (ie the VM will power down along with the ESX host then HA will power that VM up on another remaining host, that is what HA should do if working correctly).

Hope that helps,

Hanna

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VCP2, VCP VI3, VCP vSphere

[529122530]

So simple to test it,just power off your physical esx server,then take your time for waiting...

[Duncan Epping]

Correct,

depending on the chosen isolation response it will take roughly 15 /20 seconds.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCDX

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