HA and DRS Question regarding VM’s and a failed host node

[thekid70]

A host failure on a 3-node cluster, running vCenter and ESXi 7.0x, HA and DRS enabled.

Anti-affinity rule placed specifying where VM’s should be running.

Host failure takes place (crashes), VM’s move onto one of the 2 remaining hosts and all good.

Question - Host is now recovered and back into the cluster. Is there a setting or someway to configure the cluster to move the VM back to the recovered host it was residing on?

Any assistance or links to vmware documentation would be appreciated.

[IRIX201110141]

If you implement "must" DRS rules than DRS move the VMs back. DRS runs every view minutes.. otherwise click the "run now" button.  But you need a addition Adv. Settings for HA to violate these DRS must rules in a case of a accident.

vSphere will not "remember" to the VM distribution and will not place the VMs back in general... thats only possible with DRS VM Rules.

Hint: You should have as less DRS rules as possible, especially if you have a cluster with less nodes.

Regards,
Joerg

[thekid70]

Joerg, appreciate the help..... my understanding on implementing the must rule is....  

Must run on hosts in group - The VM Group must run on the hosts in this group. If the selected hosts are down, the VMs will be down and not be restarted on a different host.

if one of my host dies my VM will not move and need the VM to run on a different host. 

Should run on hosts in group - The VM Group should run on the hosts in the group. However, in case of a vSphere HA event, this rule will be overwritten in order to keep the VMs running.

I do have the should rule set, which is working on if they host dies. The VM does move and running on another host, which is exactly what I need. Now I'm trying to see if there's a setting/configuration to have the VM moved back to the original host once its back up. Besides doing it manually..... aka migration? 

thanks,

[depping · Accepted solution]

No, there's no option to have the VM automatically migrate back to where it was. The VM will be placed based on the rules specified. If the VM is not violating the should rule, then DRS will not move the VM unless there's another reason to move it. (resource contention etc)

[thekid70]

depping --- thanks for chiming in....