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sara2000

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Automatic startup/shutdown

I have to perfrom planed power down of VMs in the cluster and start the VMs with ESXi hosts when we power up.
How do i enable automatic startup and shutdown of VMs if the VMs are part of the HA cluster in VMware 6.5?
I do not see the option to in the ESXi config like standalone ESxi host.
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Luciano Patrão
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Hi,

Startup VMs is in Cluster configurations in the VMs section.

Here is a video where you can see how to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1TBgpe4KlM
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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sara2000

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Thanks Andrew,
We plan to power down all the vms .
What is the option to power on ?
Do manually one at a time?
Correct, or write a script...

We actually prefer manually power on.

You can select ALL your VMs, and hit Power on you know!!!!!

but be careful you don't create a broadcast storm hitting you storage!
Hi,

Andrew is right here about HA and start automatic. Sorry did not read carefully that was using HA.

Regarding poweroff and poweron, we use a script that I run that creates a list of all poweron VMs, then power off them. After all maintenance is done, run the script again that will power on all VMs that were power on before and are in that list.

If this is something that you need, I will upload the script here later on.
Of course, you may need a script which powers off in the correct order, ad power's on in the correct order...

e.g. SQL server goes off after vCenter Server etc. and needs to be power on before vCenter Server...

and AD DCs need to be on first, and powered off last..... if you use them for DNS!

and always handy to know, which host has got vCenter Server hosted on it!

and you may also want to disable VMware HA, before you start hitting Maintenance Mode, other wise VMs if you have DRS may start  moving to other Hosts!

You really should have a Shutdown and Startup Plan documented, as to order things get turned off, and power on, including SANs, NAS, UPS etc

We have a major one looming with a client soon, it was cancelled for July, but now will be in August, because of Power Substation electricity works for the business....
Luciano,
Would you mind to upload the script, please?
Hi,

I was trying to find an answer that I did some time ago here in EE with the same script, but with some changes that will fit more in this case, but cannot find it. And I cannot find that script with that changes in computer.

But I will add anyway the ones I have.

Script to create PowerON VM List
VMsPowerOnList.txt  Script to create PowerON VM List
VMsPowerOff.txt  Script that will PowerON all PowerOFF VMs that are in the previous file list

The script that I have changed, was the first one. This would create that PowerON VMs list, but at the same time would power off the VMS (checked VMs if have VMware Tools or not to provide a proper Shutdown Guest).

In this version it only creates the PowerON VMs list do not power off. You need to power off manually.

Meanwhile will try to find that new version, or at least the answer that I did here in EE and provided those changes when a user requested.