Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

This article provides steps to retain resource pool settings when you are disabling VMware Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS).

Environment

VMware ESXi 4.0.x Embedded
VMware ESX 4.1.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable
VMware vCenter Server 4.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.0.x Installable
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Installable
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESX Server 3.0.x
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.5.x
VMware ESX 4.0.x
VMware VirtualCenter 2.0.x
VMware ESXi 4.1.x Embedded

Resolution

Note: Depending on the size of the environment, it may be faster to recreate the Resource Pools.

To retain resource pool settings:

1. Before disabling VMware DRS on the existing cluster, disconnect and remove all hosts.
   
   Note: This purges performance statistics of the hosts and virtual machines.
   
   
2. Disable VMware High Availability (HA) on the existing cluster.
3. In a new cluster, enable VMware DRS.
4. Add each ESX host to the new cluster. When prompted, select create a Grafted Copy of the host's resource pool.
   
   Note: This creates a grafted resource pool for each host. It is necessary to graft all of the resource pools because you may not know which virtual machine is in which pool. The grafted resource pool's settings are the same as the original settings.
   
   
5. Combine any duplicate resource pools.

Note: vSphere 5.1 provides a new option for retaining Resource Pools when disabling DRS. For more information, see Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters in the vSphere Web Client (2032893).

Additional Information

Note: To restore lost resource pools, restore a backup of the vCenter Server database. Retaining resource pools when disabling VMware DRS clusters in the vSphere Web Client