Virtual machines might be migrated to unexpected ESXi host when powering off all ESXi hosts in HA cluster

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
After powering off all ESXi hosts in the HA cluster where vCenter Server virtual machine resides, you may experience these symptoms:

• Virtual machines might be migrated to other ESXi hosts.
• Virtual machines might be registered to both the source and the destination ESXi hosts.
• ESXi hosts cannot reconnect to the vCenter Server automatically.
• Virtual machines appear as orphaned.

Cause

This issue occurs due to the HA Agent failed to stop properly, ESXi host is not regarded as graceful shutdown.
 
To stop HA Agent properly, you must put the ESXi host into maintenance mode from vCenter Server.
If the vCenter Server virtual machine resides on the ESXi host, you need to shut down the vCenter Server before entering maintenance mode.
 
Therefore, when vCenter Server resides on the ESXi host, the HA Agent failed to stop properly, then this issue occurs.

Resolution

To work around this issue, disable the vSphere HA before powering off all ESXi host in the cluster.
 
To disable the vSphere HA:
 
vSphere Web Client:
 
1. Log in to the vCenter Server, using the vSphere Web Client.
2. Select the cluster which you want to disable vSphere HA. Click the Setting tab and click vSphere HA
3. Click Edit, then deselect the Turn on vSphere HA checkbox.
4. Click OK
 
vSphere Client:
 
1. Log in to the vCenter Server, using the vSphere Client.
2. Right Click the cluster which you want to disable vSphere HA, and select Edit Settings
3. Select Cluster Features, then deselect the Turn on vSphere HA checkbox.
4. Click OK.

Note: When vSphere HA is disabled, HA agent will not be uninstalled and the configuration for HA will remain. After rebooting all ESXi hosts, you can just re-enable vSphere HA without any reconfiguration.