Virtual machines are not placed on specific ESXi hosts in a vSphere DRS cluster

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

• A virtual machine cannot be powered on on a specific ESXi host. DRS migrates it to another ESXi host.
• Checking the journal or vpxd log indicates that an affinity rule change task is being executed immediately after the virtual machine is created.
  --------
  XXX XX XX:XX:XX <vCenter-name> vpxd[5936]: Event [12835263] [1-19] [XXXX-XX-XXTXX:XX:XX.XXXXXXZ] [vim.event.ClusterReconfiguredEvent] [info] [com.simplivity.evalta-420a3d26-1fa1-523e-66b5-6b4239db6bd9] [DataCenter-Name] [12835262] [Reconfigured cluster <Cluster-Name> in datacenter <DataCenter-Name>

                                      Modified:

                                     configurationEx.group: ((name = "svtv_xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx".........
         --------

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

Cause

In an HPE SimpliVity/HPE OmniStack environment, when clusters use Intelligent Workload Optimizer (IWO) with vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), IWO automatically creates affinity rules within HPE SimpliVity virtual machine groups, host groups, and DRS.
Affinity rules created or modified by this task have host group names beginning with "svth" and virtual machine group names beginning with "svtv".
When a virtual machine is powered on on an ESXi host, if the group to which the target ESXi host belongs is not associated with the group to which the virtual machine was added, it will be migrated to another ESXi host according to the affinity rules.

Resolution

This can be improved by editing the group/affinity rules for the virtual machines, but you will need to receive support from HPE regarding the impact on your environment and the content of the affinity rule modifications.

Additional Information

- HPE document
About managing HPE SimpliVity groups and rules

- Japanese KB
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/416910