How do we disable the vCenter load-balancing service?

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

VM backup jobs are failing because of VMs are moving from host to host during the backup job execution.

Environment

VMware vSphere 8.x

Resolution

In the vSphere Client,

1. Select the cluster name in the left pane
2. Click the Configure tab above the right pane
3. Select Services -> vSphere DRS
4. Click EDIT in the upper right
   
   
   
   
5. Under Automation Level select Manual and click OK.
   
   
   
   

This will prevent DRS from automatically moving VMs between ESXi hosts. Refer to the following Documentation for further details on DRS configuration: Create a vSphere DRS Cluster - Machine Migration
NOTE: Best practice is to set DRS to fully automated so that vSphere can optimize the resource utilization across ESXi hosts in the cluster. Contact your backup software vendor for best practices in order to configure the backup software properly to operate in a vSphere environment.