Manual vMotion violates the Separate Virtual Machines anti-affinity rule

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptom:
A manual vMotion task which violates the "Separate Virtual Machines" anti-affinity rule succeeds and does not display errors.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server
VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

This is by design.
The Separate Virtual Machines rule is respected for vSphere HA failover and VM power on operations, but not for manual vMotion with DRS disabled.

Resolution

This is expected behavior.

Additional Information

Understanding the functionality of the DRS anti-affinity rule to separate virtual machines by host

Using Affinity Rules without vSphere DRS