Unable to perform vMotion for Microsoft Scale Out File Servers

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Unable to perform vMotion for Microsoft Scale Out File Servers operating in VMware vCenter Server. vMotion operations consistently fail for the specific virtual machines running within the Microsoft Scale Out File Server cluster.

Environment

vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

Two or more virtual machines sharing the same virtual disk (VMDK) are not permitted to be powered on simultaneously on the same ESXi host. An ESXi host can only hold one lock per VMDK file. When a vMotion operation attempts to migrate one of these virtual machines to a destination host that is already running another virtual machine sharing the same disk, a lock conflict occurs because the destination host cannot obtain a second lock on the identical VMDK file.

Resolution

 

• Verify that the vSphere cluster contains a minimum of N+1 ESXi hosts, where N is the total number of Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) nodes.

• Navigate to the vSphere Cluster configure settings and create a new DRS VM/VM Anti-Affinity rule.

• Add all Microsoft Scale Out File Server cluster nodes sharing the VMDK to this newly created Anti-Affinity rule.

• Ensure the rule is enabled to prevent hosting more than one node of the WSFC cluster on a single ESXi host, which will prevent lock conflicts during future vMotion events.

 

Additional Information

See Microsoft Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) with shared disks on VMware vSphere 8.x: Guidelines for supported configurations for more information.