You can configure how ESXi hosts and VMs behave before and during the remedition of a cluster that you managed with a single image.

When you edit images remediation settings, you set the global remediation setting for all clusters that you manage with images. However, you can override the global remedation settings and use specific remediation settings for a cluster. For more information, see Edit the Remediation Settings for a Cluster.

Hosts that are in a vSAN cluster can enter maintenance mode only one at a time. This behavior is a peculiarity of the vSAN cluster. For more information about the vSphere Lifecycle Manager behavior during the remediation of hosts in a vSAN cluster, see Remediation Specifics of vSAN Clusters.

For information about automatically triggered hardware compatibility checks, which is a functionality that is also applicable only to vSAN clusters, see Automatically Triggered Hardware Compatibility Checks for vSAN Clusters.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have the proper privileges. See vSphere Lifecycle Manager Privileges For Using Images.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. On the Settings tab, select Host Remediation > Images.
  3. Click the Edit button.
    The Edit Cluster Settings dialog box opens.
  4. Configure the images remediation settings and click Save.
    Option Description
    Quick Boot Quick Boot reduces the host reboot time during remediation. Before you enable Quick Boot, you must ensure that the ESXi host is compatible with the feature.

    By default, Quick Boot is turned off.

    VM power state The VM power stateoption lets you control the behavior of the virtual machines that run on the ESXi host.

    You can select from the following options.

    • Do not change power state
    • Suspend to disk
    • Suspend to memory

      To select the Suspend to memory option, you must enable Quick Boot. Otherwise, the Suspend to memory option is dimmed.

      Together with Quick Boot, the Suspend to memory option provides faster host upgrades. vSphere Lifecycle Managersuspends to the host memory and not to the disk the powered on virtual machines on the host. After the Quick Boot, the suspended virtual machines are resumed from memory.

    • Power off

    The default selection is Do not change power state.

    VM migration You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to migrate the suspended and powered off virtual machines from the hosts that must enter maintenance mode to other hosts in the cluster.

    The default configuration is set to Do not migrate powered off and suspended VMs to other hosts in the cluster.

    Maintenance mode failures You can configure how vSphere Lifecycle Manager behaves if a host fails to enter maintenance mode before remediation. You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to wait for a specified retry delay period and to retry to put the host into maintenance mode as many times as you indicate in the Number of retries text box.
    HA admission control

    Admission control is a policy that vSphere HA uses to ensure failover capacity within a cluster. If vSphere HA admission control is enabled during remediation, vMotion might be unable to migrate the virtual machines within the cluster.

    Disabling admission control allows a virtual machine to be powered on even if it causes insufficient failover capacity. When this happens, no warnings are presented, and the cluster does not turn red. If a cluster has insufficient failover capacity, vSphere HA can still perform failovers, and uses the VM Restart Priority setting to determine which virtual machines to power on first.
    • If you select the Disable HA admission control on the cluster option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager remediates the hosts in the cluster and re-enables HA admission control after remediation is complete.
    • If you deselect the Disable HA admission control on the cluster option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager skips remediating the clusters on which HA admission control is enabled.

    By default, the Disable HA admission control on the cluster option is deselected.
    DPMvsa

    VMware Distributed Power Management (DPM) monitors the resources consumed by the running virtual machines in the cluster. If sufficient excess capacity exists, VMware DPM recommends moving virtual machines to other hosts in the cluster and placing the original host into standby mode to conserve power. If the capacity is insufficient, VMware DPM might recommend returning standby hosts to a powered-on state.

    • If you select the Disable DPM on the cluster option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager remediates the hosts in the cluster and re-enables DPM after remediation is complete.
    • If you deselect the Disable DPM on the cluster option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager skips remediating the clusters on which DPM is enabled.

    By default, the Disable DPM on the cluster option is enabled.

    Hardware compatibility issues vSphere Lifecycle Manager performs a hardware compatibility check as part of the remediation pre-check and the remediation tasks for vSAN clusters. You can configure vSphere Lifecycle Manager to prevent remediation when hardware compatibility issues exist for the cluster.
    • If you select the Prevent remediation if hardware compatibility issues are found option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager reports hardware compatibility issues as an error, which prevents remediation.
    • If you deselect the Prevent remediation if hardware compatibility issues are found option, vSphere Lifecycle Manager reports hardware compatibility issues as a warning, which does not prevent remediation.

    If the cluster is not vSAN-enabled, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not perform a hardware compatibility check as part of the remediation pre-check or the remediation tasks.

Results

These settings become the default failure response settings with vSphere Lifecycle Manager images. You can specify different settings when you configure individual remediation tasks.