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Hello,

 

I have 3 node cluster setup and working fine and it is also integrated with PC as well and the VM is in the same cluster itself. I am just curious to know. Just curious to know, how to VM auto start works in this case. Like in VMWARE we use to manually select startup feature and  configure VM Startup Priority by +1. What concept is use in nutanix, and how can we prioritize that? 

Hi Himanshusince1989,

Here is the clarification reference VM auto-starts, also a couple of links to assist you in setting it up...

Nutanix AHV Virtual Machine Auto-Start (Equivalent to VMware Start-up Priority)

In AHV, virtual machine auto-start after host reboot is handled using Virtual Machine High Availability (VMHA). There’s no direct equivalent to the manual VM start-up priority configuration like in VMware ESXi, but Nutanix does offer:

1. VM High Availability (VMHA) Built-In Mechanism

Nutanix AHV supports automatic restart of VMs in case of a host or CVM failure using VM High Availability (HA).

  • When an AHV host fails, the VMs on that host are automatically restarted on other healthy hosts in the cluster.
  • This functionality is enabled by default in most clusters and does not require start-up priority settings like in ESXi.
  • It uses the Acropolis Master Leader process to detect failure and take action.

How it works technically:
The Acropolis Leader keeps track of VM-to-host mapping. When a node goes down, the leader evaluates cluster health and reboots VMs on surviving hosts after fencing off the failed node.

Nutanix Reference: TN-2132 – Virtual Machine High Availability

 

2. VM Categories (for Prioritization)

In Section “Creating and Managing Recovery Plans”, the document explicitly describes how to:

  • Assign VMs to categories.
  • Group these into recovery stages.
  • Control start-up sequence by ordering categories in recovery stages.
  • Set boot delays, scripts, and dependencies per stage.

 

Official Statement:

“A recovery plan executes in stages, and each stage consists of one or more VM categories. VMs in a given category are started together. You can configure delays between stages or run custom scripts post-stage.”

Nutanix Source: Disaster-Recovery-DRaaS-Guide-vpc_7_3, Recovery Plan Configuration section

Can you explain why you want auto startup? Is ths for when the cluster is booting of for data protection? 

 

  1. For cluster booting: This is a manual step as nutanix cluster are build to run for every and shutting them down is only for specific maintenance issues. 
  2. Data Protection: You can create recovery plans in Prism Central where you can specify the boot order of virtual machines. 
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