Virtualization,  VMware

Add ESXi Hosts to a HA/DRS Cluster

During our previous posts we have installed and configured a vCenter Server and ESXi hosts.

Now that we have our cluster configured with HA and DRS features, lets add our ESXi hosts to the cluster.

First, right click on the cluster and select Add host.


Then, provide the FQDN or the IP address of the host you need to add to the cluster. Click next to continue.


Provide the username and password to connect to the host and click next to continue.


You will get a prompt about validation of host certification. Accept it to continue.


Wizard will provide a summary of information about the host. Click next to continue.


Now you can assign a host license if you have a valid license. I will continue with the evaluation mode since this is a lab setup.


From this window you can configure the lockdown policy of the ESXi host. Lets keep it disabled for now. Click next to continue.


After reviewing the summary click finish to add host to your cluster.


You can add up to 64 hosts per cluster in vSphere 6.5. For more information about configuration maximums refer this document.

I have added 3 ESXi hosts to this lab cluster. You can view them under the Lab-Cluster.


Note that you can add hosts directly to a datacenter using the same method but those host or any virtual machines run on them won’t have any feature enabled in HA/DRS cluster.