Nutanix vSphere Cluster Settings

Following list provides an overview of the settings to configure as best practice on a Nutanix ESXi deployment

I always configure vSphere HA, DRS & EVC even if the customer does not plan to use the feature as it is easier to turn on at a later stage and applies to any new nodes added to the cluster

vSphere HA Settings

• Enable host monitoring
• Enable admission control and use the percentage-based policy with a value based on the number of nodes in the cluster
• Set the VM Restart Priority of all Controller VMs toDisabled
• Set the Host Isolation Response of the cluster to Power Off
• Set the Host Isolation Response of all Controller VMs to Disabled
• Set the VM Monitoring for all Controller VMs to Disabled
• Enable Datastore Heartbeating by clicking Select only from my preferred datastores and choosing the Nutanix NFS datastore – I normally create two small heatbeat datastores, advertise as 10GB capacity and use these. However if the cluster has only one datastore, add an advanced option named das.ignoreInsufficientHbDatastore withValue of true

vSphere DRS Settings

• Set the Automation Level on all Controller VMs to Disabled
• Leave power management disabled (set to Off)

Other Cluster Settings

• Store VM swapfiles in the same directory as the virtual machine
• Enable EVC in the cluster

Disable SIOC on a Container

It is recommended to disable SIOC on Nutanix because this setting can cause following issues.

• If SIOC or SIOC in the statistics mode is enabled then storage might become unavailable.
• If SIOC is enabled and you are using Metro Availability feature, you may face issues with activate and restore operation.
• If SIOC in the statistics mode is enabled, then this might cause all the hosts to repeatedly create and delete the access and .lck-XXXXXXXX files in the .iorm.sf directory in the root directory of the container.

Perform the following procedure to disable storage I/O statistics collection.

1. Log into the vSphere Web Client.
2. Click Storage.
3. Navigate to the container for your cluster.
4. Right-click the container and select Configure Storage I/O Controller.
   The properties for the container is displayed. The Disable Storage I/O statistics collection option is unchecked, which means that SIOC is enabled by default.
5. Select the Disable Storage I/O statistics collection option to disable SIOC, and click OK.
6. Select the Exclude I/O Statistics from SDRS option, and click OK.