When a host fails, this cluster capability restarts its VMs elsewhere; through VM Component Protection and VM Monitoring it also reacts to storage and VM failures.
Also called vSphere High Availability.
Read more: Broadcom TechDocs
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains vSphere HA in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Capability
Something that a person, organisation or system is able to do.
- Virtual machines
Infrastructure-as-a-service compute giving complete control of the operating system, making it a fit for lift-and-shift moves and for software relying on OS-level pieces like COM.
- VM Component Protection
A vSphere HA capability that restarts VMs affected by storage connectivity loss, covering both permanent device loss and all-paths-down conditions.
- VM Monitoring
Part of vSphere HA: if a VM shows no I/O and its VMware Tools heartbeats stop, it is reset.
- General-purpose v1
The older storage account kind (
Storage), which lacks access tiers, Archive and premium file shares and retires on 13 October 2026. Converting to ZRS requires first upgrading to GPv2, a one-way change.
Related terms
- vSphere cluster
Hosts grouped and managed together by vCenter so their pooled resources can support vSAN, DRS and vSphere HA. In VCF, each such cluster belongs to a VCF domain.
- vSphere Fault Tolerance
Continuous availability for a VM: a matching Secondary VM on a different host is kept in step with the Primary and takes over immediately if it fails. Unlike vSphere HA, nothing has to restart.