What feature in VMware allows for the automatic start-up of VMs after a host failure?

The Automatic Restart feature of vSphere High Availability (HA) is designed specifically to handle host failures by automatically restarting affected virtual machines (VMs) on other operational hosts within the cluster. This feature is crucial for maintaining uptime and availability in a virtualized environment, ensuring that services remain operational even during hardware or host outages.

When a host fails, vSphere HA detects the failure and orchestrates the restart of all impacted VMs on other hosts that are part of the same cluster. This process occurs without requiring manual intervention, which significantly minimizes downtime and promotes business continuity.

VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) focuses on load balancing resources among hosts and does not specifically address automatic VM recovery after a host failure. VMware Tools are necessary for optimal VM performance and management but do not relate to automatic VM restarts. VM snapshots are useful for preserving the state of a VM at a point in time but do not provide functionality for automatic restarts following host issues.

The distinct capability of the Automatic Restart feature of vSphere HA makes it essential for disaster recovery planning in VMware environments.