What must be configured to allow vSphere HA to act upon VMs when a host is disconnected from the management network?

To allow vSphere High Availability (HA) to act on virtual machines when a host becomes disconnected from the management network, configuring the response for host isolation is essential. When a host loses connection to the management network, vSphere HA assesses whether the host is isolated—meaning it cannot communicate with other hosts in the cluster or access shared storage.

By configuring the response for host isolation, you can determine what actions HA should take when this situation occurs. Typically, you can set HA to either power off the virtual machines running on the isolated host or to leave them running, depending on your environment and requirements. This setting plays a crucial role in ensuring that VMs can either be restarted on other hosts in the cluster or safely powered down if they can't be managed.

Having the right host isolation response enables the cluster to maintain availability of the VMs, ensuring minimal disruption in case of connectivity issues. Therefore, without this configuration, HA would not be able to perform recovery actions, potentially leading to longer downtimes and affecting service continuity.