There are number of different ways to test if vSphere is working correctly. By the far the most effective and realistic is to enduce a failure of a physical vSphere host by powering it off. This can be done physically with the power button or by using the BMC/DRAC/ILO card. This test would require some powered on VMs. Powering off a vSphere host does not register immediately in the vCenter/Web Client UI as the management systems has number of re-tries to connect to the vSphere host in the event of temporary network outage. So for tests you may wish to carry out a ping -t of the vSphere host that will be brought down and number of the VMs that currently located on the host.

You can find out the IP address of given VM by viewing its “Summary” page

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