Performing Power Operations on Virtual Machines

Overview

You can perform power operations on virtual machines, such as powering on or off a virtual machine, suspending or resetting a virtual machine, or shutting down the guest operating system of a virtual machine.

Procedure

I. Power on a Virtual Machine

Step 1: On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

Step 2: Click card view

Step 3: On the card of the virtual machine that you want to start, click ACTIONS > Power > Power On.

A powered-on virtual machine displays a Powered-on status in green.

II. Shut down Guest OS, Power off, Reset a Virtual Machine

• The Shut Down Guest OS for VM action shuts down the guest operating system and powers off the virtual machine. VMware Tools must be installed and running on the VM.

• Powering off a virtual machine is the equivalent of powering off a physical machine.

• Resetting a virtual machine clears the state (memory, cache, and so on), but the virtual machine continues to run. Resetting a virtual machine is the equivalent of pushing the reset button of a physical machine. It initiates a hard reset of the operating system without changing the virtual machine's power state.

Step 1: On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

Step 2: Click card view

Step 3: In the card of the virtual machine that you want to power off, click ACTIONS > Power > Power Off\Shut Down Guest OS\Reset

III.Suspend a Virtual Machine

• Suspending a virtual machine preserves its current state by writing the memory (RAM) to disk.

• The suspend and resume feature is useful when you want to save your virtual machine's current state (RAM) and continue work later from the same state.

Step 1: On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

Step 2: Click card view

Step 3: In the card of the virtual machine that you want to start, click ACTIONS > Power > Suspend.

The virtual machine is suspended, but its state is preserved.

Attention: From the VM Suspended state, just power on if you need the VM to run with the current memory.

IV. Discard the suspended state of a Virtual Machine

If a virtual machine is in a suspended state and you no longer need to resume the use of the machine, you can discard the suspended state. Discarding the suspended state removes the saved memory and returns the machine to a powered-off state.

Step 1: On the Virtual Data Center dashboard screen, click the card of the virtual data center you want to explore, and from the left panel, select Virtual Machines.

Step 2: Click card view

Step 3: In the card of the virtual machine that you want to start, click ACTIONS > Power > Discard the suspended state.

The state is discarded, and the virtual machine is powered off.