ESXi VM Shutdown / Startup Questions

[belias]

Hello,

I have a small VMWare cluster with 2 hosts and an APC SRT1500 w/APC9630.

Host A is connected to Outlet Group 1 and has (2) VMs (including the APC PCNS VM for Host A).

Host B is connected to Outlet Group 2 and has (6) VMs (including the APC PCNS VM for Host B and the VCenter Server).

The goal is to get an automated shutdown of all VMs and hosts.  I have most of this working, but I'm still confused on a few items.

If someone could answer the following questions, I would really appreciate it:

1.  Does PCNS initiate the VM shut-down in series or in parallel?  I did some testing today, and it appears to shut-down in parallel but this isn't how I read the documentation.

2.  Does the PCNS VM need to have auto-start enabled?  Does the VCenter VM need to have auto-start enabled?  If both of these are enabled, and the checkbox for VM/VApp startup is checked in the PCNS, will it automatically restart all of the VMs?

Thanks.