Which additional vCenter Server feature must be configured for DRS to balance workloads?

vSphere HA provides host failure protection and is operationally independent from DRS workload balancing - enabling HA does not give DRS the ability to move VMs.

Resource Pools organize VM resource entitlements hierarchically but are not a prerequisite for DRS to perform workload balancing migrations across hosts.

DRS continuously evaluates host resource utilization and calculates optimal VM placements, but it relies entirely on vMotion to execute live migrations of running VMs between hosts. Without vMotion configured and enabled on the hosts, DRS can generate placement recommendations but cannot perform any automated or manual load-balancing migrations to act on them.

Proactive HA integrates hardware health sensor data to preemptively migrate VMs away from degrading hosts, which is a separate feature layered on top of DRS rather than a prerequisite for standard DRS balancing.