As I’ve dug into VMware, there seems to be a common thread suggesting that all ESX hosts should be available via IP, short name (machine name) and FQDN.
Here is a good excerpt from an article outlining that concept. This is from VMwarewolf, and he’s talking about 3.0, but this came concept still applies. I still see a lot of KB and forum articles still saying this is important, and in the 5.1 boot camp there is discussion about resolving by all three methods.
Excerpt;
Today I bring you VMware ESX users a valuable tip that I have picked up in the few weeks I have worked at VMware Tech Support . By this time next week I will have reached the end of my probationary period and will be a regular full time employee. Even though I’m still greener than daffodil sprouts in the garden, I have handled a number of cases that were easily solved with this small configuration change