Unable to add/move host to an empty cluster

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

To help users if they are unable to add/move a non-DPU host into an empty vCenter cluster or a cluster with disconnected hosts.

Symptoms:

• When you first add/move a host with managed DPU to an empty vLCM cluster, it is associated with the DPU vendor of the added/moved host.
  
  
• Even if you remove all the hosts from this cluster, the association remains. At this point, either a non-DPU host or a DPU-host with a different vendor cannot be added to that cluster and you will have to create another cluster and add the new hosts.

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Cause

This happens because the cluster remains associated with the DPU vendor of the host even after all the hosts maybe removed from/disconnected from the cluster.

Resolution

The behavior is currently as per design. This KB will be updated when any backend changes are made.

Workaround:
The recommendation is to create a new cluster on the vCenter and use it for adding/moving non-DPU hosts.