Manually remove an orphaned cluster from the platform database: VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation

Issue/Introduction

Attempts to delete a vSphere cluster from the SDDC Manager UI fail or are blocked. The cluster deletion task cannot complete, leaving an orphaned entry in the inventory.

Symptoms:

• The cluster deletion task fails with errors such as Failed or Cluster already being removed.

• The Delete option is completely unavailable or greyed out in the SDDC Manager UI.

• The SDDC Manager UI displays an undefined object in place of the cluster name.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x
• VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x
• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x

Cause

This issue occurs when a lifecycle management task (such as cluster creation or deletion) is interrupted. This leaves an orphaned or incomplete cluster record in the SDDC Manager platform database, preventing the UI from processing further metadata updates for that specific cluster.

Resolution

Removing the orphaned cluster requires a manual deletion via the inventory extension API, which must be performed by Broadcom Support. To expedite the support request, extract the problematic cluster's UUID from the platform database prior to opening a ticket.

1. SSH into the SDDC Manager appliance.

2. Switch to the root user:
   
   su -

3. Execute the following command to query the platform database and list all known clusters alongside their current status:

   psql -h localhost -U postgres -d platform -c "select id,name,status from cluster;"
   
   

4. Review the command output and locate the row where the name column is blank, null, or matches the undefined object seen in the UI.

5. Copy the alphanumeric string from the id column for that specific orphaned entry.

6. Create a support case and provide the extracted UUID. Request that an engineer execute a manual cluster deletion via the inventory extension API.

Additional Information

For instructions on opening a support case, refer to Creating and managing Broadcom support cases.

Before submitting your ticket, verify that the issue isn't caused by one of these two common misconfigurations:

1. Missing MOID: If the Managed Object ID is missing from the database, it will throw a specific error: VSAN Cluster moid cannot be null or empty.

2. Default Cluster: Ensure the cluster you are trying to delete is not currently marked as the default cluster for a Workload Domain. SDDC Manager will not allow you to delete a default cluster.