Warning when trying to storage vMotion VCLS VM: vSphere Cluster Services manage the resources, power state and availability of one or more of these VMs. Sphere Cluster Service VMs are required for maintaining the health and availability of Sphere Cluster

Products

• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x
• VMware vSphere ESX 7.x

Issue/Introduction

When storage vMotioning a vCLS VM the following alert is seen:

"vSphere Cluster Services manage the resources, power state and availability of one or more of these VMs. Sphere Cluster Service VMs are required for maintaining the health and availability of Sphere Cluster Services. Any impact on the power state or resources of these VMs might degrade the health of Sphere Cluster Services and cause Sphere DRS to cease operation for the cluster.

For more details check KB 79892.

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Environment

VMware vSphere 7.x
VMware vSphere 8.x

Cause

This is a general warning about the functions of the vCLS VMs. See the following KB for more details of their function: vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) in vSphere 7.0 Update 1 and newer versions

Resolution

This warning is an expected informational safeguard and does not indicate a failure. To resolve the prompt and successfully migrate the vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) virtual machines, perform one of the following methods:

Method 1: Direct Storage vMotion (Recommended)

1. Initiate the Storage vMotion task for the target vCLS virtual machines via the vSphere Client.

2. When the vCLS informational warning prompt appears, click YES to acknowledge and bypass the safeguard.

3. Monitor the Recent Tasks pane and allow the Storage vMotion operation to complete successfully.

Method 2: vCLS Retreat Mode If a direct Storage vMotion is not desired, use Retreat Mode to automatically recreate the vCLS VMs on an alternate datastore.

1. Place the target vSphere cluster into vCLS Retreat Mode. This action will automatically power off and delete the existing vCLS virtual machines from the current datastore.

2. Wait for the vCLS virtual machines to be completely removed from the vCenter Server inventory.

3. Remove the cluster from vCLS Retreat Mode.

4. vCenter Server will automatically deploy new vCLS virtual machines onto the remaining healthy and available datastores within the cluster.