When you upgrade VMware Cloud Foundation, one of the vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) agent VMs gets placed on local storage

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) ensures that cluster services remain available, even when the vCenter Server is unavailable. vCLS deploys three vCLS agent virtual machines to maintain cluster services' health.

When you upgrade VMware Cloud Foundation, one of the vCLS VMs may get placed on local storage instead of shared storage. This could cause issues if you delete the ESXi host on which the VM is stored.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2

Resolution

Deactivate and reactivate vCLS on the cluster to deploy all the vCLS agent VMs to shared storage.

1. Check the placement of the vCLS agent VMs for each cluster in your environment.

• In the vSphere Client, select Menu > VMs and Templates.
• Expand the vCLS folder.
• Select the first vCLS agent VM and click the Summary tab.
• In the Related Objects section, check the datastore listed for Storage. It should be the vSAN datastore. If a vCLS agent VM is on local storage, you need to deactivate vCLS for the cluster and then re-enable it.
• Repeat these steps for all vCLS agent VMs.

2. Deactivate vCLS for clusters that have vCLS agent VMs on local storage.

• In the vSphere Client, click Menu > Hosts and Clusters.
• Select a cluster that has a vCLS agent VM on local storage.

• In the web browser address bar, note the moref id for the cluster.

For example, if the URL displays as https://vcenter-fqdn.local/ui/app/cluster;nav=h/urn:vmomi:ClusterComputeResource:domain-cxxx:503a0d38-442a-446f-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/summary, then the moref id is domain-cxxx.

• Select the vCenter Server containing the cluster.
• Click Configure > Advanced Settings.
• Click Edit Settings.
• Change the value for config.vcls.clusters.<moref id>.enabled  to false and click Save.
• If the config.vcls.clusters.<moref id>.enabled setting does not appear for your moref id, then enter its Name and false for the Value and click Add.
• Wait a couple of minutes for the vCLS agent VMs to be powered off and deleted. You can monitor progress in the Recent Tasks pane.

3. Enable vCLS for the cluster to place the vCLS agent VMs on shared storage.

• Select the vCenter Server containing the cluster and click Configure > Advanced Settings.
• Click Edit Settings.
• Change the value  config.vcls.clusters.<moref id>.enabled to true and click Save.
• Wait a couple of minutes for the vCLS agent VMs to be deployed and powered on. You can monitor progress in the Recent Tasks pane.

Check the placement of the vCLS agent VMs to make sure they are all on shared storage.