HCX Network Extension (NE) Appliances in HA Group, Power Ons automatically during Un-extension Task after being manually Powered Off

Products

• VMware HCX

Issue/Introduction

• During the HCX un-extension workflow, the HCX power's on the NE VMs automatically which were powered off manually.

Environment

HCX

Cause

• in an HCX Network Extension (NE) High Availability (HA) group, the NE appliances must remain synchronized as they share critical network extension information.
• To ensure the network un-extension task is fully and cleanly propagated across the entire HA group and with in the NE peers, HCX initiates a power-on action on the respective NE appliances.
• This action forces synchronization and prevents potential issues arising from stale sessions or inconsistent state across the appliances, which is vital for a successful, coordinated network extension tear-down/de-commissioning.

Resolution

• All HCX components, including Network Extension (NE) appliances, must remain powered on and in an operational state at all times. Manual intervention, such as powering off HCX component VMs, is an unsupported procedure.

Additional Information

In contrast, this synchronization step is not required when using a single, non-HA NE appliance, as there is no peer appliance to coordinate or sync state information.
Therefore, the HCX does not power on the individual NE VMs  (not part of HA group) during the Network Unextend operation.