Removal of Mobility Agent vSphere Host in VMware HCX
Article ID: 435253
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
HCX Mobility Agent host is a "dummy" ESXi host automatically deployed into vCenter inventory by the HCX-IX (Interconnect) appliance.
It acts as a proxy for vMotion, Cold Migration, and Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV). If you no longer need these specific migration types, or if the Mobility Agent is blocking a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) upgrade or causing security flags, you can safely remove it by editing your HCX Service Mesh.
Environment
VMware HCX
Cause
Manual deletion or modification of the Mobility Agent directly from the vCenter Server inventory is unsupported,as this will permanently disrupt ongoing and future HCX Cold, vMotion, and Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) migrations.
Resolution
To remove the Mobility Agent vSphere Host in VMware HCX, the migration services that rely on it must be disabled
1. Verify Active Migrations
Ensure there are no ongoing migrations using the Mobility Agent.
Check the HCX Dashboard to confirm that no vMotion, Cold Migrations, or Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) migrations are currently in progress.
2. Edit the HCX Service Mesh
Log in to the HCX Manager UI, Navigate to Infrastructure > Interconnect > Service Mesh.
Select the active Service Mesh where the Mobility Agent is deployed and click Edit.
3. Disable vMotion-Based Services
Proceed through the Service Mesh configuration wizard until you reach the Services selection screen. Uncheck the following services that use the Mobility Agent:
Cross-Cloud vMotion Migration
Replication Assisted vMotion Migration
HCX Assisted vMotion Migration
4. Update the Service Mesh
Click Continue through the rest of the wizard without changing other settings.
Click Finish / Update to apply the changes to the Service Mesh.
Allow the Service Mesh update task to complete successfully. HCX will reconfigure the IX appliance and automatically remove the Mobility Agent host from the vCenter inventory.
Additional Information
The Mobility Agent acts as a proxy for vSphere migration protocols and presents a "dummy" ESXi host to vCenter.
It does not consume physical compute resources; the processor, memory, storage, and networking metrics displayed are logical representations and do not reflect actual hardware consumption on the underlying physical hypervisor.
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