VCF Operations Management Domain Inventory Sync Fails -Host standard switch presence

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

Inventory synchronization within VCF Operations for the management vCenter Server fails during a brownfield import process.

 

The inventory sync failure is validated via the SDDC Manager orchestration logs and the guardrail validation engine files located at /var/log/vmware/vcf/domainmanager/brownfield/#############/output/. Review of the guardrail report logs across all  infrastructure hosts captures the following explicit exception:

ERROR: Object Type: host
Object Name: <REDACTED_HOSTNAME>
Day-N Operation: Remove Host
Severity Level: WARNING
Status: VALIDATION FAILED
Check Name: Host standard switch presence
Description: Check if there are any standard switches in use by host
Details: Detected standard switches in use by host
Remediation: Presence of standard switches can break mobility of VMs. Please remove any dependence the host has on standard switches.

Environment

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.x

Cause

A strict VCF guardrail validation block prohibits the presence of standard Virtual Switches (vSwitches) on ESXi hosts during inventory sync operations. VCF mandates that all hosts in managed workload domains rely entirely on Distributed Virtual Switches (vDS) to ensure uniform VM network mobility

Resolution

To resolve the block, all standard switches (vSwitchBMC) must be cleanly removed from the 7 affected ESXi hosts to achieve 100% vDS compliance across the cluster.

1. For each of the 7 management ESXi hosts, log into the vSphere Client.

2. Navigate to Host > Configure > Networking > Virtual Switches.

3. Select the standard switch vSwitchBMC, ensure no active VMkernels or physical adapters (vmnics) retain an active dependency on it, and select Remove.

4. Once all standard switches are removed across the host inventory, re-run the VCF Operations inventory synchronization or execute the brownfield import utility manually from the SDDC Manager CLI to verify completion.

Additional Information

In this specific scenario, the standard switches (vSwitchBMC) were automatically generated on all ESXi hosts as a default behavior driven by a native system configuration sequence described in Broadcom KB 376173.