ESX hosts missing from SDDC Manager inventory in VMware Cloud Foundation

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer
• VMware vCenter Server
• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• ESX hosts managed by VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) may not appear in the SDDC Manager host inventory, despite being visible and fully functional within the vCenter Server.
• This discrepancy occurs when a configuration drift exists between the vCenter inventory and the SDDC Manager database.

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.x
• SDDC Manager 9.x
• vCenter 9.x

Cause

• Out-of-band changes (such as manual host additions or inventory moves) performed at the vCenter layer do not automatically update the SDDC Manager platform metadata.
• This results in a synchronization gap where SDDC Manager is unaware of the new or moved host objects.

Resolution

Perform a manual Inventory Sync within VCF Operations to reconcile metadata across the VCF stack.

1. Log in to the VCF Operations interface.
2. Navigate to Inventory > Detailed View.
3. Expand VCF Instances and select the VCF instance containing the affected domain.
4. Click the name of the VCF domain (e.g., Management Domain).
5. Select Actions > Sync Inventory.
6. ESX host should now be visible in SDDC Manager Inventory.

Additional Information

For procedural details on managing configuration drift, see Manage Workload Domain Configuration Drift between vCenter Server and SDDC Manager.