Unable to shift or reassign the Primary Supervisor role within a Region in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

In VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1, a Region may contain multiple vSphere Supervisors (such as a PAIS Supervisor and a Workload Supervisor). By design, the first supervisor registered or enabled within the Region is automatically designated as the Primary Supervisor. Once this designation is established, there is no native functionality within the VCF Automation user interface to shift, swap, or reassign the Primary role to a different supervisor in the same Region.

• The user interface for VCF Automation does not provide a Make Primary or Shift Role option for supervisors.
• Attempts to perform region-wide tasks that require a Primary Supervisor target the cluster registered first, even if a different supervisor is preferred.
• Metadata review confirms the Primary status is locked to the initial registration index (Index 0).

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1
• VCF Automation
• vSphere Supervisor

Cause

The Primary Supervisor designation is determined strictly by the chronological order of enablement or registration within the VCF Region. VCF 9.1 architectural constraints treat this designation as immutable post-deployment. The system lacks a native workflow to dynamically update the Primary attribute for existing supervisors.

Resolution

To change which supervisor is designated as the Primary for a Region, choose one of the following methods:

1. Re-registration (Standard Method):

   1. Deactivate the existing Supervisor clusters within the Region.
   2. Delete the VCF Automation Region configuration.
   3. Re-create the Region and register the supervisors in the desired order, ensuring the supervisor intended to be Primary is added first.

2. Support-Assisted Workaround: If a full redeployment is not feasible due to active workloads, contact Broadcom Support to request a metadata modification.

   • Broadcom Engineering can provide a validated script to manually adjust the internal Region metadata.
   • Caution: Manually shifting the primary role may cause configuration inheritance issues for services dependent on supervisor cluster indices. Ensure a full database backup of SDDC Manager and VCF Automation is taken before proceeding.

Additional Information

• To speak with a customer representative or a Support Engineer see Contact Support. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on your respective region.

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