Powered-Off Virtual Machines not displaying in Capacity Reclaim UI in Aria Operations

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

 In VMware Aria Operations 8.18.6, virtual machines (VMs) that have been powered off for an extended period are not appearing in the Reclaimable section within the Capacity tab. This issue prevents administrators from identifying idle resources that are eligible for reclamation or decommissioning.

Environment

VMware Aria Operations 8.18.6

Cause

The absence of powered-off VMs in the reclamation report is typically caused by one of the following factors:

• Policy Configuration: The reclamation policy for powered-off VMs is either disabled or not configured to include the specific object type or cluster in question.
• Threshold Settings: The "Powered-off VM" idle threshold is set to a duration longer than the time the VM has actually been powered off.
• Analytics Cycle: The Aria Operations analytics engine has not yet completed a calculation cycle following a recent policy update or object discovery.

Resolution

 

1. Verify Reclamation Settings:

   1. Navigate to Capacity > Reclaim.
   2. Ensure that the Reclamation for Powered-off Virtual Machines setting is set to Enabled.
   3. Verify the Time Threshold value. This setting determines how many days a VM must be powered off before it is flagged as reclaimable. Ensure this value is appropriate for your environment (e.g., if set to 30 days, VMs powered off for only 20 days will not appear).

2. Check Scope/Assignment:

   1. Confirm that the policy containing the reclamation configuration is actively applied to the datacenter or cluster where the powered-off VMs reside. Policies are hierarchical; verify that a parent policy or a more specific policy is not overriding the intended settings.

3. Review Collection Cycles:

   1. Ensure the vCenter Adapter instance is successfully collecting data. Navigate to Data Sources > Integrations to confirm the status is "Data Receiving."
   2. Allow time for the analytics engine to process the reclamation data. The engine performs calculations periodically; if policies were recently changed, it may take one to two full collection/calculation cycles for the report to update.