Removing a Zone from a VCFA Namespace remains stuck in "Deleting" when VMs/Apps still exist in that Zone

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

When a Zone is removed from a Namespace in a VCF Automation (VCFA) organization, the removal operation appears stuck indefinitely in a "Deleting" state and never completes, even though the Zone no longer appears when viewing the Namespace's editable Zones list.

Symptoms:

1. A multi-zone Namespace has one or more Zones removed via VCFA (e.g., to take a Zone out of service or rebalance capacity) while Apps/VMs are still deployed in the Zone being removed.
2. The Zone removal wizard/operation shows a persistent "Deleting" status that never transitions to completed.
3. The Zone being removed no longer appears in the Namespace's "Configured Zones" edit list once it is marked for removal (since Zones pending removal are no longer editable), even though the underlying removal in vCenter has not actually completed. This can give the impression that the Zone was successfully removed.
4. No error message or blocking prompt is shown to the user indicating why the removal has not completed.

Environment

• VCF Automation 9.1.0.0
• VCF Automation 9.1.1.0

Cause

1. This is expected vSphere/vCenter Server behavior, not a defect in VCF Auotmation.
2. When a Zone is removed from a Namespace, vCenter Server only marks the Zone for removal - the actual removal does not complete until all VMs/workloads running in that Zone have been moved out of or deleted from the Zone.
3. The VCFA's desired-state reconciliation will continue waiting for that vCenter-side removal to complete, so the operation appears "stuck" for as long as workloads remain in the Zone being removed.
4. Once a Zone is marked for removal, it is no longer editable - this is why the Zone disappears from the Namespace's "Configured Zones" edit list even though its removal has not actually finished.
5. VCFA does not currently surface a message or block the operation up front to inform the user that VMs must be removed/relocated first.

Resolution

This behaviour is expected by design. However, an enhancement request has been suggested to add explicit UI messaging or a blocking validation in a future release when a Zone removal is requested while VMs still exist in that Zone.

To successfully remove a Zone from a Namespace:

1. Identify all VMs/Apps still running in the Zone you want to remove.
2. Move (relocate) or delete those VMs/Apps out of the Zone being removed.
3. Once no VMs remain in the Zone, the pending Zone removal in VCFA will complete automatically.
4. There is no need to cancel or retry the removal operation - it will resolve itself once the Zone has no remaining workloads.
   • Note: Once a Zone is marked for removal, it will no longer be editable from the Namespace configuration UI; this is expected and does not indicate the removal has failed.