How to remove a virtual machine from Management in Cloud Director

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

This article provides information on removing a virtual machine from VMware Cloud Director.

Note: This article is applicable to all the versions of Cloud Director.

 

You remove a virtual machine from VMware Cloud Director when:

• You want to remove the virtual machine from Cloud Director management.
• You want to manage the virtual machine from a different Cloud Management Platform, for example: vRealize Automation.
• You want to migrate the virtual machine to a different Cloud Director instance.
• You want to move the virtual machine to a different Org VCD.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director

Resolution

To remove a virtual machine from Cloud Director:

1. Power off the virtual machine to be removed from Cloud Director management.
2. From the virtual machines Configuration Parameters, ensure the value field is blank for the cloud.uuid parameter.
3. Record the virtual machine’s datastore location for future reference.
4. Remove the virtual machine from vCenter Server inventory [Do not destroy].
5. Add the virtual machine back to vCenter Server inventory. During the add process, consider the following additional updates:
    
   1. Remove the Cloud Director randomly generated UID from the VM name. If this step is completed, a storage vMotion should be used to update the virtual machine's directory structure. For more information, see Renaming a virtual machine and its files in VMware ESXi and ESX (1029513)
   2. Add the virtual machine back to a non-vCD managed Resource Pool and folder. This step is not mandatory but is recommended, otherwise Cloud Director might attempt to auto-import the virtual machine back into inventory if that feature is enabled. After completion of this step the virtual machine’s icon should be updated to the default icon for a vCenter VM.
       
6. (Optional) Reset the virtual machines NICs to get vCenter Server assigned MAC Addresses. To do this, remove the NIC adapters of the virtual machine and add them back again in the correct order with the machine powered off. Power on the virtual machine and test the networking functionality.
7. Power on virtual machine and test functionality. Now, Cloud Director should report that the VM was moved out of scope. Any operations initiated through the VCD portal should fail.
8. Delete the VM (and vApp if applicable) from Cloud Director.
9. Remove the limits and/or reservations from the virtual machine that were set via Cloud Director.
10. (If applicable) Remove the IP address from the Cloud Director IP pool so that it does not get reassigned if using static IP addresses.

Additional Information

Impact/Risks: This process requires virtual machine downtime.