As I have a bunch of questions around how you can delete the vSphere Cluster Service VMs (vCLS VMs) I figured I would create a quick demo. It is pretty straight forward, and it should only be used when people are doing some kind of full cluster maintenance. This demo shows you how to get the VMs deleted by leveraging a vCenter Server Level Advanced setting (config.vcls.clusters.domain-c<identifier>.enabled). I have also written a post which has a bunch of requirements, Q&A, and considerations for the vCLS VMs, if you are interested in that read it here. Note, if you have a resource pool configuration, enabling “retreat mode” (disabling vCLS)) doesn’t impact resource pools in any shape or form, it just impact DRS load balancing. Anyway, I hope you find the demo useful.
What is a workaround when all vCLs VMs were deleted? How to recreate them?
If they have been deleted you enable vCLS again using the advanced setting shown in the demo. If for whatever reason they just disappeared, add the advanced setting with “False”, wait for 60 seconds, then change the value to “True” and they should pop up again.