Decomission a Simplivity Cluster

[steez]

Hello Everyone

We have 3 VMware clusters in 1 Federation. We wish to decomission 1 cluster as it is no longer in use. Cluster (containing 2 hosts) is completely empty and ready to be removed.

Can someone advise the correct remove procedure?

Should I remove hosts from federation one-by-one by

1. Shutting down OVC
2. Putting host in maintenance mode 
3. Removing host from federation
4. Repeating this for all other hosts in cluster
5. Removing hosts and cluster from vCenter UI

Also Im bit concerned about the last host in cluster as usually OVC does not want to shut down as it is the last surviving one. Is force OVC shutdown okay? Asking as I want to remove hosts from federation cleanly without any remains in failed state.

[Azr_geek]

Hello @steez,

Make sure the cluster really has no VMs and that at least one other OVC in the federation is running before you start. For each host in the cluster, put the host into Maintenance Mode in vCenter so workloads are moved off, then shut down the OVC virtual machine on that host cleanly from the guest OS (don’t force power off unless the graceful shutdown fails). After the OVC is down, remove the host from the SimpliVity federation using the SimpliVity plugin or menu in vCenter so the federation metadata is cleaned up; once SimpliVity confirms removal, you can remove the host from vCenter if you wish. Repeat for the second host, then optionally delete the now‑empty cluster object in vCenter and check SimpliVity health to ensure nothing is orphaned. Don’t force‑shutdown an OVC unless absolutely necessary and only if other OVCs remain in the federation; never force the last OVC in the entire federation. If you see errors or “failed” objects at any point, stop and contact HPE SimpliVity support so they can fix leftover metadata safely.

Regards,
Azr_geek

[steez · Accepted solution]

Hello @Azr_geek, thank you for your reply.

I did succesfully decomission the 2 node cluster yesterday, here are the steps:

1. Always check svt-federation-show, svt-vm-show to see if everything is okay
2. Migrate VMware vCLS VMs to server local storage (if vCLS VMs are on Simplivity Datastore, Remove from federation action wont work).
3. Right click on first host --> Simplivity Actions --> Remove from Federation, wait until this is finished (~1minute)
4. Check svt-federation-show to see if OVC has been succesfully removed
5. Remove last host with Simplvity Actions --> Remove from Federation --> Force remove (or if you have another OVC in different cluster then do command: svt-federation-remove --peerip [peer_ip]--override (I did this command first but it did not work for me))
6. Shut down all OVCs, put all hosts in maintenance mode, shut them down, disconnect and remove from vCenter, delete cluster.

After this the nodes are removed from federation, all the other federation hosts are uneffected. Whole process took about 20min.

[Thaufique_Mod]

Thank you @steez,

This will help other peers and users. I wish you the best.