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Quick Tip - vSphere 7.0 Update 3o also supports disabling/enabling vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) in vSphere UI

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I recently shared that in vSphere 8.0 Update, you can now easily manage the vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) configuration by using either the vSphere UI or a new vSphere API, which simplifies this operation if you need to disable vCLS for a particular vSphere Cluster or if you need to remediate one by disabling and re-enabling the feature. Today, the process is less than ideal as you need to add a new vCenter Server Advanced Setting for each vSphere Cluster that you want to disable vCLS on.

For customers still on vSphere 7.x, I just found out from our vCLS Engineering team, that the latest vSphere 7.0 Update 3o, which was just released less than 24 hours ago, also includes this enhancement for managing vCLS configuration (enable/disable) using the vSphere UI!


One thing to note is that the new vSphere API that was introduced in vSphere 8.0 Update 2 to manage this exact same vCLS setting is not available in vSphere 7.0 Update 3o. If you wish to automate this configuration for vSphere 7.x environment, you will need to add the required vCenter Server Advanced Setting using the vSphere API.

Easily disable vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) using UI/API in vSphere 8.0 Update 2

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As shared on Twitter/X yesterday, I just learned that we have made it much easier to disable (as well as enable) the vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) using the vSphere UI and API in the upcoming vSphere 8.0 Update 2 release. vCLS is enabled by default when a new vSphere Cluster is created and is required for vSphere DRS functionality but there may be scenarios where you are not using vSphere DRS or if you need to perform some clean up, one easy way is to simply disable and re-enable the vCLS service

The current method today for disabling vCLS is by putting a vSphere Cluster into what is called Retreat Mode, which involves adding a new vCenter Server Advanced Setting that contains the Managed Object Reference (MoRef ID) of the vSphere Cluster that you wish to disable vCLS on. If that sounds a bit complicated, it certainly can be and this needs to be done for each and every vSphere Cluster that you wish to disable vCLS, which can add an additional operational overhead.

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Quick Tip - Automating allowed and not allowed Datastores for use with vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS)

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One of the recent features of the vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) is the ability configure the vSphere Datastores that vCLS is allowed to use to provision the required service VMs, which can be on a vSphere Cluster under Configure->vSphere Cluster Services->Datastores as shown in the screenshot below.


In addition to the vSphere UI, you can also programmatically update this configuration using the vSphere API and with tools like PowerCLI as one of the interfaces to the API.

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