Deleting a virtual machine

Using the VMware Delete Virtual Machine Task, you can delete VMware virtual machines from within the IBM® BigFix console.

Before you begin

Ensure that the analysis VMware Host Overview is active. If this analysis must be activated, a warning message is displayed in the VMware Delete Virtual Machine Task. You cannot proceed without activating the analysis. Activating the analysis can take a few minutes.

To check the status of the analysis, from the navigation tree in the Server Automation domain, click Virtualization > Setup and Maintenance > Activate Analyses. In the Activate Analyses list, ensure that the VMware Host Overview analysis changes from Not Activated to Activated Globally and click the VMware Host Overview analysis. In the Analysis: VMware Host Overview window, click the Results tab. When the Results window is populated with one or more computer names, the analysis is activated. If any of the computer names displays the message "not reported", the analysis is not gathered.

For non-English users: VMware vCenter supports only Simplified Chinese, Japanese, German and French. You can use this Task only if the console language that you selected in IBM® BigFix console is identical to the console language selected in VMware.

About this task

This Task is automatically populated with data from VMware. To work with other data, you must turn off validation and enter your own values into the parameter field. To override the data that is provided in the form, check whether a button exists in the Validation column to the left of the parameter that you want to disable and select OFF. For more information, see Turning off validation in a task.

Complete the following steps to delete a virtual machine.

Procedure

  1. Open the Server Automation domain.
  2. From the navigation tree in the Server Automation domain, click Virtualization > Host Management > Host Configuration.
  3. From the Host Configuration list, select the VMware Delete Virtual Machine Task.
  4. In the Task: VMware Delete Virtual Machine window, from the Host menu, select the host on which the virtual machine is running.
  5. From the Virtual Machine Name list, select the name of the virtual machine that you want to delete. If the virtual machine name that you want to delete is displayed more than once in the Virtual Machine Name list, you can verify that the virtual machine that you select is correct by viewing the Virtual Machine UUID and the IP Address fields. If you want to delete a virtual machine whose name does not display in the Virtual Machine Name list, select OFF on the validation button for Virtual Machine Name in the Validation column. If you disable validation for the Virtual Machine Name list, the validation for the Power State is also disabled and the Virtual Machine UUID is cleared. You must ensure that the virtual machine name that you enter is correct or the Task fails in VMware.
  6. You can use the Power State field to view whether the virtual machine that you want to work with is powered on or off. You can delete virtual machines that are powered off. However, if you want to delete a virtual machine that is powered on, but is scheduled to be powered off at a later stage, select OFF on the validation button for Power State in the Validation column. You can then schedule the Task to take action when the virtual machine is powered off.
  7. In the Take Action dialog box, ensure Specific computers selected in the list below is selected and from the list of Computer Names, select the host on which the virtual machine that you want to delete is running and click OK.

Results

When your virtual machine is deleted, the Status changes to Completed in the Action: VMware Delete Virtual Machine Fixlet window. In the Device List of the Virtualization Device Inventory and in the IBM BigFix console the virtual machine is still visible but is grayed-out.