How to decommission an ESXi
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General steps are these:
1. Put the ESXi host in maintenance mode - Compute 2. Remove host from vDS switch - Compute 3. Unmount and detach data LUNs / DO NOT DELETE DATA LUNS - Compute 4. Remove host from the cluster (Remove from inventory) - Compute 5. Delete boot LUN for the host, and remove host from the cluster – Storage 6. Delete the service profile from UCS end - Compute 7. Remove host from monitoring – SolarWinds 8. Cleanup IPAM reservation, AD object and DNS reservation – Compute Windows 9. Mark ESXi as decommissioned in CMDB – SNOW team
There might be some changes based on whether full cluster needs to be decommissioned. In this case, the data luns can be deleted.
references:
How to properly decommission a VMware ESXi Host - The Tech Journal (stephenwagner.com)
Process in Short: Enter Maintenance Mode Remove Host from vDS Switches Unmount and Detach iSCSI LUNs Move host from cluster to datacenter as standalone host Remove Host from Inventory