Switches vSphere Cluster Services (vCLS) off for a cluster, rather than relocating vCLS VMs ahead of datastore maintenance. As of vCenter 9.0, which deprecates vCLS, it is the recommended approach, and HA and DRS carry on unaffected.
Read more: Broadcom TechDocs
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains retreat mode in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- vCLS
Agent VMs that keep DRS, HA and similar services of a cluster running while vCenter is down. They are deprecated as of version 9.0, with retreat mode now the recommended alternative.
- Virtual machines
Infrastructure-as-a-service compute giving complete control of the operating system, making it a fit for lift-and-shift moves and for software relying on OS-level pieces like COM.
- Datastore
A named pointer in the workspace to Blob, Azure Files or ADLS Gen2 storage that keeps the connection details, so code never needs to carry storage keys itself.
- vCenter
Management software for VMs, clusters and ESX hosts. Each domain in VCF gets a dedicated one.
- DRS
The Default Rule Set, Microsoft's managed WAF rules that succeed OWASP CRS and defend against XSS, SQL injection and other frequent attacks. Single rules may be overridden or switched off.