Removing VM from inventory database implications

[guywood]

Hi,

I'm wanting to know, if I remove a VM from the inventory, what happens at the DB level?  Are the records (tasks/events I'm concerned about) purged or retained under some other unique ID?  As I've noticed that when you re-add to the inventory the records aren't accessible via the client.

We've had an issue recently with backup jobs of a few VMs spamming the task/event log with 'map disk region' and filling the VC database.  So I'm hoping that removing said VMs from inventory and adding back in will release said space so we can then do a shrinkdb.

Can anyone confirm as I can't find any documentation to suggest what happens to the DB records.

Thanks

[hussainbte]

Hello,

Any event performed on the vCenter with be recorded, even with the actual VM being removed from vCenter Inventory.

the below links to purge the vpx_event tables in DB, which keen the events can be used.

clearing the events does not have any impact on the Actual working of vCenter. it only clears old events.

Purging old data from the database used by vCenter Server (1025914) | VMware KB

I would also suggest you to fix the Backup issues which is resulting in huge event creations.

[guywood · Accepted solution]

Thanks,

The short answer is "it doesn't".

I had our SQL team check if the DB had shrunk since removing the VM (answer no) and am working on the issue with the VMs.