In VMware Aria Operations, you can view the deleted objects and the relationship of the objects in the list view. The objects can be VMs, deployments, projects, vApps, and edge gateways. You can also retain the relationship of the objects even after the objects are deleted from the system. The cost of the deleted virtual machines (VMs) is available until the retention period for that VM is over.

Where You Find Global Settings for Deleted VMs

To specify for how long you want to retain the deleted virtual machines in VMware Aria Operations, from the left menu, click Administration, and then click the Global Settings tile. Navigate to Data Retention > Deleted Objects.

You can also specify the Deletion Scheduling Interval which specifies the number of hours between resource deletion scheduling.

Select Object Deletion Schedule > Add Object Deletion Schedule and select the virtual machine object from the Object Kind drop-down menu, specify the value, and click Save. The global setting value for the deleted virtual machine is updated in VMware Aria Operations.

For VMware Aria Automation, the price of the deleted VMs or deployments is added to the corresponding project object as a separate metric. If the deleted VM from VMware Aria Automation is associated with a cost-based pricing policy, then the price for that VM is not added to the corresponding project.

For vCloud Director, the price of deleted VMs, vApps, and Edge Gateways is added to the corresponding organization VDC object again as a separate metric. For vCenter Server, if VM is on unclustered Host, then deleted VM price is assigned to the Host, otherwise to the Cluster.

How to Include Deleted VMs in List View

The deleted VMs are visible from Environment > Inventory > Collection States > Not Existing.