Compliance States

During a compliance check, the software on each of the hosts in a cluster is compared to the software specification in the image that you set up for the entire cluster. The compliance check defines the compliance of each host with the image for the cluster.

A host can have any of the four compliance states: compliant, non-compliant, incompatible, and unknown.

Compliant

A host is complaint if the image on the host matches the image that you set for the cluster.

Non-Compliant

A host is non-compliant if the image on the host does not match the image that you set for the cluster. A compliant host becomes non-compliant when you set a new image for the cluster or manually add or remove components on the host. You remediate non-compliant hosts to make them compliant.

For example, a host is non-compliant in the following cases.

• The ESXi version on the host is earlier than the ESXi version included in the image for the cluster.
• The firmware on the host is different from the firmware add-on in the image for the cluster.
• The host has a component that is not included in the image for the cluster.
• The host contains a standalone VIB.

Incompatible

A host is incompatible when the image for the cluster cannot be applied to the host.

For example, a host is incompatible in the following cases.

• The ESXi version on the host is later than the ESXi version included in the image for the cluster.
• The host does not have sufficient resources, for example RAM.
• The hardware of the host is incompatible with the vSphere Lifecycle Manager image for the cluster.

Unknown

The unknown compliance state indicates that there is no compliance information about the host.

For example, the compliance state of a host is unknown in the following cases.

• You add a new host to the cluster. The compliance state of the newly added hosts is unknown until you perform a compliance check operation on the cluster.
• You edit the image for the cluster and save the modifications. The compliance state of all hosts in the cluster is unknown until you check the compliance of the cluster against the new image.