Compliance statuses are computed after you initiate a compliance check for an inventory object against the attached baselines or baseline groups. The compliance statuses that baselines and baseline groups might have depend on the applicability of the patches, extensions, and upgrades contained in the baseline or baseline group attached to an object. The compliance status of a single host depends on the compliance statuses of all baselines and baseline groups attached to the host.

Compliant

The compliant status indicates that a vSphere object is compliant with all baselines in an attached baseline group or with all patches, extensions, and upgrades in an attached baseline. The compliant state requires no further action. If a baseline contains patches or upgrades that are not relevant to the target object, the individual updates, and baselines or baseline groups that contain them, are treated as not applicable, and represented as compliant. Compliant are also hosts with attached patch baselines containing extensions or patches with the obsoleted by host status.

The compliant status occurs under the following conditions:
  • Target objects are compliant with the baselines and baseline groups when all updates in the baseline or baseline group are either installed on the target object, obsoleted by host, or are not applicable to the target object.
  • The updates in a baseline are compliant when they are installed on the target object, or are not applicable to the object.

Non-Compliant

The non-compliant status indicates that one or more baselines in a baseline group, or one or more patches, extensions, or upgrades in a baseline are applicable to the target object, but are not installed (missing) on the target. You must remediate the target object to make it compliant.

When a baseline contains a non-compliant update, the overall status of the baseline is non-compliant. When a baseline group contains a non-compliant baseline, the overall status of the baseline group is non-compliant. The non-compliant status takes precedence over the incompatible, unknown, and compliant states.

Unknown

When you attach a baseline or a baseline group to a vSphere object and you do not initiate a compliance check for the object, the status of the vSphere object against the baseline or baseline group is unknown. This status indicates that a compliance check is required, that the compliance check has failed, or that you initiated a compliance check on an unsupported platform.

When a baseline contains updates in the compliant and unknown states, the overall status of the baseline is unknown. When a baseline group contains unknown baselines and compliant baselines, the overall status of the baseline group is unknown. The unknown compliance status takes precedence over the compliant status.

Incompatible

The incompatible status requires attention and further action. You must determine the reason for incompatibility by probing further. You can remediate the objects that have this status, but the operation might not be successful. In most cases,vSphere Lifecycle Manager provides sufficient details for the incompatibility.

When a baseline contains updates in the incompatible, compliant, and unknown states, the overall status of the baseline is incompatible. When a baseline group contains incompatible, unknown, and compliant baselines, the overall status of the baseline group is incompatible. The incompatible compliance status takes precedence over the compliant and unknown compliance statuses.