Follow these troubleshooting tips if the system indicates that your vSphere cluster is incompatible for enabling Workload Management.

Problem

The Workload Management page indicates that your vCenter cluster is incompatible when you try to enable Workload Management.

Cause

There can be multiple reasons for this. First, make sure that your environment meets the minimum requirements for enabling Workload Management:
  • Valid license: VMware vSphere 7 Enterprise Plus with Add-on for Kubernetes
  • At least two ESXi hosts
  • Fully automated DRS
  • vSphere HA
  • vSphere Distributed Switch 7.0
  • Sufficient storage capacity

If your environment meets these prerequisites, but the target vCenter cluster is not compatible, use the VMware Datacenter CLI (DCLI) to help identify the problems.

Solution

  1. SSH to vCenter Server.
  2. Log in as the root user.
  3. Run the command dcli to list the VMware Datacenter CLI help.
  4. List the available vCenter clusters by running the following DCLI command.
    dcli com vmware vcenter cluster list
    For example:
    dcli +username VI-ADMIN-USER-NAME +password VI-ADMIN-PASSWORD com vmware vcenter cluster list
    Example result:
    |-----------|---------|------------|----------|
    |drs_enabled|cluster  |name        |ha_enabled|
    |-----------|---------|------------|----------|
    |True       |domain-d7|vSAN Cluster|True      |
    |-----------|---------|------------|----------|
    
  5. Verify vCenter cluster compatibility by running the following DCLI command.
    dcli com vmware vcenter namespacemanagement clustercompatibility list
    For example:
    dcli +username VI-ADMIN-USER-NAME +password VI-ADMIN-PASSWORD com vmware vcenter namespacemanagement clustercompatibility list
    The following example result indicates that the environment is missing a compatible NSX VDS switch.
    |---------|----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
    |cluster  |compatible|incompatibility_reasons                                                                 |
    |---------|----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
    |domain-d7|False     |Failed to list all distributed switches in vCenter 2b1c1fa5-e9d4-45d7-824c-fa4176da96b8.|
    |         |          |Cluster domain-d7 is missing compatible NSX VDS.                                      |
    |---------|----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
    
  6. Run additional DCLI commands as necessary to determine additional compatibility issues. In addition to NSX errors, other common reasons for incompatibility are DNS and NTP connectivity problems.
  7. To troubleshoot further, complete the following steps.
    1. Tail the wcpsvc.log file. See Tail the Workload Management Log File.
    2. Navigate to the Workload Management page and click Enable.