In this post we will learn about how to do cleanup of a HCX deployment in a right way. 

Below are the high level steps for HCX cleanup.

1: Unstretch a Layer 2 Network : Unstretching a Layer 2 network is necessary before removing the associated L2C appliance. Steps given below

• Login to vCenter Web Client and click on HCX plugin and navigate to Interconnect > Extended Networks tab.
• Select the network you want to remove and click the X button and hit OK to confirm.

2: Delete the L2C virtual appliance: To delete the L2C appliance, go to interconnects > HCX Components > Network Extension Service tab and select the appliance and click on Remove. 

Click on Yes to confirm deletion of appliance.

You will see a message for appliance removal has started. Be patient, it takes 2-3 minutes to remove appliance from both on-prem and cloud side.

3: Delete Cloud Gateway appliance: From the HCX Components tab, select the CGW appliance and click on Remove.

Click on yes to confirm.

There are few points that you should keep in mind before deleting the fleet appliances.

• Never delete the fleet appliances directly from the vSphere inventory. Always use the HCX management portal to interact with service vm’s.
• Check the scheduled migration tasks and cancel or reset the execution time for any migrations that might occur during the uninstallation task.
• Check for any running migrations in the Web Client and if there are any task currently going on then wait until they are complete.

4: Delete Networks and Interconnect configuration from HCX Cloud.

5: Remove Site pairing from on-prem

6: Delete the HCX Cloud appliance from the cloud side.

7: Delete HCX-Enterprise from on-prem.

8: Unregister HCX plugin from on-premise vCenter from MOB.

– Connect to vCenter MOB by typing: https://vc-fqdn/mob

– Click on Content > Extension Manager 

You will see 7-8 HCX extensions registered to vCenter. We have to remove each and every HCX extension from here. 

If you have not done this before and not sure how to remove any registered extension from vCenter, then you can read this sample article for the instructions.

On cloud side vCenter you will not see these many extensions. The only extension that I found in my lab is “com.vmware.hcsp.alarm”

9: Delete the alarms created by HCX

Once you delete all the extensions from on-prem vCenter, logoff and login to Web Client and the HCX plugin will no longer be visible.

And that’s it for this post. 

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