In the lifecycle of any IT Operations team, people move on. They change roles, leave the company, or simply switch teams. But while their Active Directory accounts might be disabled, the valuable content they built in  VCF Operations ( or Aria Operations ) often remains behind.

We call this “Orphaned Content.”

If you have ever tried to edit a critical dashboard only to find you are locked out, or if you have noticed scheduled reports failing silently after a team member leaves, you are likely dealing with orphaned objects.

Here is your guide to understanding, finding, and taking ownership of these “ghost” assets in Aria Operations 8.18.x and VCF Operations 9.0.

Note : Below details and steps are applicable for both Aria Operations 8.18.x and VCF Operations 9.0

What is Orphaned Content?

In Aria Operations, content like Dashboards, Report Schedules, and Credentials is tightly coupled to the user who created it.

When that user is deleted from the system (often automatically via LDAP/Active Directory synchronization), Aria Operations does not just delete their work. Instead, it moves these objects into a holding state known as “Orphaned.”

Common Orphaned Objects:

• Dashboards: Custom views used by the NOC or management.
• Report Schedules: Automatic email reports sent to stakeholders.
• Credentials: Service accounts used to collect data from vCenter, AWS, or other integrations.

When is Taking Ownership Required?

You don’t need to check for orphaned content every day, but there are specific triggers where this task becomes critical.

1. The “Offboarding” Scenario

When a “Power User” leaves your organization, their custom content becomes orphaned immediately after their account is removed from the authentication source.

• The Risk: If a dashboard was shared with the team, they can still view it, but nobody can edit or fix it if it breaks. The original owner is gone.

2. The “Broken Report” Scenario

You might notice that a weekly capacity report suddenly stops arriving in your manager’s inbox.

• The Cause: If the user who created the schedule is deleted, the schedule itself often becomes orphaned and pauses. You must take ownership of the schedule to re-enable it.

3. Post-Upgrade Security Changes (Credentials)

In recent versions of Aria Operations (specifically 8.14+), Broadcom introduced stricter security around Credentials. Credentials that are not explicitly assigned to a user are now often marked as “Unassigned” or orphaned during upgrades.

• The Fix: You cannot edit these credentials (e.g., to update a service account password) until you explicitly “Take Ownership” of them.

4. LDAP/AD Sync Issues

Sometimes, a reconfiguration of your LDAP source might inadvertently “delete” and “re-create” users in Aria Operations. Even if the username is the same, the internal ID changes, and their old content effectively becomes orphaned.

How to Take Ownership: The Step-by-Step

The process to reclaim these objects is straightforward but tucked away in the Administration menu.

Prerequisites: You need an account with Administrator privileges or specific permissions to manage ownership.

Step 1: Navigate to Orphaned Content

1. Log in to the Aria Operations (or VCF Operations)  UI.
2. On the left navigation pane, go to Administration > Control Panel.
3. Select the tile named  Orphaned and Unassigned Content.

Step 2: Identify the Content

You will see a list of deleted users in the page and also tabs for different content types. Select the one you are looking for:

• Dashboards
• Report Schedules
• Credentials

Tip: You can filter by the name of the deleted user to find all assets that used to belong to them.

Step 3: Change Ownership

1. Select the checkbox next to the specific items (e.g., the “Production Capacity” dashboard).
2. Click the Actions menu 
3. Choose one of the following:

• Take Ownership: Assigns the object to your current logged-in account.
• Assign Ownership: Allows you to select a different active user (e.g., the new Team Lead) to own the content.

Step 4: Verify

Once ownership is transferred, the object will disappear from the “Orphaned” list. Navigate to Visualize > Dashboards (or the respective section) to verify you can now Edit and Manage the item.

Best Practice: The “Service Account” Strategy

To avoid doing this constantly, consider a policy change for your team:

Don’t build “Production” content with personal user accounts.

Instead, create a generic “Service User” or “Content Admin” local user in Aria Operations. When you build dashboards or reports that the whole team relies on, log in as this generic user to create them. This ensures that even if individual team members leave, the content remains active and editable by anyone with the generic credentials.

Final Thoughts

Orphaned content is a small administrative feature that solves a big operational headache. By proactively checking this list whenever a team member offboards, you ensure your monitoring environment stays clean, secure, and editable.

Have you checked your Orphaned Content list lately? You might be surprised by what you find.

• Operations