Embodiments relate to determining whether to take a resource distribution unit (RDU) of a datacenter offline when the RDU becomes faulty. RDUs in a cloud or datacenter supply a resource such as power, network connectivity, and the like to respective sets of hosts that provide computing resources to tenant units such as virtual machines (VMs). When an RDU becomes faulty some of the hosts that it supplies may continue to function and others may become unavailable for various reasons. This can make a decision of whether to take the RDU offline for repair difficult, since in some situations countervailing requirements of the datacenter may be at odds. To decide whether to take an RDU offline, the potential impact on availability of tenant VMs, unused capacity of the datacenter, a number or ratio of unavailable hosts on the RDU, and other factors may be considered to make a balanced decision.