Unable to sVMotion a virtual machine hard disk protected by SRM using storage based replication

Products

• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Unable to storage vMotion a VM HDD to another datastore 
  A general system error occurred:
Warning: This virtual machine is protected by VMware Site Recovery Manager. Migrating the VM from a replicated and protected datastore 'x-xx-xx-xx' to a non-replicated datastore will cause the VM to become non-replicated and you will not be able to recover the VM using Site Recovery Manager in case of a disaster. Do not proceed unless you understand the potential data loss involved. Note: You can migrate the VM to a datastore that resides in the same consistency group as 'x-xx-xx-xx' without any issue.
• You notice that the datastore you are moving the HDD to is also being replicated in SRM under array pairs. 
• Both the datastores are showing as being replicated under array pairs.

Environment

VMware ESXi 7.x
VMware ESXi 8.x
Site Recovery Manager 8.x
Site Recovery Manager 9.x

 

Cause

The error occurs because the VM is protected by VMware SRM and stored on a replicated datastore. Migrating it to a non-replicated datastore will break its replication, making it unrecoverable via SRM in a disaster. Migration is only safe if done to a datastore within the same consistency group.

Resolution

• Unprotect the VM from SRM Protection group then perform svMotion.
  Remove Protection from a Virtual Machine
• Reprotect the VM after the task is completed.