"Unable to create replica placeholder disk..." error when configuring a replication in Cloud Director Availability

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• When configuring a new replication in Cloud Director Availability, the task fails and you see a red banner with the error:

Unable to create replica placeholder disk '<VM_diskname>'.

• In the Recent Tasks view of the vSphere Client, you see an entry similar to:

Error caused by file <VM_diskname>. The file name is too long.

Environment

VMware vCloud Availability 3.5.x
VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.x

Cause

This issue occurs when the name of the replica disk file name in the destination site is too long causing it to exceed the vSphere VM name length limit of 80 characters. In Cloud Director Availability the replica disk file name is the combination of a unique replication ID and the file name of the source VM in vCenter Server.

Resolution

This is a known issue in vCloud Availability 3.x and Cloud Director Availability 4.x.
Currently, there is no resolution.

Workaround:
To workaround this issue, rename the source VM so the replica disk file name will not exceed the 80 character limit when modified with the 37 characters required to add the unique replication ID.