HCX - Bulk & RAV Migrations failure at vSAN ESA Datastore

Products

• VMware HCX
• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

This is to inform about HCX Bulk/RAV migration restrictions at target datastore vSAN ESA and how to recover.

HCX vSphere Replication (vSR) Bulk & RAV Migration will fail to migrate the VM at destination site running vSAN ESA (Express Storage Architecture).

Environment

VMware HCX

Cause

HCX Bulk/RAV uses HBR(also known as VR server) for migration functionality.
Note: HBR software is running inside HCX-IX Appliance and the current version is 8.4.

HBR 8.4 has some issues with disk consolidation workflow when migrated to vSAN ESA datastore, which is already fixed in HBR 8.7 version. As a result, the migrated VM won't get powered ON even after successful migration to the target datastore.

Resolution

HBR version will be updated as 8.7 in the upcoming HCX release.

Workaround:
To remediate workload VMs fail to power on after Bulk/RAV migration to the vSAN ESA datastore, below steps can be followed to manage Bulk/RAV requirements:

• Fetch the affected VM's(already migrated to the target cloud) Managed Object Reference ID (MoID)
• Replace VM's MoID in the URL https://<vCenter-URL>/mob/?moid=vm-XXXX&method=consolidateDisks.
• Login when prompted and the method "ConsolidateVMDisks_Task" should appear in the page.
• Click on "Invoke Method" link to consolidate affected VM disks.
• Power on the VM again using vSphere Client UI.

Alternatively,  vMotion/Cold Migration profile can also be used to manage migration requirements, which doesn't use HBR technology.

Additional Information

Refer HCX : Bulk Migration operations and best practices

Impact/Risks:

• This will ONLY impact Bulk/RAV migrations to the vSAN ESA datastore.
• vMotion/Cold Migration will remain functional.
• No impact to Network Extension services.