[VMC] Migration of a VM from On-prem to cloud via HCX fails with error: "VM creation failed"

Products

• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

Explain the root cause to this issue.

Symptoms:

• Migrating a VM from On-Premises to an SDDC on VMC fails with an error of: VM Creation failed
• Migration tab in HCX UI shows error: VM Creation failed
• Target Vcenter shows a failed task of "Invalid configuration for device 13" (Device number may vary for you)
• The app.log file contains errors similar to:

2019-03-28 05:12:34.338 UTC [VmotionMigrationService_SvcThread-6, Ent: HybridityAdmin, , TxId: b29b3a44-cd67-4603-b9fc-b685f6d783ac] ERROR c.v.v.h.s.m.v.VmotionMigrationJob- Error during VmotionMigrationJob execution at prevState:CREATE_DUMMY_VM currentState:PROCESS_CREATE_DUMMY_VM_RESULT  vm Entity Ref:vm-145420 with jobId:2ad98a17-db03-4db3-946c-8d1b1c5ff0d4 migrationId:c7b113c1-4a4c-4c9c-8525-89e15d400c96 copyId:93253
com.vmware.vchs.hybridity.migration.common.MigrationException: VM creation failed.
        at com.vmware.vchs.hybridity.service.migration.vmotion.VmotionMigrationJob.doProcessCreateDummyVmResult(VmotionMigrationJob.java:1590)
        at com.vmware.vchs.hybridity.service.migration.vmotion.VmotionMigrationJob.run(VmotionMigrationJob.java:301)
        at com.vmware.vchs.hybridity.messaging.LoggingJobWrapper.run(LoggingJobWrapper.java:41)
        at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
        at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
        at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)
        at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1149)
        at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)

• MA Agent logs on the target side contains errors similar to:

2-e330 user=vpxuser:VMC.LOCAL\Administrator] SetVmxVersion: switching environment browser to vmx version 'vmx-13'
2019-03-28T03:52:40.034Z info mobilityagent[01300] [Originator@6876 sub=Libs opID=52591-6c75a96e-04f6-4d67-99bf-3e658c8c1170-de-01-b2-e330 user=vpxuser:VMC.LOCAL\Administrator] VigorOfflineGetToolsVersion: updated tools version to 0
2019-03-28T03:52:40.039Z info mobilityagent[01300] [Originator@6876 sub=Vmsvc.vm:/vmfs/volumes/524e597e-90dd2d6f-76ce-895b256b0388/Benchmark/Benchmark.vmx opID=52591-6c75a96e-04f6-4d67-99bf-3e658c8c1170-de-01-b2-e330 user=vpxuser:VMC.LOCAL\Administrator] GetDiskControllerType: controller type unacceptable: (vim.vm.device.VirtualDisk) {
--> key = 32000,
--> deviceInfo = (vim.Description) {
--> label = "Hard disk 1",
--> summary = "629145600 KB"
--> },

Cause

Migrating VMs with NVMe controller attached to them is not supported with HCX.

Resolution

This is a known issue affecting HCX for VMware Cloud  and currently there is no resolution. Refer the workaround section for more details.

Workaround:
To workaround this issue, use other methods of migration or replication which includes but is not limited to:

• DRAAS or HCX DR to recover the VM to the cloud SDDC
• vMotion or cold migration without HCX
• VMware converter to do a V2V 
• Clone VMs to the cloud SDDC
• Backup tool compatible with VMware Cloud on AWS to restore VMs to the cloud SDDC.