Two or more virtual machines with the same name appear in the vCenter Server inventory

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Two or more virtual machines with the same name appear in the vCenter Server inventory
• The virtual machines with the same name do not share the same virtual machine files
• You are able to power on all of the virtual machines with the same name

Cause

This issue occurs when using a direct vSphere Client connection to an ESXi host or using advanced command-line options to create a virtual machine outside of vCenter Server. If the virtual machine created has the same name of an existing virtual machine within the vCenter Server inventory, you can see two virtual machines within the vCenter Server inventory with the same name.

For example, if the vCenter Server inventory contains a virtual machine with the name VM1 registered to Host A, you will be able to create a new virtual machine with the name VM1 on Host B when directly connected to that host using the vSphere Client. However, if you attempt to create a virtual machine with the name VM1 on Host A when directly connected to the host using the vSphere Client, the task fails because a virtual machine with the same name is already present on that host.

Since vCenter Server uses unique identifiers to identify and maintain virtual machines, it is possible that virtual machines with duplicate names can migrate to the same host from within vCenter Server.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, rename the duplicate virtual machine to a unique name for each entity.

 

For more information, see Renaming a virtual machine and its files in VMware ESXi (1029513) for more information.

Additional Information

Renaming a virtual machine and its files in VMware ESXi