Users take long time to login when Primary LDAP or Authentication Server is down

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Users take long time to login when Primary LDAP or Authentication Server is Down.

Environment

• VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x
• VMware vCenter Server 8.0.x

Resolution

This is an expected behavior.

To workaround this issue, implement one of the following:

1. Promote secondary LDAP as primary when there is a planned downtime for primary LDAP server
2. Implement a script that automatically reconfigures the SSO ID source and switches the secondary domain controller to the primary if the primary domain controller goes offline.
   The following documents will be helpful when creating scripts.
   https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/9-1/vsphere-authentication/getting-started-with-certificates-and-authentication/managing-platform-services-controller-services/use-scripts-to-manage-platform-services-controller-services.html
3. Implement an LDAP load balancer between SSO and the domain controllers so that SSO connects to the load balancer's virtual IP instead of directly to the domain controllers.