"A DRS fault has occurred, while retrieving VM placement recommendations: xvMotionPlacement" using PlaceVM

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Using the PlaceVM API to vMotion a VM from vSAN datastore to non-vSAN datastore fails with the error:

A DRS fault has occurred, while retrieving VM placement recommendations: xvMotionPlacement

• Manual vMotion without DRS recommendation succeeds.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.0
VMware vCenter Server 6.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

This is expected behavior.

The PlaceVM API enforces the SPBM storage profile while recommending datastore for VM XvMotion. While a VM is originally placed on a vSAN datastore, by default it is associated with a default vSAN storage profile. In this scenario, a non-vSAN datastore would not be allowed by PlaceVM to place the VM, since non-vSAN datastore does not support the default vSAN storage profile.

Resolution

This is per design.

Workaround:
To work around this issue, manually vMotion the VM.