Stale disk after configure Replication Tracking on an existing replication

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• You configured Replication Tracking Virtual Machine (RT VM) placement solution for an existing VM replication for replacing the independent disk placement on VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA).
• After configuring the RT VM, the named disk for the existing independent disk placement is not deleted on the destination vCenter.
• On the destination vCenter the named disk not deleted has the name of the replication ID like the one below:
  
  C4-########-####-####-########856b


• When checking the incoming replication on the destination site you see there is an ongoing replication with the same Replication ID of the stale entry you see on the destination vCenter.
• The named disk is visible in the destination VMware Cloud Director (VCD).

Environment

• VMware Cloud Director 10.5.1
• VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7.1

Cause

The named disk was not deleted after the configuration was changed to Replication Tracking (RT) as part of the workflow.

Resolution

Manually deleting the Named disk on VMware Cloud Director after checking the ongoing replication is not related to the named disk.

You can check the the ongoing replication is not related to the named disk following the steps below:

1. On the destination VCDA UI click on Incoming Replication.
2. Click the Show Columns icon on the left bottom corner and select "Replication ID" to show the Replication ID column.
3. Search in the replication ID column for the C4 ID you have on vCenter.
   
   OPTION 1 :The C4 ID does not match any of the Replication ID for the incoming/outgoing replication
   
   You can delete the named disk on the destination VCD Organization if applicable or from the destination vCenter.
   
   OPTION 2: If the C4 ID matches one of the Replication ID of the incoming replication on the destination VCDA UI
   
   1- Expand the replication information and take note of the vApp and VM ID.
   2- Check the replication vApp ID/VM ID in VCD using the API calls below using Postman o similar:

VM ID

https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vm-<VM ID FROM STEP 1>

vApp ID

https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vapp-<vApp ID FROM STEP 1>


For additional information about VCD API call please visit the Developer Portal

3- In the response body of the API call check the replication info and the C4 ID as reported in the example below:

<ReplicationTrackingDiskSection>
    <ReplicationTrackingDiskSettings>
        <DiskUuid>########-####-####-####-########879d</DiskUuid>
        <StorageProvisionedKb>########</StorageProvisionedKb>
        <StorageOverheadKb>0</StorageOverheadKb>
        <StoragePolicy href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vdcStorageProfile/########-####-####-####-########1da0" id="urn:vcloud:vdcstorageProfile:########-####-####-####-########1da0" type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.vdcStorageProfile+xml" name="<storage policy name>"/>
        <PlacementRecommendation>moref://########-####-####-####-########86ce/Datastore#datastore-##</PlacementRecommendation>
    </ReplicationTrackingDiskSettings>
</ReplicationTrackingDiskSection>
<ReplicationTrackingSettings>
    <ReplicationTrackingVmState>REPLICATION_MODE</ReplicationTrackingVmState>
</ReplicationTrackingSettings>

After finding the RT VM exists we can delete the named disk.