Aria Operations alert definitions or custom content overwritten after upgrade
Article ID: 394161
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
Upgrading VMware Aria Operations may result in the loss of customizations made to default, out-of-the-box (OOTB) content. Users often report that after an upgrade, tuned alert thresholds are reset, or dashboards suddenly show "no data" or unexpected high volumes of alerts.
Symptoms
- Customized alert definitions revert to default severity, wait cycles, or symptom settings.
- Manual changes to symptom thresholds are lost.
- A significant increase in infra alerts following an upgrade
- User-modified reports, widgets, or recommendations are overwritten.
Environment
VMware Aria Operations
Cause
This behavior is by design. The upgrade process resets out-of-the-box content to defaults.
Resolution
To ensure that customizations persist through future upgrades, follow the best practice of **cloning** default content rather than modifying it directly.
Prevention (Best Practice):
- Clone Content: Before making changes, clone the default alert definition, symptom, dashboard, or policy.
- Apply Customizations: Make all required edits (e.g., lowering severity or changing thresholds) to the **cloned** copy.
- Assign to Policy: Assign the cloned, customized object to your active policy.
- Deactivate Defaults: Ensure the original OOTB version is deactivated in the policy to avoid duplicate alerts.
Note: The upgrade installer targets default factory IDs; it will not overwrite user-created cloned objects.
Recovery:
If content has already been overwritten, it cannot be restored within the application unless you have:
- Content Backups: Exported `.zip` or `.json` files of your configurations.
- System Snapshots/Backups: Reverting to a pre-upgrade state via VM snapshot or traditional backup to recover the settings before performing a proper export/clone.
Note: This is valid for all versions of Aria Operations.
Additional Information
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