Warning: "Virtual Machine Disk Consolidation Required" after recovering a VM with vSphere Replication

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware vSAN 8.x

Issue/Introduction

After successfully recovering a VM using vSphere Replication, the following message is displayed on vCenter UI:

Virtual machine VCF-TEST-Replication1 disks consolidation is needed on XXXXXX.com in cluster YYYY.com in ha-datacenter.

• The issue occurs only when the VM is recovered to a target site using vSAN ESA or vVOL
• Recovery works as expected with no warnings when the target site uses vSAN OSA, VMFS, or NFS
• The following event is triggered in vCenter:

Virtual machine disks consolidation is needed.    
Warning    01/31/2025, 1:33:29 AM       
VCF-TEST-Replication1     
com.vmware.vc.VmDiskConsolidationNeeded

• VM Edit Settings from vCenter shows it attached to a hbrimagedisk
• This hbrimagedisk is created during the recovery  operation:

Environment

• VMware vSphere Replication
• Target Site - VMware vSAN ESA, vVol
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

• This is a known issue effecting the recovery workflow of vSphere Replication to target site datastores such as vSAN ESA & vVols.
• During recovery, multiple changes to disks are made to the VMX file 
• While recovering to a vSAN ESA or vVols environment, a missing reload of VMX causes a difference in information regarding disks between hostd and the VMX:

• hostd reflects the below information for a VM configuration where the HBR image disk is attached as to the fileName. 

(vim.vm.device.VirtualDisk) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
key = 2000,
deviceInfo = (vim.Description) {
   dynamicType = <unset>,
   dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
   label = 'Hard disk 1',
   summary = '94,371,840 KB'
},
backing = (vim.vm.device.VirtualDisk.FlatVer2BackingInfo) {
dynamicType = <unset>,
dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
fileName = '[XXXXX-vsan01] d6556267-cc4b-fd76-5407-############/hbrimagedisk.RDID-3657f2b3-2a29-4adf-a77b-############.vmdk',

• While the VMX has the below configuration:

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsisas1068"
scsi0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0.pciSlotNumber = "160"
scsi0.sasWWID = "50 05 05 6b 21 37 fb a0"
sched.scsi0:0.shares = "normal"
sched.scsi0:0.throughputCap = "off"
scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"
scsi0:0.redo = ""
scsi0:0.fileName = "/vmfs/volumes/vsan:523182a14c114ef5-############/d6556267-cc4b-fd76-############/VM-TEST-Replication1.vmdk"

• This configuration leads hostd to trigger a Consolidation Needed event which is also passed on to the vCenter.
• In the interim, the VM is powered on using the base disk that the VMX configuration has.

 

Resolution

This is fixed in VMware Live Recovery Appliance 9.0.4 (vSphere Replication 9.0.4), which adds an extra reload of the VMX file at the end of the recovery workflow. During this reload, hostd updates the VMX values, ensuring correct information is sent to vCenter and refreshed, so the warning disappears.

Workaround:

Option 1: Migrate or vMotion the VM to another ESXi host post recovery to reload the VMX

Option 2: Use the snapshot manager to consolidate the disks which will reload the VMX

Option 3:

• Reload the VMX from the command line
  
  
• Follow this KB to reload the VM from the command line of ESXi