Disks Added via 'Update Deployment' Action are Placed Outside the VM's Home Directory on the Datastore

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

When using the "Update Deployment" day-2 action in VMware Aria Automation to add a new disk to a virtual machine, you observe that the new VMDK file is created on the root of the datastore, outside of the folder that contains the VM's primary VMX and other VMDK files.

Environment

Aria Automation 8.18.X

Cause

This is the expected, out-of-the-box behavior in the specified Aria Automation versions. The platform differentiates between disk provisioning actions:

• The Update Deployment action is a general-purpose action for modifying various deployment properties. When adding a disk through this method, it is placed at the root of the selected datastore by design.
• The dedicated Add Disk day-2 action is specifically designed for disk management and correctly places the new disk's files within the virtual machine's home directory alongside its other files.

Resolution

There is no direct resolution or workaround to change the behavior of the "Update Deployment" action itself, as it is functioning as designed.

• Recommended Method: To ensure new disks are created within the virtual machine's folder, use the dedicated 'Add Disk' day-2 action instead of 'Update Deployment'.
• Future Enhancement: A feature request has been submitted to engineering to potentially enhance the 'Update Deployment' action to allow specifying the disk location in a future release. Please subscribe to this article for future updates.