Error: Storage Policy Usage Reports Excessive Consumption in VMware Cloud Director UI After VM Migration

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

• Storage policy usage in the VMware Cloud Director (VCD) UI displays significantly higher usage than expected after one or more VMs are migrated to a different storage policy.
• The UI continues to report usage for VMs that should no longer be associated with the original storage policy.
• Actual VM storage usage in vCenter is much lower than reported in VCD.
• Attempts to refresh the policy usage via normal VCD operations (such as reconnecting vCenter or re-saving storage policy assignments) may not resolve the discrepancy.
• You will see Storage Allocation Mismatch in Organization VDCs(OVDC), even though there are no visible virtual machines inside the OVDC. 

Environment

VMware Cloud Director 10.6.X
VMware Cloud Director 10.5.X

Cause

This issue can occur when VMs are moved from one storage policy to another in vCenter or VCD, but VCD’s inventory and metrics are not fully synchronized with vCenter.
Orphaned or outdated records remain in VCD’s internal storage usage metrics, causing inflated usage reporting.
Inventory synchronization between VCD and vCenter does not always fully update the UI metrics in certain scenarios involving rapid or complex policy changes. This issue can also occur after migrating from NSX-V to NSX-T

Resolution

1. Verify actual usage in vCenter:
   In the vCenter UI, check which VMs and disks are using the storage policy in question.
   Confirm the actual storage usage at the datastore/datastore cluster level for the policy.
   
   
2. Perform a vCenter reconnect in VCD:
   In the VCD Provider Portal UI, navigate to “Infrastructure Resources > vCenter Servers.”
   Select the vCenter and use the “Reconnect” option to trigger an inventory refresh.
   Monitor the storage policy usage metrics in the VCD UI after the reconnect completes.
   
   
3. Re-save storage policy assignments in VCD:
   In the VCD UI, edit the VM’s storage policy and re-save (even if no change is made) to prompt a re-evaluation of storage policy assignment.
   This can sometimes trigger VCD to refresh its metrics and clear out stale data.
   
   
4. If the usage still appears incorrect:
   Gather support logs from both VCD and vCenter.
   Gathering Diagnostic Information
   Open a case with Broadcom support and reference this KB article