Deployments fail with "The session is not authenticated" when running workflows for vSphere Replication and SRM Protection

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

In VMware Aria Automation 8.18.x, deployments that invoke an Orchestrator workflow during the Post Provisioning phase may fail with the error:

The session is not authenticated

This occurs when the workflow attempts to protect a VM using vSphere Replication (VR) and Site Recovery Manager (SRM). The failure only occurs when the workflow is triggered via a vRA subscription. Manual execution of the workflow directly in Orchestrator completes successfully.

Environment

VMware Aria Automation 8.x

VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator 8.x

Cause

The vRO workflow does not have an active session to the vSphere Replication remote site when invoked via a vRA subscription.

Resolution

Add Session Initialization to Workflow

Edit your vRO workflow to include the loginRemoteSite action prior to any operations involving vSphere Replication, particularly before the protect VM function is called.

This step explicitly creates the required session when the workflow is triggered.

Implementation Steps:

1. Open the affected workflow in VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator.

2. Insert the loginRemoteSite action before the scriptable task that includes the protect VM logic.

3. Save and redeploy the workflow.