VM Visibility and Runtime State in VMware Cloud Director VMware Cloud Director Availability

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

This article explains where replicated VMs appear in VMware Cloud Director and VMware Cloud Director Availability, why there may be differences in runtime state reporting between the two, and what to expect during test failover, production failover, or migration scenarios.

Symptoms:

• Replicated VM is visible only in VCDA interface but not in VCD UI before failover.

• VM runtime state in VCDA does not match live power state in VCD during test failover.

• VM appears both in “VCDA Replication VMs” and in the VDC inventory.

• Test failover VM does not stay continuously in sync with manual power changes in VCD.

• Placeholder VMs exist in VCDA even when the source VM has been deleted.

Environment

VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.7.x

Cause

This issue occurs because VMware Cloud Director Availability manages VM replication metadata and state information separately from the live VM inventory in VMware Cloud Director.

• Replicated VMs remain visible only within VCDA until a failover or test failover is initiated.

• Runtime state differences arise because VCDA does not continuously poll the vCenter/VCD for power state updates; it updates the state only during VCDA-triggered workflows such as failover, migration, or replication status refresh.

Resolution

Resolution:

1. VM Location After Replication Completion

   • Once replication completes, the replicated VM appears only in the VCDA interface on the cloud site.

   • This is expected behavior — the VM will not appear in the VCD UI until a failover or test failover is performed.

2. VM Visibility in VCD UI

   • In VCDA, a replicated VM is visible in the VCD UI only after a failover or test failover operation is triggered.

3. Difference in Runtime State Between VCD and VCDA

   • VCDA tracks replication sessions (disk and sync status) and does not continuously poll vCenter/VCD for live runtime changes.

   • Runtime state in VCDA is updated only when a VCDA-triggered action occurs (failover, test failover, migration).

4. Test Failover Behavior

   • During a test failover, VCDA deploys a temporary copy of the replicated VM in an isolated environment for validation.

   • This copy is not kept in continuous runtime sync with manual power operations done in VCD.

   • To refresh runtime state in VCDA, end and restart the test failover.

5. Production Failover or Migration

   • In production failover or migration, runtime state is tracked normally because the VM is handed over to the target site as a live instance.

6. Expected Dual Visibility of a VM

   • Yes — a replicated VM can appear in both:

     • VCDA Replication VMs: Indicates the VM is part of an active replication job.

     • VDC VM List: Shows the VM as an active workload in the VDC.

   • This is because VCDA replication adds replication metadata without removing the VM from the VCD context.

Additional Information

For more information, Please see: Replicating workloads