Extending or expanding VMDKs configured with Enhanced Replication may fail

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

• Extending or expanding VMDKs configured with Enhanced Replication may fail under the below conditions:

1. 1. Original size of the VMDK is less 4TB and we are extending the size to more than 4TB
   2. Original size of the VMDK is more than 4TB

• You may get the below error on the DR UI:

<VMNAME>   [Error (RPO Violation]:
      "A replication error occurred at the vSphere Replication Server for replication '############'. Details: 'Error for (datastoreUUID: "vsan:#############################"), (pathname: "########-####-####-####-#############/hbrdisk.RDID-###########-=####-####-####-##########################-extend.vmdk"): New capacity (2566914048) is not greater than original capacity (10737418240); Extending disks'."

• You may receive RPO violation alerts and failure of replication on the DR UI

Environment

• VMware Live Recovery 9.x
• VMware vSphere Replication 8.8
• VMware vSphere Replication 9.x
• VMs configured with Enhanced Replication

Cause

• While extending the disk beyond 4TB, the size is miscalculated to the additional value beyond 4TB.
• vSphere Replication erroneously truncates the size
• This changes the size of the disk to be different than the expected size causing replication failure for the VM.
• The issue does not effect VMs configured with legacy replication

Resolution

Broadcom Engineering is aware of the issue and is working on fixing the issue in one of the future releases of VMware Live Recovery

Workaround:

1. Click on VMware Live Site Recovery plugin in vSphere Client.
2. Click on Open VMware Live Site Recovery. Click on View Details depending upon the replication type.
3. Click on the Replications tab. Select the VM and click on “RECONFIGURE”.
4. Uncheck the Hard disk under Target datastore to remove replication only for the specific disk where the disk is extended beyond 4TB. Click NEXT and FINISH to complete the reconfiguration.
5. Once the reconfiguration completes, select the VM and click REMOVE. Ensure to check “Retain replica disks".
6. Once the VM is removed from replication, click on NEW and configure the replication.
7. Ensure to “Select seeds” under Target datastore section.
8. Under the Select seed section, the Hard disk where the disk is extended beyond 4TB will show Seed as “none”.
9. Click NEXT and FINISH the configuration.
10. The VM will successfully finish replication with the sync as well. Following the above steps will do a full sync only for the disk which is extended beyond 4TB rather than all the disks.