VCD Provider VDC (pVDC) shows no Storage Policies (N/A) after datastore decommissioning

Products

• VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

VMware Cloud Director (VCD) Provider VDC (pVDC) or Organization VDC (OrgVDC) fails to list or provide any VM Storage Policies. This prevents new VM provisioning or import operations. This issue occurred immediately following the decommissioning and removal of one or more datastores from the underlying vCenter Server.

Exact error messages may vary but typically involve:

• No policies available for selection during VM import.

• Storage Policy metrics in pVDC showing a count of zero.

Environment

10.x

Cause

The VCD pVDC resource pool includes a reference to a datastore that is inaccessible or has been decommissioned in the underlying vCenter Server environment. This causes the VCD synchronization process to fail or time out, resulting in no Storage Policies being correctly published to the Cloud Provider VDC.

Resolution

Follow these steps to resolve the synchronization and policy availability issue:

1. Remove Inaccessible Datastores from vCenter:

   • Log in to vCenter and navigate to the datastores view.

   • Right-click the datastores that have been decommissioned or are marked as inaccessible and select Unmount Datastore and then Delete Datastore if applicable. Ensure they are completely removed from the vCenter inventory.

2. Verify/Enable Storage Policy on OrgVDC:

   • In the VCD Provider Portal, navigate to the relevant Organization VDC.

   • Ensure the Storage Policy setting is enabled for the VDC.

3. Refresh Policies on Provider VDC:

   • Navigate to the relevant Cloud Provider VDC (pVDC).

   • Manually initiate a Refresh Policies or Sync Storage Policy action to force VCD to re-read the policy information from the now-healthy vCenter/SPBM environment.

Additional Information

This issue highlights the necessity of ensuring a clean and complete decommissioning of resources in vCenter, especially storage, to maintain integrity of the Cloud Director inventory and synchronization services.