VCF 9 deployment fails at “Retrieve the status for VCF Operations with VCF Operations Collector Deployment Request”

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager

Issue/Introduction

During the deployment of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9, the task "Retrieve the status for VCF Operations with VCF Operations collector Deployment request" fails. The detailed error message reports,

Some SDDC Manager hosts are not configured. Failed SDDC Manager hosts are: [SDDC FQDN]

Retrying the deployment results in the same failure.

Although the VCF Operations and VCF Operations Collector appliances are successfully deployed and all relevant services, including HAProxy, appear operational, the deployment cannot proceed.

Additional issues are observed,

• In SDDC Manager -> Tasks, the task “Downloading ESX metadata, vibs and vendor add-ons” shows Failed.
• In SDDC Manager -> Workload Domains, the Management Domain displays an ERROR state.
• Under Workload Domains -> Services, the vCenter FQDN appears greyed out, with a tooltip showing “Not Available.”

This article explains the underlying cause and provides the steps to resolve the issue.

Environment

 

• VMware Cloud Foundation 9.x

• Deployment performed using the VCF installer

• VCF installer deployed on an ESXi host within the management domain

• VCF Operations and Operations Collector appliances successfully deployed

• HAProxy and other services running normally

 

Cause

During a VCF 9 deployment, the VCF installer performs network validation, including:

• Pinging all appliance IP addresses

• Ensuring that no required deployment IP addresses are already in use

However, there is a special exception. When the VCF installer is deployed on an ESXi host that will become part of the management domain, the appliance automatically transitions into SDDC Manager mode and is no longer treated as an installer. Because of this transition, the precheck process does not validate the IP address assigned to the VCF Installer itself.

Therefore, if the VCF installer’s assigned IP address is already in use, the precheck will not detect the conflict.

Even though the VCF installer has already been converted into the SDDC Manager, multiple issues are observed as a result of the IP conflict, including,

• The VCF 9 deployment stalling at the step where the Operations Collector attempts to connect to the SDDC Manager, even though the Operations and Operations Collector appliances are correctly deployed and running

• Metadata download task failing in SDDC Manager

• vCenter Server health status reporting as "Not Available" in SDDC Manager

Resolution

Follow the steps below to redeploy VCF 9,

1. Identify and remove the device using the duplicate IP address.
   
   Ensure that the IP address assigned to the VCF installer / SDDC Manager is not used by any other machine.

2. Remove the current VCF 9 deployment.
   
   Because the deployment has already progressed with an IP conflict, a full cleanup is required.

3. Re-deploy VCF 9 from the beginning.
   
   After eliminating the IP conflict, redeploy VCF 9 using the same deployment parameters.