Error: "Adapter instance down" alert intermittently triggers for VCD environment

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

In Aria Operations, users may observe recurring "Adapter instance down" alerts for a VMware Cloud Director (VCD) environment. The alert triggers intermittently every one to two hours and typically auto-clears within a few minutes.

Symptoms observed include:

• Connectivity issues persist even after rebooting collectors, proxies, vCenter, and VCD cells.
• UI performance within VCD may appear sporadic or slow during the alert window.
• Cloud Proxy logs may record Layer 4 or Layer 6 errors, indicating internal network connectivity timeouts.

 

Environment

• Aria Operations 8.18.x
• VMware Cloud Director (VCD)

Cause

The "Adapter instance down" alerts can be caused by underlying infrastructure instability affecting the VCD cells, such as ESXi host failures or datastore "stunning." These environment-level stability issues lead to intermittent network "aged out" messages where the Aria Operations adapter fails to receive a timely response from the VCD environment.

Resolution

Follow these steps in order until the issue is resolved:

1. Verify Infrastructure Stability:
   • Investigate ESXi hosts running VCD cells for recent failures or reboots.
   • Check datastores for "stunning" events or latency issues that may affect VM performance.
2. Migrate VCD Cells: If a specific host is identified as unstable, migrate the VCD cell Virtual Machines to a known stable host or cluster.
3. Perform Firmware Updates: Ensure hardware components (e.g., UCS side) are running supported firmware versions to prevent host drops.
4. Refresh Adapter Configuration: If infrastructure is stable but alerts persist, delete the VCD adapter instance in Aria Operations and recreate it to refresh the connection.