Aria Operations MSSQL Adapter fails to create VM relationships due to duplicate VM names

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

In VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations), Microsoft SQL Server instances are not being associated with their respective Virtual Machine objects. The SQL Server adapter logs (specifically the BlueMedora/Exuno data provider) show timeouts and relationship creation failures.

Symptoms:

• Missing relationships between "MSSQLSERVER" resources and Host VMs.
  
  
• Log snippet from /storage/log/vcops/log/adapters/SQLServerAdapter/sql_server_adapter.log:
  ERROR [Collector worker thread] ... JdbcPoller: pollCompletionService method returned null or timed out


• Debug logs for  /storage/log/vcops/log/adapters/SQLServerAdapter/sql_server_adapter.log reveal:
  Caused by: com.vmware.tvs.vrealize.adapter.core.extensions.suiteapi.SuiteAPIClient$Exception: 2 VirtualMachine objects were found with names ("<VM_NAME>"); expected 1

Environment

• VMware Aria Operations 8.x
• VMware Aria Operations Management Pack for Microsoft SQL Server

Cause

The relationship creation logic in the SQL Server adapter expects a unique 1:1 mapping between the MSSQL instance and the underlying Virtual Machine name. This failure occurs when Aria Operations discovers multiple VM objects with the same name (e.g., in environments utilizing Site Recovery Manager (SRM) or Disaster Recovery (DR) solutions where a "shadow" or replica VM exists with an identical name). The adapter cannot deterministically identify which VM object should be the parent, resulting in a SuiteAPIClient$Exception and a subsequent timeout.

Resolution

To resolve this, configure the adapter to exclude DR/Replica VMs from the relationship mapping process:

1. Log in via SSH as root to the Aria Operations Analytics node or Cloud Proxy where the SQL Server adapter instance is running.
2. Navigate to the adapter configuration directory: cd /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/plugins/inbound/sql_server_adapter/conf
3. Back up the properties file: cp microsoftsqlserver.properties microsoftsqlserver.properties.bak
4. Edit the file and append the following configuration line: exclude_dr_vms_from_relationships=true
5. Restart the SQL Server adapter instance via the Aria Operations UI as follows:
   A. Navigate to Data Sources > Integrations > Accounts.
   B. Select the Microsoft SQL Server adapter instance.
   C. Click Stop and then Start.
6. Allow approximately 10–15 minutes for the collection cycle to complete and verify that relationships are correctly formed.

Additional Information

Increasing the thread pool size or timeout values typically does not resolve this issue as the underlying cause is a logic exception due to object ambiguity in the Aria Operations inventory.