ESXi shows disconnected under Replication Servers post ESXi re-image

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

ESXi servers are re-imaged and seen as disconnected under vSphere Replication --→ Replication servers section.

Environment

VMware Live Recovery 9.X

Cause

Default settings was changed from true to false in configuration file hms-configuration.xml located at /opt/vmware/hms/conf for scale-out-mode and hms-embedded-hbr settings.

The embedded HBR acts as the broker for scale-out replications, a mandatory role for this type of replication, In addition, VMware Site Recovery supports automated scale-out which utilizes provisioned ESXi hosts and automatically adds them for additional replication capacity.
VMware Site Recovery now supports automated load balancing which distributes replicated VMs across resources for optimal performance. 

Resolution

1. Take a snapshot of vSphere Replication appliance.
2. Connect to the vSphere Replication appliance via SSH.
3. Stop the HMS service: systemctl stop hms.
4. Edit /opt/vmware/hms/conf/hms-configuration.xml and change the value to <scale-out-mode>true</scale-out-mode> and <hms-embedded-hbr>true</hms-embedded-hbr>
5. Start the HMS service: systemctl start hms