Error: "Failed to communicate with the VCF Business Services console" during VCF Operations 9.1 license activation due to incorrect DNS configuration

Products

• VCF Operations

Issue/Introduction

• After the deployment of VCF Operations 9.1 with a license server, the license server activation fails. The user interface displays the following error message: 
  
  Failed to communicate with the VCF Business Services console. Check your network connection, and if this error persists, contact support



• Attempting to perform a nslookup for forward and reverse lookup of the vcf.broadcom.com, from the VCF Operations node(s) also fails with an error similar to below:
  
  root@<VCFOps>[/]# nslookup <FQDN/IP>
communications error to <FQDN/IP>; timed out

Environment

VCF Operations 9.1

Cause

This issue can occur when the VCF Operations appliance has an incorrect or missing DNS configuration or the DNS server is not sharing the response properly.  In this particular scenario, the configured DNS server IP was wrong as a result of which the Operations appliance was unable to resolve the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for the VCF Business Services console or its own node name, which is required for secure communication and license registration.

Resolution

Update the DNS settings for the VCF Operations appliance through the vSphere Client:

NOTE: Before proceeding with below steps, ensure downtime on your VCF Operations nodes to take the cluster offline from the VCF Operations admin console and take offline snapshots on all of them 

1. Power down the Operations nodes and navigate to Configure > Settings > vApp Options
   
   
2. Locate the property with the label Domain Name Servers.
   
   
3. Select the property and click Set Value.
   
   
4. Input the correct DNS server IP addresses ,use a comma to separate multiple IP addresses.
   
   
5. Power on the VCF Operations appliance node(s) and bring the cluster back online
   
   
6. Return to the VCF Operations UI and retry the license activation code registration.

Additional Information

• Ensure outbound HTTPS (TCP 443) access is allowed to eapi.broadcom.com and vcf.broadcom.com
  
  
• Review Network requirements to register a VCF Operations Instance with the VCF Business Services Console in Connected Mode for additional connectivity details.