Alert is not triggered when manually pausing replication on a VM

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

When an administrator manually pauses or modifies a vSphere Replication job in vCenter Server 8.x, the following symptoms occur:

• The activity is successfully logged as a TaskEvent in the vCenter Tasks console. 
• The pre-defined system alarm "Paused Replication" (or custom alarms based on replication state) fails to trigger. (event ID hbr.primary.SystemPausedReplication)
• No configured SNMP traps or email notifications are sent for the manual action.

Environment

• Product: VMware vSphere Replication
• Management: vCenter Server

Cause

This behavior is by design. vCenter Server alarms for vSphere Replication are designed to monitor system-generated state changes rather than administrative tasks.

• Manual Actions: When a user manually pauses a replication, the system generates a standard TaskEvent. This event does not possess the specific event ID (hbr.primary.SystemPausedReplication) required to trip the alarm engine.
• System Actions: The alarm is only triggered when the HBR (Host-Based Replication) service itself pauses the replication due to an error, such as an unreplicated disk, storage connectivity loss, or site-level failures.

Resolution

Resolution There is no configuration change required as the system is functioning as intended. To validate that the alarm infrastructure is configured correctly and will fire during a genuine system failure, perform the following test:

• Attempt to replicate a virtual machine that contains a disk type or configuration not supported by vSphere Replication (e.g., a multi-writer disk or certain shared disks.
• During the initial sync or validation, the HBR service will encounter a compatibility error and automatically pause the replication.
• Because this is a system-level pause, the hbr.primary.SystemPausedReplication event will be emitted.
• Verify that the "Paused Replication" alarm status changes to Red and the associated notifications are sent.

Additional Information

For a complete list of events that are eligible to trigger vCenter alarms, see the Broadcom technical documentation: List of vSphere Replication Events

If you need further assistance, open a support case with Broadcom: Contact Broadcom support