Data Collection does not update the IP address of VMs in Aria Automation after manual MAC address update

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

• After manually editing a Virtual Machine's MAC address it's IP address does not show as expected in Aria Automation.
• After migrating a Virtual Machine to a new vCenter managed by Aria Automation the IP address is not updated.
• Even after a 24 hour full data collection the address remains blank.
• It is found that removing the VMs NIC and powering off, then powering on the vm and then waiting for 10 minutes collection cycle, then performing a second power off of the VM and adding the NIC before powering on the VM will make it reflect correctly in vRA after a second data collection cycle. 

Environment

Aria Automation 8.18.1 cumulative update 4

Cause

This is caused by a missing MAC address or a case mismatch (following a manual edit) between the IP address as it is stored in vCenter in two locations. During data collection the MAC is checked in both locations. If these do not match the Automation does not collect that IP address. 

Resolution

A fix for this issue will be in a future version of VCF 9.x

Workaround: If manual edits of MAC addresses are needed for Aria Automation VMs, ensure to edit these MACs using only lower case letters to match the default case.