Expected behavior for vCenter Custom Attribute synchronization in Aria Operations

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• Newly created custom attributes in vCenter that have no value (empty) do not appear in Aria Operations.
• Attributes that were previously synchronized but then cleared in vCenter remain on the VM object in Aria Operations but show as empty.

Environment

• Aria Operations 8.18.x

Cause

Aria Operations requires a non-null value for the initial discovery and creation of a property key via the vCenter adapter. Once created, property keys persist for the lifecycle of the object to maintain historical integrity.

Resolution

• To synchronize a new attribute, ensure it has a value in vCenter.
• To filter out objects with empty/null attributes in Views, add a filter for "Summary|Custom Tag" with the "exists" condition: View filtering with 2 or more filters along with custom tag filter fails to remove objects having 'null' custom attribute value.
• To permanently remove a stale attribute, the parent VM must be deleted from the Aria Operations inventory: Inconsistent Custom Attributes Display for Virtual Machines in Aria Operations.

Additional Information

Risk / Impact: Deletion of VM from Aria Operations inventory will result in data loss for that VM.