[VMC] Site Pairing is not allowed to this Appliance Type when adding a Site Pair

Products

• VMware HCX
• VMware Cloud on AWS

Issue/Introduction

This error prevents the customer from adding a Site Pair.

Symptoms:
When attempting to Site Pair for HCX, a user may run into the error "Error connecting to remote site. Site Pairing is not allowed to this Appliance Type."

Cause

This can be caused by the following reasons:

• Deployed the wrong type of OVA.
• Attempting to connect remote site from Cloud to On-Prem.

Resolution

The resolution for this is to do Site Pairing from On-Prem HCX Connector to Cloud or Cloud to Cloud in both directions, instead of Cloud to On-Prem. The On-Prem HCX Connector creates a unidirectional site pairing to an HCX Cloud system. In this type of site pairing, all HCX Service Mesh connections, Migrations, and Network Extension operations including reverse migrations are always initiated from the HCX Connector at the source. 

Additional Information

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-HCX/4.2/hcx-user-guide/GUID-4BA6FBD4-ED66-4BE0-A216-6F6FFE1E8A20.html

Impact/Risks:
This is expected behavior on part of the HCX Cloud.