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vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 | 11 OCT 2018 | Build 10329915

Check for additions and updates to these release notes.

What's in the Release Notes

The release notes cover the following topics:

What's New

VMware vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 allows tenant and service provider users to protect vApps between different virtual data centers within a vCloud Director environment and across different vCloud Director based clouds.

The following new capabilities are added to the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 release: 

  • A new, improved user interface that is embedded into vCloud Director, allowing tenant and service provider users to perform DR operations and monitor their DR environment from within the vCloud Director portal.
  • Service providers can enable or disable incoming and outgoing replications for one or multiple vCloud Director organizations in source and destination sites.
  • Policies that allow service provider administrators to control the following system attributes for one or multiple vCloud Director organizations:
    • Limit the number of replications at the vCloud Director organization level
    • Limit the minimum Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
    • Limit number of retained snapshots per VM replication
    • Limit the total number of VM replications
  • vCloud Availability API that enables automation of vApp and virtual machines replication management and monitoring, user sessions management, and system monitoring. See vCloud Availability API Reference.
  • A new storage consumption report and enhanced usage metering report with new attributes and additional details
  • Enhanced scale and performance
  • Licensing support
  • Participation in the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). Details regarding the data collected by CEIP and the purposes for which it is used by VMware are available at the Trust & Assurance Center at http://www.vmware.com/trustvmware/ceip.html.

Interoperability

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR interoperability is the same for tenant and service provider users.

VMware products interoperability information is published under the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR product in the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.

  1. Go to the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.
  2. From the Select a Solution menu, select vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR.
  3. Select a Version.
  4. From the Add Platform/Solution select VMware vCloud Director for Service Providers.
  5. Click Add Another Solution.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5, selecting VMware vCenter Server and VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi).

VMware NSX for vSphere

The interoperability between vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR and NSX depends on the interoperability between vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR and vCloud Director for Service Providers.

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR supports all NSX versions that are interoperable with a supported vCloud Director for Service Providers version.

For NSX interoperability details, look up the interoperable vCloud Director for Service Providers versions and then look up the interoperable NSX versions for each supported vCloud Director for Service Providers version.

Upgrade

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 supports in-place upgrade from version 1.0.X.

For more information about upgrading to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5, see Upgrading vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR.

Operational Limits

The following operational limits are discovered through rigorous testing of different disaster recovery scenarios.

 Scale Limits

  • 300 active protections for a single tenant
  • 430 active protections using a single large vCloud Availability Replicator.
  • 3000 active protections across 100 tenants
  • 100 tenants with active replications
  • 7 active vCloud Availability Replicator instances
  • Up to 2 TB of storage capacity for all files of a single protected virtual machine

Concurrency Limits

  • 120 concurrent Protect, Test Failover, Failover, and Reverse Protect operations
  • 65 Concurrent Failover operations

Caveats and Limitations

Consider the following caveats when performing disaster recovery and migration operations by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR solution. 

  • vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR does not support:
    • datastore clusters as a replication destination.
    • Reverse operations for which a datastore cluster is used as a source.
    • disaster recovery and migration operations between different vCloud Director Organizations within a single site.
    • customization of the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR standalone user interface.
  • For optimal vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR operations, disable the vCloud Director virtual machine discovery feature. If the feature is enabled, it might cause issues during Failover and Test Failover operations. For more information about enabling and disabling the virtual machine discovery feature, see Discovering and Adopting vApps topic in the vCloud Director Administrator's Guide.
  • Authenticating to the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal by using single sign-on domain administrator credentials is only supported for vCloud Director users that are assigned with System Administrator privileges.
  • Cloud sites that use the vCloud Director 9.X dedicated Edge cluster feature may experience problems with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR operations. Recovered virtual machines may be misplaced on the Edge Cluster, because the metadata that contains information for placement of non-edge virtual machines is not available to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR.

Supported Browsers

The vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal is compatible with the current and last major revision of browsers. Version 1.5 vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR was tested with and supports:

  • Google Chrome 69
  • Mozilla Firefox 60.2 ESR
  • Microsoft Edge 42

Microsoft Internet Explorer is not supported.

Flash must be enabled in the browser to access the vCloud Director Web Console. 

Use of Microsoft Edge is not supported with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR installations that use self-signed certificates. 

Coexistence

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 and vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 2.X can be installed and can operate together in the same vCloud Director environment. You can protect virtual machines either by using vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 or vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 2.X.

vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 and vCloud Director Extender 1.1.X can be installed and can operate together in the same vCloud Director environment. You can migrate virtual machines either by using vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 or vCloud Director Extender 1.1.X. 

Product Documentation

In addition to the current release notes, you can use the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 documentation set at https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vCloud-Availability-for-Cloud-to-Cloud-DR/index.html.

Resolved Issues

  • When you register a new vCloud Availability Replicator to a vCloud Availability Replication Manager, if you enter an incorrect SSO username or password, the registration completes with the following message:

    Replicator is paired successfully.

    Although the system confirms the registration process is successfully completed, you cannot use this vCloud Availability Replicator to perform vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR operations.

    This issue is fixed.

  • Reversing a protected virtual machine or a vApp replication powers off the protected source vApp.

    In a protected vApp that contains multiple virtual machines, reversing a particular virtual machine replication undeploys the source vApp and powers off the virtual machines it contains. 

    This issue is fixed.

  • A Failover with synchronization operation fails for replications that are in paused or a partially paused state.

    This issue is fixed.

  • Test recovery tasks from a source vCloud Director instance to a vCloud Director 9.1 instance fail when Make Allocation pool Org VDCs elastic is enabled.

    If your VDC is configured with an elastic allocation pool and each cluster in the VDC is configured to use a dedicated storage, any Test Failover for an existing replication fails with the following error:

    An elastic vDC is used but the primary resource pool does not have access to the datastore that holds the replica files.

    This issue is fixed.

Known Issues

  • New vCloud Director Organization administrators can see the list of replicated vApps for other organizations

    When you log in to the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal as an organization administrator, you can see the lists of incoming and outgoing vApp replications that belong to another vCloud Director organization. 

    This can happen if the name of the other vCloud Director Organization partially matches the name of your organization.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, you must upgrade to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5.0.1.

  • After you successfully configure replications by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 solution, you observe Recovery Point Objective (RPO) violations. The following tasks appears in the vSphere Web Client of your backing vCenter Server instance:

    Task Name : Disable replication of virtual machineInitiater Name --> com.vmware.vcHms 

    When you configure replications by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 solution to or from a backing vCenter Server with either a standalone vSphere Replication earlier than 6.5 or vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 1.x, vSphere Replication disables these replications. 

    vSphere Replication versions earlier than 6.5 browse all replications that exist in the source vCenter Server instance. vSphere Replication disables any replication that is not available in its database.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, you have the following options:

    • Upgrade your standalone vSphere Replication instance to version 6.5 or upgrade your vCloud Availability for vCloud Director solution to version 2.0.x.
    • Use a different vCenter Server instance for your vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR environment.
    • Use a different vCenter Server instance for your standalone vSphere Replication instance prior version 6.5 or for your vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 1.x solution.
  • When you fail over or migrate a vApp containing a single virtual machine that is powered on upon completion, the operation completes with warning messages.

    You receive a warning that the deletion of the independent disk of the virtual machine failed and another warning stating that the vApp failed to power on. 

    During failover and migration operations, if the independent disk of a virtual machine is missing, vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR attempts to power on the vApp twice. As a result, the vApp is powered on regardless of the warning. You can verify using the vCloud Director user interface.

    Workaround: None. You can ignore the warning messages.

  • When you fail over or migrate a vApp containing multiple virtual machines that are powered on upon completion, the operation fails but some of the child virtual machine Failover or migration tasks succeed.

    For the child virtual machine Failover or Migrate tasks that succeed, you receive a warning that the deletion of the independent disk of a virtual machine failed and another warning stating that the vApp failed to power on. At the same time, using the vCloud Director user interface, you can see that the vApp is powered on, but only a subset of the virtual machines (the successfully failed over or migrated) are present.

    During Failover and migration operations, if the independent disk of a virtual machine is missing, vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR attempts to power on the vApp twice. As a result, the vApp is powered on regardless of the warning. In addition, the vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager attempts to import the remaining virtual machines in the failed over or migrated vApp while the vApp is busy completing a vCloud Director operation, which leads to virtual machines import failure.

    Workaround: Perform the same operation to the vApp until all virtual machines are failed over or migrated.

  • Changing the time zone of vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR appliances might fail.

    By default, vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR appliances are configured to use Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) time zone. Changing the appliance time zone by using the Set Timezone option in the appliance console fails and the appliance continues to use UTC time zone.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, perform the following steps: 

    1. Log in to the appliance console as the root user. 
      If you have not configured the appliance, you are prompted to change the appliance root password.
    2. Check the appliance time and date configuration:
      1. Check the current appliance date and time zone:
        date
        The system returns the following:
        Wed MMM DD hh:mm:ss UTC YYYY
      2. Check the time zone symbolic link:
        ls -al /etc/localtime
        The system returns the following:
        lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 May 11 13:24 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC
    3. ​If the time zone is not set correctly, remove the time zone symbolic link:
      rm -rf /etc/localtime
    4. Recreate the symbolic link by choosing a file in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory. The following example sets the appliance to use the New Zealand Standard Time (NZST) time zone:
      ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/Pacific/Auckland /etc/localtime
    5. Verify that the symbolic link is correctly recreated:
      ls -al /etc/localtime
      The system returns should return the following:
      lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Jul 25 14:12 /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Pacific/Auckland
    6. Verify that the new time zone is configured:
      date
      The system should return the following:
      Wed MMM DD HH:MM:SS NZST YYYY
  • When you are logged in as a service provider, you see a license warning in the Configuration tab of the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal.

    When your license key expires, you see a warning icon in the Configuration > License field and you cannot configure new replications.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, update your license key.

    1. Log in to the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud portal as a System Administrator.
    2. Click Configuration.
    3. In the License field, click Edit.
    4. Enter a valid license key and click Apply.
  • If you use multiple storage profiles in a virtual data center with a fast-provisioned virtual machine, after performing a Failover or Test Failover, attempting to power on the virtual machine fails with the following error:

    Cannot use multiple storage profiles in a fast-provisioned VDC "X" for VM "Y"., 400, VM_STORAGE_CLASS_SPANNING_NOT_ALLOWED.

    Workaround: Edit the fast-provisioned virtual machines to use the VM default storage profile in vCloud Director Web Console.

    1. In a Web browser, go to https://cloud.example.com/cloud.
    2. Log in as a System Administrator.
    3. Click the Manage & Monitor tab.
    4. Click the Organization to which the fast-provisioned virtual machines belong.
    5. Double-click the vApp that contains the virtual machines.
    6. Select the Virtual Machines tab, right-click the fast-provisioned virtual machine, and select Properties.
    7. Select the Hardware tab, in the Hard Disks area, select Use VM default from the storage profile drop-down menu.
    8. Click OK.
  • You cannot change the owner of vApp or virtual machine replication by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal.

    When you configure a replication, the vCloud Director organization of the user that starts the replication becomes the replication owner.

    For configured replications, you cannot change the owner by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal.

    Workaround: You can change the owner of a vApp or a virtual machine that is failed over by using the vCloud Director Tenant Portal or the vCloud Director Service Provider Admin Portal. For more information, see the vCloud Director User's Guide or the vCloud Director Administrator's Guide.

  • Powering on virtual machines with duplicated MAC addresses fails with no error message in the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal.

    When you perform а Failover, Test Failover, or a Migration operation, a new vApp with virtual machines is created in vCloud Director. If a virtual machine with the same MAC address is present in vCloud Director and both virtual machines have direct connectivity, the newly imported virtual machine is not powered on, and a notification is generated in the Recent Tasks list on the local site home page.

    Workaround: You can use the vCloud Director Fence vApp option to use same MAC or IP. Fencing allows identical virtual machines in different vApps to be powered on without conflicts.

  • You cannot deploy vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR using IPv6 protocol.

    When deploying vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR appliances, selecting to use IPv6 protocol in the Select Networks pane takes no effect in assigning an IPv6 IP address to the appliance. 

    Workaround: To work around this issue, do the following:

    1. In a Web browser, go to https://Appliance-IP-Address:8046/ui/admin.
    2. Log in as a System Administrator.
    3. In the Configuration tab, expand the Network settings.
    4. Locate the NIC in use and click Edit. 
    5. Edit the adapter configuration and click Save.
      NOTE: vCenter Server and vCloud Director systems must also use IPv6.
  • You cannot register vCloud Director with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR by using the IP address of the vCloud Director instance.

    Registering a vCloud Director instance with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR by IP address instead of a host name fails with a Hostname verification failed error message.

    Workaround: To work around this issue follow the steps below:

    1. Log in to the vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager appliance over SSH as root.
    2. Open the /opt/vmware/h4/cloud/config/application.properties file with a text editor.
    3. Change the value for the vcd.hostnameverifier.noop to true and save the file.
    4. Restart the vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager service.
  • Moving protected virtual machines between vApps is not supported.

    You cannot move protected virtual machines between vApps. After a virtual machine is moved to another vApp, the virtual machine replication gets corrupted. Any subsequent DR operation for the same virtual machine might fail.

    Workaround: To move a protected virtual machine to another vApp, stop the replication for the source virtual machine, move the virtual machine to another vApp, and protect or re-protect the virtual machine.

  • Reverse and Failover operations fail for virtual machines with multiple disks configured to use different storage profiles.

    You cannot reverse or fail over a virtual machine replication if its .vmdk files are on different data stores that are configured to use different storage profiles.

    Workaround: Move all .vmdk files of the virtual machine to the data store where the machine is installed and apply the same storage profile to all of the data stores.

  • vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR services crash and restart automatically.

    If an ESXi host cannot allocate a sufficient amount of RAM to vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR appliances, vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR services crash and restart automatically every 30 seconds.

    This issue affects the following services:

    • vCloud Availability Replication Manager
    • vCloud Availability Replicator
    • vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager
    • Lightweight Delta Protocol Service (LWD Proxy)
    • vCloud Availability Tunnel

    Possible cause of the issue is that a host memory balloon occurs when a virtual machine requires more RAM than an ESXi host can allocate. To make sure you are affected by a host memory balloon issue, open an SSH session to the affected appliance and run the following command:
    $ vmware-toolbox-cmd stat balloon

    The command returns a value in MB that represents the amount of RAM that an ESXi cannot allocate to the affected appliance.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, allocate more RAM to the ESXi host, or stop the unused virtual machines on the host to free resources.

  • Failover operations might fail with the following error message:

    The requested resource was not found

    If you change the storage profile of a source virtual machine, Failover operations are not possible.

    Workaround: Even if a Failover operation fails, if there is an earlier snapshot available, you can perform a Failover operation to the virtual machine.

  • Protect operation may fail with the following error message:

    The operation could not be completed, because the virtual machine has an active replication enabled.

    If you change the storage profile of a source virtual machine after a replication for the same virtual machine is started, and detach the same replication, any subsequent Protect operation for the virtual machine fails.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, disable the replication for the affected virtual machine by using the ESXi Command-Line Interface and configure a new replication for the virtual machine by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal:

    1. Open an SSH session to the ESXi host
    2. To retrieve the ID of the affected virtual machine, run the following command:
      $ vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
      The system returns details for all virtual machines that are hosted on the ESXi. Note the VM ID of the affected virtual machine.
    3. To disable the replication, run the following command:
      $ vim-cmd hbrsvc/vmreplica.disable VM-ID
    4. After the replication is disabled, you can protect the affected virtual machine by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal.
  • Failover and a subsequent Failover retry operations might fail with the following error:

    Operation aborted due to an unexpected error.

    If auto-discovery of virtual machine is enabled in vCloud Director, a race condition may occur causing a virtual machine to be imported into vCloud Director using the auto-import vCloud Director logic instead of using the vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager logic.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, stop all active replications for the affected vApp and move the troublesome virtual machine to a vApp that is created by vCloud Availability vApp Replication Manager by using the vCloud Director user interface.

  • If a synchronization is in progress, tenant users cannot power on a protected virtual machine.

    Virtual machine disks are locked during synchronization for virtual machines that are powered off. Locked disks prevent tenant users from powering on virtual machines until the Sync operation completes.

    Workaround: None. To avoid being affected by this issue, power virtual machines on before you initiate a synchronization.

  • After you successfully configure replications, you observe Recovery Point Objective (RPO) violations. The following tasks appears in the vSphere Web Client of your backing vCenter Server instance:

    Task Name : Disable replication of virtual machineInitiater Name --> com.vmware.vcHms 

    When you configure replications by using the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR 1.5 solution to or from a backing vCenter Server with either a standalone vSphere Replication earlier than 6.5 or vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 1.x, vSphere Replication disables these replications.

    vSphere Replication versions earlier than 6.5 browse all replications that exist in the source vCenter Server instance and disables any replication that is not available in its database.

    Workaround: To work around this issue, you have the following options:

    • Upgrade your standalone vSphere Replication instance to version 6.5 or upgrade your vCloud Availability for vCloud Director solution to version 2.0.x.
    • Use a different vCenter Server instance for your vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR environment.
    • Use a different vCenter Server instance for your standalone vSphere Replication instance prior version 6.5 or for your vCloud Availability for vCloud Director 1.x solution.
  • If you use the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal, you cannot configure a replication by using a virtual machine or vApp seed.

    If you use the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR portal and try to configure a new vApp or virtual machine replication by using a seed that exists in the target vCloud Director VDC, the seed selection does not take effect. The virtual machine disks are copied to the target site and the seed also remains stored in the target VDC.

    Workaround: To configure a new vApp or virtual machine replication by using a seed, use the vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR API. For more information, see the vCloud Availability API Reference.

  • Selecting the Discover vCloud Director Service address automatically option is not possible.

    When you reconfigure a vCloud Director instance to work with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR, you can select to discover vCloud Director details automatically or to enter the required details manually. 

    When you edit the address of vCloud Director in the vCloud Director Details window, by default, none of the options is selected and selecting the Discover vCloud Director Service address automatically option does not take effect.

    Workaround: To set up vCloud Director with vCloud Availability for Cloud-to-Cloud DR automatically, in the vCloud Director Details window, click Apply. Clicking Apply without making a selection enforces the automatic discovery of vCloud Director details.

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