Attempt to Power On a Migrated vApp Fails Because the Associated Protocol Profile Is Missing

You cannot power on a vApp or virtual machine that you transferred to a data center or a vCenter Server system because a network protocol profile is missing.

Problem

After you cold migrate a vApp or a virtual machine to another data center or vCenter Server system, an attempt to power it on fails. An error message states that a property cannot be initialized or allocated because the network of the vApp or virtual machine does not have an associated network protocol profile.

Cannot initialize property 'property'. Network 'port group' has no associated network protocol profile. 

Cannot allocate IP address for property 'property'. Network 'port group' has no associated network protocol profile.

Cause

By using the OVF environment, the vApp or virtual machine retrieves network settings from a network protocol profile that is associated with the port group of the vApp or virtual machine.

vCenter Server creates such a network protocol profile for you when you install the OVF of a vApp and associates the profile with the port group that you specify during the installation.

The mapping between the protocol profile and port group is valid only in the scope of a data center. When you move the vApp, the protocol profile is not transferred to the target data center because of the following reasons:

• The network settings of the protocol profile might not be valid in the network environment of the target data center.
• A port group that has the same name and is associated with another protocol profile might already exist in the target data center, and vApps and virtual machines might be connected to this group. Replacing the protocol profiles for the port group might affect the connectivity of these vApp and virtual machines.

Solution

• Create a network protocol profile on the target data center or vCenter Server system with the required network settings and associate the protocol profile with the port group to which the vApp or virtual machine is connected. For example, this approach is suitable if the vApp or virtual machine is a vCenter Server extension that uses the vCenter Extension vService.

  For information about providing network settings to a vApp or virtual machine from a network protocol profile, see the vSphere Networking documentation.

• Use the vSphere Web Client to export the OVF file of the vApp or virtual machine from the source data center or vCenter Server system and deploy it on the target data center or vCenter Server system.

  When you use the vSphere Web Client to deploy the OVF file, the target vCenter Server system creates the network protocol profile for the vApp.

  For information about managing OVF files in the vSphere Web Client, see the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.