Accidently deleted replica VM in ESXi, now orphaned VM in VC

[dcolpitts]

Ok - I'll admit it - I messed up and did something stupid. I accidentally removed (not deleted, but removed from inventory) one of my replica VMs (MARS_replica) off the host I replicate to while vCenter wasn't running (it was rebooting for a patch). Now I have two fold problem. First vCenter shows the replica as orphaned. I know I can fix that buy removing it from inventory then re-adding it. But the question is - when I re-add it, it is going to end up with a new VM ID - is this going screw up the replica job when it runs again? I'd rather not have that VM reseed over the WAN if I can avoid it. So can I just re-add it to inventory, or do I need to edit SQL to update it's VM ID? And if so - which table is it in?

dcc

[dellock6]

Dean, once you have restored the replica VM, you can edit the replica job for this VM and enable "replica seeding" in the first step. A new step called "Seeding will appear" later in the wizard, here you can select "replica mapping" and point the source VM to the restore replica VM by editing the mapping. This should avoid the complete initial replica and allow for a delta replica.

[dcolpitts]

Thanks Luca... Actually just the "detect" button appears to have done the job for all 10 VMs. We'll see what the morning brings now. I'm curious if it will create an additional new VM (i.e. VM_replica_1) as I had this issue last week when I was originally messing around with setting it up or it will just keep using VM_replica. Time will tell I guess.

dcc

[Vitaliy S.]

Dean, the easiest way to say whether it is going to be a full replication cycle or not is to check VM status in vCenter Server when you add it back to the inventory of the host. If you have two VMs (one orphaned and another one with a new prefix), then seeding should be a way to go in this situation.