Replica doesn't include CD/DVD drive settings

[VladV]

I stumbled upon this issue when we migrated all our VMs from one storage to another. After migration we tried to unmount the old datastores, but we couldn't remove one. We looked high and low and finally we saw what was keeping the datastore locked, but only after we forcefully disconnected the old storage.

The culprit was the CD/DVD ISO mounts that resided on the datastore and were once used with some production VMs, but removed long before the unmount attempt. Now, the only VMs that had these mounts, were the replicas of the production VMs mentioned which seem not to replicate the state of this device (CD/DVD drive). I've tried to: remove the device; change it to host; add another iso to the production VM and run the replication job, but the old setting (with the ISO residing on the old datastore) still remain after every replication. I even tried to modify the replica itself, but immediately after the replication job, the ISO appears.

Because of this I have the datastore present in vCenter > Datastores and Datastore Clusters, but not on the ESXi themselves.

Changing CPUs or RAM modifies the replica also so it seems that only the CD/DVD is ignored.

Should I file a support request for this or this is how it was designed?

Thanks

[foggy]

Vlad, it's better to contact support with this. I'm not sure whether ISO mounts should be replicated at all (even on initial job run), so it would be appreciated if you initiate investigation. Thanks.

[VladV]

Ok, I will contact support.

But just to be sure I made myself understood. I am not saying that the ISO file is being replicated. I am saying that in the replica settings, the CD/DVD appears to have the ISO mounted when the source VM has the CD/DVD set to Host or even deleted.

[foggy]

Yes, I'm talking about the same setting. Though, after asking around some more, this seems to be an issue with replicating the changes of this setting, as you've initially supposed. So, anyway, contacting support would be the right step.

[VladV]

We opened a support ticket for this issue. The Case # is 00662167.

It seems that this is by design and the advice was to remove the replicas from VBR inventory and rerun the jobs which would create new replicas without the CD/DVD settings.

For other people having issues with this here is what I have done to keep the same names for the replicas:

- Removed the replicas from VBR (without deletion). !Warning!, this removes the source VMs from the Replication Jobs (see below). Be sure to take note of which VMs are processed by which replication job.
- Renamed the replicas in vCenter (added -temp to each name).
- When starting the jobs I have found out that they lost their "Virtual Machines to Replicate" aka the source VMs, so I added them back to each of the replication jobs.
- Restarted the jobs.

The result was that I had the same naming as before with additional replicas named xxx-temp, which I later deleted after being sure the new replicas were OK.

My suggestion for Support was not to include the CD/DVD settings in the first place if it is not updated with each replication job.

Regards,
Vlad

[foggy]

Thanks, Vlad. I'm not sure this is by design though, I've asked QC to look at this closer when they have resources.

[veremin]

Turned out to be a bug. We're discussing now when to fix it. Thanks!