Hello,
I have run into a problem with the export/import routine for vSphere Distributed Switches. The export works great, but the import with "Preserve original distributed switch and port group identifiers" does not seem to actually preserve all of the dvPortGroup identifiers. As a result, certain applications will break if they expect the dvPortGroup identifiers to remain identical (such as Citrix and VMware Site Recovery Manager). This occurred at a customer site (on vCenter 5.5U2), and I was able to easily reproduce it in our lab (running vCenter 6.0). The only way to view the identifiers is to use PowerCLI, so I was able to capture the identifiers "before" and "after" the import. Basically I created a VDS with a few dvPortGroups, exported the config, and then deleted the VDS, and imported it using the "Preserve original distributed switch and port group identifiers". The result is that the "imported" VDS has mis-matching values for the "Key, "Id," and "Uid" numbers. This is what seems to break Citrix and VMware Site Recovery Manager. The work-around is to delete and re-create all the dvPortGroups (which gives them brand new identifiers), and then re-configure Citrix and VMware SRM. This works, but it is time consuming and sort of renders the VDS export/import routine useless. I am curious if this is a known bug and whether VMware is going to fix it. Anyone know? I don't see a whole lot of value for the export/import routine if things are going to break...
Below are my "before" and "after" results:
BEFORE (notice the matching numbers):
VlanConfiguration : VLAN 123
Name : TestServers123
ExtensionData : VMware.Vim.DistributedVirtualPortgroup
Key : dvportgroup-4928
Notes :
Datacenter : Primary Site
PortBinding : Static
NumPorts : 8
VDSwitch : TestVDS
IsUplink : False
Id : DistributedVirtualPortgroup-dvportgroup-4928
Uid : /VIServer=lab\vmware@labvc01:443/DistributedPortgroup=
DistributedVirtualPortgroup-dvportgroup-4928/
Client : VMware.VimAutomation.Vds.Impl.V1.VDClientImpl
VirtualSwitch : TestVDS
AFTER (notice the mis-matched value between "Key" and "Id"):
VlanConfiguration : VLAN 123
Name : TestServers123
ExtensionData : VMware.Vim.DistributedVirtualPortgroup
Key : dvportgroup-4928
Notes :
Datacenter : Primary Site
PortBinding : Static
NumPorts : 8
VDSwitch : TestVDS
IsUplink : False
Id : DistributedVirtualPortgroup-dvportgroup-4932
Uid : /VIServer=lab\vmware@labvc01:443/DistributedPortgroup=
DistributedVirtualPortgroup-dvportgroup-4932/
Client : VMware.VimAutomation.Vds.Impl.V1.VDClientImpl
VirtualSwitch : TestVDS