Resolving Orphan Virtual Machines

AvailabilityGuard may show a host as an orphan virtual machine (VM) in step 4 of the configuration wizard. In the context of AvailabilityGuard, an orphan VM is a virtual machine or partition that AvailabilityGuard is unable to detect its underlying physical host. 

This article describes common configuration issues that result in orphan VMs and how to resolve them -

• A required virtual infrastructure management system is not scanned
• Manually defined / imported hosts
• VM Migration

A required virtual infrastructure management system is not scanned

When the target scan scope includes VMs or partitions, it is important to include the appropriate management system in the scan scope, as follows:

• For virtual machines on ESXi servers, VMware vCenter should be scanned.
• For virtual machines on Hyper-V servers, Microsoft SCVMM should be scanned
• For AIX / PowerVM lpars, IBM HMC should be scanned.
• For Solaris zones, the Solaris global server should be scanned.
• For Oracle VM (LDOM), the Control Domain server should be scanned.

Manually defined / imported hosts

Virtual machines and partitions should be automatically discovered by scanning the relevant management systems, and not manually added.
If VMs were already manually added, it is recommended to perform the following steps:

• Delete the VMs through the View Hosts () dialogue in Step 1 of the Configuration Wizard.
• Configure and scan the appropriate virtual infrastructure management system (vCenter, SCVMM, IBM HMC, etc.)
• Previously deleted VMs should now re-appear in the list of hosts but not as orphan. VMs should appear with the correct value for the Physical Host column.
• Take care to re-associate the VMs with an enabled Scan Group.

VM Migration

When a VM is migrated and the managing vCenter system changes, VM may appear as orphan. To resolve this status, perform the following steps:

• Ensure the current managing vCenter is scanned.
• In Step 1 of the Configuration Wizard, click View Hosts () and then Migrate Virtual Machines (). Mark the checkbox for VMs that have been migrated and click OK.