vRA7 - Bulk Import not working

[Michael_Rudloff]

Hi Guys,

I have a vRA 7 environment where I am trying to import some VMs using the Bulk Import feature which doesn't seem to be working. I have already applied the patch in KB2144526 to no avail (not really related to my issue anyway).

Example - two VMs:

Both additional IPs have been added to the Network Profile (10.10.0.100 / 10.10.0.103)

I also included the following from the Release Notes

I have created the resulting CSV with the following content (auto generated) and added the above suggestion and also the network mapping as per official documentation

Edit Virtual Machine CSV Data File

# Import--Yes or No, Virtual Machine Name, Virtual Machine ID, Host Reservation (Name or ID), Host To Storage (Name or ID), Deployment ID, Converged Blueprint ID, Component Blueprint ID, Blueprint (Name or ID), Owner Name[, Property Name, Property Value, (H|N)(E|O)(R|P)]* Where (H|N) - Hidden/Not Hidden; (E|O) - Encrypted/Not Encrypted; (R|P) - Runtime/Not Runtime. e.g. HOP = Hidden & Not Encrypted & Not Runtime

Yes,Random02,54ce124d-2f01-4069-84ae-b6d3c0c0c50f,Default Reservation,NFS,UNNAMED_DEPLOYMENT,Win2012R2Std,Server2012R2Std,system_blueprint_vsphere,vra7-user@vspherelab.co.uk,VMWare.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem,VirtualMachine.Network0.Address, 10.10.0.100, HOP

Yes,Random01,87b8013b-73a4-409c-90e9-f7081ed7ad6d,Default Reservation,NFS,UNNAMED_DEPLOYMENT,Win2012R2Std,Server2012R2Std,system_blueprint_vsphere,vra7-user@vspherelab.co.uk,VMWare.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem,VirtualMachine.Network0.Address, 10.10.0.103, HOP

The import itself succeeds

But the virtual machine remains unassigned to a Blueprint

We need to get this working as we will need to perform the import with a high profile client and thus far we have not managed to import one virtual machine successfully.

I have then had another look at the lines and there are three Blueprint related entries in the CSV

Converged Blueprint ID, Component Blueprint ID, Blueprint (Name or ID)

The generated CSV has the following entries

Win2012R2Std,Server2012R2Std,system_blueprint_vsphere

This is based on the generated form here :

I have tried to replace

system_blueprint_vsphere

With the Blueprint name manually (tried both name and ID) , but the import simply fails

The name should be correct as it has been auto-populated as you can see above.

Could someone please point me into the right direction as to how we can get this resolved prior doing so in a production environment ?

[BryanHalter]

Based on the example CSV file, the custom properties aren't correctly defined. It should be:

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem, rhel7 (or whatever the os is), HOP, VirtualMachine.Network0,Address, 10.10.0.100, HOP

In other words, the property name was provided, but the value and flags were not

paulhowes‌

[Michael_Rudloff]

Thanks, I will try again. Where do I find the OS identifier ? In KB2037845 it mentions the SDK but I don't find this value, nor OS types like 2012/R2 etc. I guess it is windows8Server64Guest so yea - will try that and see if it assigns the Blueprint correctly.

Also I hear there are some related bugs solved in 7.0.1 so I hope we will have a working solution soon (which works with create / import CSV), but I shall try the new string and see what happens. BryanHalter‌ paulhowes‌

Thank you a lot ..

[Michael_Rudloff]

They still remain unassigned

Yes,Random02,54ce124d-2f01-4069-84ae-b6d3c0c0c50f,Default Reservation,NFS,UNNAMED_DEPLOYMENT,Win2012R2Std,Server2012R2Std,system_blueprint_vsphere,vra7-admin@vspherelab.co.uk,VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem,windows8Server64Guest,HOP,VirtualMachine.Network0,Address,10.10.0.100,HOP

Unless there is still a mistake in the above string I will probably have no choice but to wait for 7.0.1 and hope it fixes the issues. I also noticed that the workflow to do this doesn't even ask for the blueprint. The UI obviously does, but it seems to ignore it.

[vmwaredownload]

Thanks Michael, I am facing the same issues and have tired almost all of the steps you have listed.

Looks like we need to wait for an update.

[Michael_Rudloff]

Well the PDF has already been updated to 7.0.1

One can hope it drops soon.

[Michael_Rudloff]

I have upgraded the environment to vRA 7.0.1 this morning and Bulk Imports still don’t seem to work. Although they do fail ‘differently’.

The import now gets stuck at ‘Registering’ .. When I check the logs, there are quite a few different exceptions.

I have tried both CSVs .. the original exported one and amended one which includes custom properties as above.

Any help is appreciated ..

[Michael_Rudloff]

May have found the problem with the issue faced in 7.0.1. It seems the used blueprint has multiple components whereas it only must have one.

Needs more testing but I removed the network components from a blueprint which seems to have done it.

[Sudhakar_M_K]

Hi,

You might be right about the reason for failure being the multiple components in the blueprint.

I was able to get this working with blueprints that have a single VM component. Import fails if there are network components or more than one VM.

I wonder if this is a bug, because I would really like to import multiple machines to form a single deployment.

Cheers

[Michael_Rudloff]

I doubt it is a bug as the single component requirement is actually in the documentation.

Import a Virtual Machine to a vRealize Automation Environment

[spyder94]

Was this ever resolved?  I believe I'm running into a similar problem.  The bulk import seems to completely ignore the Deployment ID field in the csv so it tries to put everything into UNNAMED_DEPLOYMENT, which only works for the first machine.  All the others get an error.

It was mentioned in one of the posts in this thread that the workflow that is called appears to ignore the deployment id.  What workflow is it and how did you find it?

[Michael_Rudloff]

Have a look in my article

http://open902.com/vra7-import-unmanaged-virtual-machines-from-vsphere/

It works for me in 7.0.1

[spyder94]

I found that article several days ago, very helpful and a great write up.  But I'm still having these issues.  I'm not doing any static IP addresses and I'm not adding any custom properties but otherwise I've followed your post exactly.

[Michael_Rudloff]

Static IPs etc., are optional .. So you can just remove these bits (well, not add them to begin with)

So as above, you gave each VM in your CSV a unique name instead of UNNAMED_DEPLOYMENT and ignores it ? That is a bit odd .. Since I upgraded to 7.0.1 it finally worked as it should so not sure what to suggest.

Do you hit maybe a limit ? How many VMs do you try to import ?

[spyder94]

I'm only trying to get it to import a single machine at this point just to verify it works.  We haven't upgraded to 7.0.1 yet but we're looking into it right now.

[Michael_Rudloff]

Not sure how VMware QA'd 7.0 but the bulk import is effectively broken in 7.0 and you need 7.0.1 to make it work.

I had an SR with VMware for a while and was effectively told to wait for the 0.1 release and that did fix it.

If you can, setup a 7.0.1 test environment and import a test VM to prove it, but you may as well stop trying to get 7.0 working as it will just end up being very frustrating ...

[Michael_Rudloff]

Also, you'll see there are at least three bugs fixed regarding bulk imports - including nasty ones causing data loss.

[vpaw]

Was this ever resolved?  Also having similar issues with 7.0.1, but wondering why an imported machine goes through the build phases as if it's a new VM in case anyone has the answer to that.