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tbarn
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Director 5.5.1 - Can't see storage policies (or their datastores/clusters) created in vCenter 5.5

This is a fresh install of vcenter 5.5 & Director 5.5.1, when I first linked the vcenter into director I can see the storage policies I'd created along with their datastores but if I then edit any storage policies on the vcenter I can't see any of them anymore when trying to add them to vDCs and the *(any) option no longer shows any of the datastores that were part of them either, even if I remove the storage policies and their tags from vcenter.  As an experiment I tried dismantling everything from director and re-adding the vcenter, I could once again see the storage policies but any further edits make them disappear again.  I've tried refreshing the vcenter storage policies as per another similar post but this doesn't help.

Is there maybe some residual relationship with the old storage profiles methods that needs to be maintained?  I tried creating those through the windows client as well but couldn't see them in director either.  Is it a problem that I can't see storage profiles in the web client or storage policies in the windows client?

Am I missing something?  At this point I'm tempted to blow away the 5.5.1 director and install a 5.5 appliance instead to see if that has any effect.

One further question:  Should I be able to see empty storage policies in Director?  (as in ones that are setup and tagged but there aren't any datastores associated yet?)  This would go a long way where I should be trouble shooting if I should be able to.

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IamTHEvilONE
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The process is rather easy, but requires a brief outage and access to the DB to clear some tables.  it's much akin to a browser cache ... clear it, and the next time it's a full download from the remote system.

I'm working on a document for this issue

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IamTHEvilONE
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Any should show all the datastore in the vCenter so long as it's still attached to your provider vDC.

If you remove the Any (*) profile from a provider, you cannot add it back in because it's a temporary placeholder until you create actual storage profiles/classes.

Also note:

1. For vCenter 5.1.x you create the Storage Profiles in the C# client.

2. For vCenter 5.5.x you create the Storage Classes and tags in the Web Client.

the process, generally speaking:

- create tag

- assign tag to datastores

- assign tag to profile

- enable storage profiles on the cluster

Once created and tagged, you would add the Profile to the Provider vDC (Manage/Monitor > Provider > double click it > Storage Profiles > [ + ] ).  you might have to formally refresh storage profiles from vCenter section first, and wait a few minutes for things to update in the database.

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cfor
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Storage polices have to be created and edited from the webgui (the windows client ones will not show as they are the "old style") - not sure if that if you problem, but that will cause issues as both clients allow your to change them, but they are not the same thing at all.

In order for storage policies to show you need to do the following:

in vcenter webgui (MUST be done from this client)

create a TAG category that allows for datastores to be assigned it

create a few TAG for storage types, ie "General Storage", "Fast Special Storage", "Storage for Bob" - make sure they are in the new category created above

assign the new storage tags to datastores

in vcloud (manage/vcenters)

rightclick on vCenter and reconnect

rightclick on vCenter and refresh storage policies

in vcloud (manage/priovder vdcs)

open a provide vDC - select "Storage Policies" - Click the "+" add button, and hopefully your storage will show as an option for the provider.

*if you think it might be a conflict type issue, use new names to rule that out.

Hope that helps, otherwise sounds like something broke, and might need to review logs or open support case.

ChrisF (VCP4, VCP5, VCP-Cloud) - If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful
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tbarn
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(New Edit:  Disregard this post, the issue wasn't resolved or relevant to what I thought it was below, keep reading to IamTHEvilONE's link to the KB that identifies and gives instructions to resolve the issue)

Hi Guys thank you for your replies.  I'd setup the Tags, storage policies and such in the recommended order but I do appreciate the clearing up that you don't need to take the datastore clusters just the datastores and also thank you for clarifying there is no further use of the C# client's storage profile area.  I'd tried the resetting and reconnecting as recommended in other posts but no solution presented itself.

I did fix the problem though!  (I think!)

I am running things out of recommended spec and I realized this might have caused the issue and confirmed things are working now:  I am running the vShield Manager as an appliance on the same host pool as the vcloud's intended Provider VDC.  When I was adding the Provider VDC I was shutting that appliance down prior to getting the hosts reconfigured (otherwise it was blocking the host it was on from upgrading) and that is likely what the problem was.  This time I made sure vMotion was available and shifted the appliance to a host that finished the addin process before its first home's upgrade attempt's timer had run out.  Now all the hosts are properly incorporated into the director while the vshield manager remained online.

When I add a new tag & storage profile (and tag a datastore, won't show up otherwise) it shows up as an option!  I'll report back though if I'm just preemptively calling this situation fixed.

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ChrisPD
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Im also seeing something very similar. Ive got four datastores. I can create a storage policy and apply tags, I can see all the datastores in vCloud 5.5 fine. I can then go and create a datastore cluster using two of them, this also shows up in vCloud fine. However if i then take those datastores back out of the cluster they vanish from vCloud. The other two datastores that were not added to the cluster are still visible in vCloud but i am completely unable to add the other two back in. Tried refreshing storage policies, reconnecting vcenter, also removing and reapplying tags, tried putting them back in the datastore cluster but still gone. Anyone got any ideas?

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tbarn
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I wanted to come back and confirm that what I first though was the solution isn't in fact the problem and I'm still facing the same issues.

Adding tags to datastores and then creating storage policies worked for me until I tried to remove a storage policy from vCloud, after that I can still create storage policies but vCloud does not acknowledge them or any datastores that are tagged.  The existing ones are still visible but again I cannot add any new policies which means I can't add any more storage via new storage policies.  I can create a new storage policy based on an existing tag so it seems like vCloud won't recognize new tags themselves or anything associated with them.

This is a huge problem and I am opening a support ticket because this is a real show stopper.

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IamTHEvilONE
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You'll probably have to clear inventory cache out of the database.  Support can help you do that.

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ChrisPD
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Just cleared out the inventory cache and can confirm this fixed it for me (so cheers IamTHEvilONE), however i can recreate the problem on demand by putting datastores in and out of a datastore cluster.

It looks like the cache isnt updating and theres no way to force an inventory sync or clear down (apart from manually) that cache.

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IamTHEvilONE
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Yes, there is an issue in updating the inventory cache when you move a datastore into and out of a Storage Cluster.  Clearing the cache is a workaround, and we are still looking into a more long term fix.  I cannot comment further on the matter via the forums, but you can add weight/priority to the fix by creating a support request and ensuring support knows about it.

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tbarn
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Excellent, I hope this is going to fix it for me as well(I do not know how to clear that cache), I filed a support ticket earlier today and just waiting for an engineer to get back to me, I added a note to the support ticket that references this thread.

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IamTHEvilONE
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The process is rather easy, but requires a brief outage and access to the DB to clear some tables.  it's much akin to a browser cache ... clear it, and the next time it's a full download from the remote system.

I'm working on a document for this issue

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tbarn
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Your support engineer gave me the instructions on how to accomplish that cache clearing and it definitely fixed my issues, I can now see all the storage policies I'd been trying since deleting that first one a few days ago.  Much appreciated!

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IamTHEvilONE
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New article is published for this issue:

Title: Datastores are not accessible in a VMware vCloud Director Org Virtual DataCenter

URL: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2075366