VMDK File Replacement

[jrackliffe]

We have the need to reimage existing VMs, but since the BIOS is not exposed via the VI SDK we usually drop the VirtualDisk and recreate a new one so the lack of Partion table forces the VM onto the CD. That works w/o issue, but it seems that I should just be able to the DeviceConfigSpec update/replace to just replace the BackingInfofileObject instead of the whole DataObject.

Thus far I have not been successful with the methods I have tried as I always get a Param error on the Device from VC.

Anyone have a solution using the SOAP interfaces that would replace the backing file for an existing disk and relink?

Is there some magic param I am not using on the DeviceConfigSpec update/replace?

J

[dmhaynes]

I was not able to find one. There is a replace FileOperation but it does not seem to work for disk backing stores.

I would take the fact that the Virtual Client only allows a drop/add on the backing store to be a strong indicator that replace does not work yet. Perhaps in 3.5?