Re-registration of unregistered machines

[TimDScott]

I have a scenario where the tool that we use to restore vcenter VM backups is causing vRA managed machines to become unregistered (it deletes and re-creates the VM, so the Id's change).

What I'm trying to do is re-register the machine after the restore operation has completed. I have a vRO workflow that initiates the restore, so I'm looking to add some functionality to the end of the process to do the re-registration.

I've found the built-in workflow "Import vCenter Virtual Machine" (in Library\vRealize Automation\Infrastructure Administration\Extensilbility\Discovery), this seems to do the trick for machines that are present in the iaas infrastructure, but when a machine is de-registered it is removed from here (as well as the deployment in vRA). It takes a few hours for the machine to be re-discovered. After that point, I can run the import workflow and all is good again.

I found another workflow "Run Endpoint Hosts Discovery" (in Library\vRealize Automation\Infrastructure Administration\Extensilbility\Administration\Endpoints) but running this does not seem to initiate the iaas infrastructure discovery.

I guess my question is how to either; kick off the iaas infrastructure discovery process or maybe insert the machine into the iaas infrastructure via code?

This is on v7.5 / 7.6

[stevedrummond · Accepted solution]

Look at the workflow /Library/vRealize Automation/Infrastructure Administration/Extensibility/Force data collection.

You select the vCAC:Host (essentially your Infrastructure > Compute Resources > Compute Resources objects) and it kicks off all data collections for it.

Obviously you can write some simple code to get the right host and you can also clone the logic if you only want to kick off the Inventory collection.

[TimDScott]

Missed that workflow! Thanks again Steve it works a treat