How do I link an unlinked virtual machine?

[sinage]

This is an issue for customers using Flexnet Manager Suite 2018.

Inventory of the virtual environment is collected by vCenter, but inventory cannot be collected regularly due to customer circumstances.
And, each time a new Virtual machine is created, inventory collection is performed.
That results a new Virtual machine is created that does not link to the Host.
Even if I linked manually to the Virtual machine and the Host , the link result will not be left in FNMS because the inventory result to vCenter collected in the past will be regularly overwritten.
I know that the best solution is to periodically gather inventory in vCenter, but for customer's reasons this is very difficult.
Is there any solution?

Thank you.

P.S
I posted this question on the wrong board, so I have just posted it here.

[mfranz]

Hi,

So just be clear about your problem. Because vCenter isn't imported regularly, some VMs are not linked to their hosts correctly. And also manual links are overwritten by FNMS?

You might want to consider:

a) an automation to re-link VMs and hosts for you, e.g. a Business Import

• You'll need a template or something to be regularly updated with the linking details
• timing is essential, you'll want to run this auf Inventory Import, but before License Reconciliation
• This could produce a lot of compliance history entries (link - unlink), maybe update logging settings

or

b) a sustainable solution to augment your inventory data

I don't have tested anything like that yet, but maybe a dummy inventory connection could be used to slip FNMS some virtualization data (ImportedComputer, ImportedVirtualMachine). That way the virtualization information could "survive" inventory imports.

Best regards,

Markward

[mrichardson]

Are you able to provide insights into why it's difficult to gather the vCenter inventory regularly?  We might be able to offer guidance on how to address those situations that would avoid you having to put in place any workarounds.

For example, if it's network problems, there is an EsxQuery tool which can run locally on the vCenter to collect the ndi file and you can then just collect that and import it.

Alternatively, the ideas from Markward sound like they are worth looking into however could be tricky if you're not familiar with setting up that sort of process.

[sinage]

Thank you reply!

And sorry for late reply.

to Markward

As I thought , it is better way that import  VMs and Hosts Re-link by using One off Import.
I will consider this method.

to mrichardson
The customer is a financial business.
So it is difficult for them to collect inventory on a regular basis because collecting inventory for vCenter requires permission for each operation.(Similarly for VMs inventory collection)
I would suggest to customers to collect vCenter inventory every time they collect VMs inventory too.

Thank you