vmware code is using deprecated API that may not handle inventories over 100 items properly

[Shawn Hartsock]

Several VMwareAPI methods used to return an array of all results which could cause problems on extremely large inventories. New replacement API use scrollable results that return chunks of managed object results to be scrolled through. These new methods end in "Ex" and should be used in place of the previous methods when available.

The following code is using deprecated API that should be rewritten to use newer API

https://github.com/openstack/nova/blob/master/nova/virt/vmwareapi/vim_util.py#L146
https://github.com/openstack/nova/blob/master/nova/virt/vmwareapi/vim_util.py#L175
https://github.com/openstack/nova/blob/master/nova/virt/vmwareapi/vim_util.py#L220

See:
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.wssdk.apiref.doc/vmodl.query.PropertyCollector.html?path=7_0_0_2_5_17_2#retrieveContents
... reference RetrieveProperties and RetrievePropertiesEX

[Shawn Hartsock (hartsock)]

Could someone else confirm this for me?

[Shawn Hartsock (hartsock)]

I've moved this up in priority as some people are talking about inventories of 1,000 virtual machines. This will cause issues with inventory sizes that big.

[Gary Kotton (garyk)]

Review is - https://review.openstack.org/#/c/36411/

[Shawn Hartsock (hartsock)]

These have been deprecated since vSphere API (vCenter + ESX API combined) version 4.1 was released back in 2010 so I would love to see these deprecated API killed off completely.

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Reviewed: https://review.openstack.org/36411
Committed: http://github.com/openstack/nova/commit/e331287cdd1300878bfb9bbb3630889370e5fa72
Submitter: Jenkins
Branch: master

commit e331287cdd1300878bfb9bbb3630889370e5fa72
Author: Gary Kotton <email address hidden>
Date: Tue Jul 9 23:55:32 2013 -0700

    Use RetrievePropertiesEx instead of RetrieveProperties

    Fixes bug 1183654

    The fix also adds a configuration variable enabling the user to
    configure the maximum amount of objects that can be retrieved by
    the aforementioned function.

    When using RetrievePropertiesEx the server may allocate resources
    in case additional calls are made. These are addressed by reading the
    extra resources using ContinueRetrievePropertiesEx (if necessary)
    or CancelRetrievePropertiesEx (when the necessary result has been found).

    DocImpact

    Change-Id: I894d9698461b0ce22b01211fd196f6c32899a8fd

[OpenStack Infra (hudson-openstack)]

Fix proposed to branch: stable/grizzly
Review: https://review.openstack.org/45203