VADP backups fail with invalid username/password

I recently came across an issue where a series of VADP backups are failing with error messages in the NetWorker messages log relating to invalid username/password. This all started after the customer upgraded vCenter from 5.0 to release 5.5.

Use the following procedure to resolve the issue:

  1. Re-install NetWorker client on the vCenter. If vCenter is aslo a storage node, make sure to re-install NetWorker storage node component.
  2. If there is only one vCenter to be used for backup, make sure to have one Hypervisor resource associated with this vCenter
  3. Make sure to specify the domain name if the vCenter administrator account is a domain admin account
  4. Run a test to validate that NetWorker can connect to vCenter with the specified account.
  5. If test successful, perform a VADP test backup