Unable to authenticate with paired remote vCenter server when launching the VMware Site Recovery Manager plug-in

Problem

You have SRM 4.1.1 (Site Recovery Manager) fully deployed at your production and disaster recovery site but noticed that upon logging into either of the 2 SRM servers, you get prompted with:

Enter login credentials for the remote vCenter Server

If you try to use the format:

domainFQDN\username (contoso.local\someAdminAccount)

You receive the error:

Login failed due to a bad username or password 

You try restarting vCenter again to try the format:

username@domainFQDN (someAdminAccount@contoso.com)

… but it fails with:

Lost connection to remote vCenter Server due to invalid credentials.

Please reconfigure the site connection with valid credentials.

… and doesn’t let you try again: 

You restart vCenter again and try the format:

username (someAdminAccount)

… and it fails again with:

Lost connection to remote vCenter Server due to invalid credentials.

Please reconfigure the site connection with valid credentials.

… without allowing you to try again.

Solution 

The window that prompts for authentication is actually expected behavior but in order to be able to successfully authenticate with the remote vCenter whether it’s the protected or recovery site, you need to use the following format:

NetBIOS\username (contoso\someAdminAccount)

The connection should successfully establish once you use the format above to authenticate with the remote paired site.