I ran in to this error today that the ssl certificate verification failed. Or to be more precise:

Failed to connect to VMware Lookup Service.
SSL certificate verification failed.

I had been playing around in my lab and I am guessing this error was caused by the fact that I changed the hostname of my vCenter Server Appliance after configuring it. When I rebooted the VCVA I bumped in to this issue. Luckily it is very easy to solve:

1. Go to http://<vcenter ip address or fqdn>:5480
2. Click “Admin” Tab
3. Click “Toggle certificate setting” under “Actions”
4. Restart the vCenter Server Appliance
5. During the restart the certificates will be regenerated
6. Click “Admin” Tab and disable the “Toggle certificate setting”