We've discussed vSphere Tags and Custom Attributes a couple times before: vSphere Tags on Clusters in Aria Operations vSphere Cluster Custom Attributes in VCF Operations Both are very powerful, yet quite different in terms of how they present in VCF Operations. Let's have a look, all screenshots here are taken from VCF Operations 9.0.2. Here is a VM in my lab with both Tags and Custom Attributes on it. Over in VCF Operations, they look like this. The Properties themselves l

VCF Automation Network Profiles are a powerful way to define networks and associated settings to Cloud Accounts and/or Regions. I've recently deployed VCF Automation 8.18.1 (but this also works for VCF Automation 9 VM Apps) and would like to start deploying VMs on an IP Block for testing purposes. Here's how I did it. I first setup my Cloud Account via Assembler - Infrastructure - Connections - Cloud Accounts. This is your connection to the vCenter you'll be deploying VMs

We've discussed exporting/importing content from VCF Operations a couple times: vROps Content Management and the Suite-API Aria Operations Content Management I'd like to highlight a few things here when individually exporting/importing VCF Operations content. All screenshots here are taken from VCF Operations 9.0.2. The first use case is almost always Dashboards, and it needs to be highlighted that Dashboard exports do NOT include underlying Views. For example, let's export

We've discussed VCF Operations Alert Notifications many times before: Aria Operations and ServiceNow Send VMware Aria Operations Alerts to Slack Send Aria Operations Alerts to Google Chat Send vROps Alerts to Microsoft Teams vROps Alert Notifications vROps SNMP Plugin and ServiceNow I recently discovered DX Operational Observability ( DX O2 ), Broadcom's AI Ops and Observability platform which can help with Alert correlation and enrichment. DX O2 can receive Alerts from just

I've been using OpenAI ChatGPT for years now, but in recent months I've been hearing more and more about Anthropic Claude, so figured I'd check it out. VCF Operations Super Metrics is a perfect use case for Claude. While we've made the creation of Super Metrics much more intuitive than they used to be, they can still be tricky. Let's see how Claude does with them. We'll first start with an easy one, which is quite common, a Super Metric to calculate the average CPU Usage %

In VCF Operations 9 we've made the integration between VCF Operations and Operations for Logs even more robust. There are several different places you can view logs in VCF Operations, Infrastructure Operations - Analyze is the first. This provides the general logs viewing experience: y ou can search logs here, compare logs, save queries, use extracted fields, and more. This is similar to the experience from the Operations for Logs UI itself. The second place you'll find log

We've discussed VCF Operations Dynamic Thresholds (DTs) a few times, mostly going into the details of what DTs are and how they are calculated. Aria Operations Dynamic Thresholds VMware Aria Operations Dynamic Thresholding The New Way of Evaluating Dynamic Thresholds in Aria Operations In this blog I'd like to detail the use of DTs in VCF Operations Alert Definitions. In relation to this, it's important to highlight the last blog listed above, namely that Alert Definitions

As you've likely noticed, there are times your vSphere VMs won't have the same value for Guest OS from vCenter and Guest OS from Tools . Guest OS from vCenter is set at build/deployment time and won't change. Guest OS from Tools is updated as the OS changes, is upgraded, etc. I wanted to know which of my VMs had an OS mis-match, so I built a quick Dashboard. This works for small environments, but what if I had 1000s of VMs to check. Another way to discover VMs with OS m

We blogged about VM downtime a while back. That blog introduced a Super Metric that calculated VM downtime in minutes based on a 5m collection interval. I'd like to do something similar for VM downtime in hours and days, but I don't want to show those metrics with decimal values, but rather as integers. For example, if a VM has been down 3.2 hours I'd like to show that as 3 hours. Similarly, if a VM has been down for 1.6 days I'd like to show that was 1 day until it's ac

We've discussed the VCF Operations API and the Operations for Logs API several times over the years here, but haven't touched on the VCF Automation API. Today we're going to explore it. All screenshots here are taking from VCF Automation 8.18.1 Update 4 . First off, the VCF Automation 8.18.1 API can be found at https://yourvrafqdn/automation-ui/api-docs and looks like this. You'll notice tiles for many endpoints here, but we'll start with Identity, which will give us authe

I've upgraded to the latest patches for the Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager and vIDM: Applying Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.18 Patch 7 Applying CSP-102547 Patch to vIDM 3.3.7 I've upgraded Operations and Logs to 8.18.6: VCF Operations 8.18.6 VCF Operations for Logs 8.18.6 Next we'll apply Automation 8.18.1 Update 4 . There is a useful KB located here with binaries and instructions. I've uploaded the binaries to /data on my ASLCM VM and will now apply them. Click ADD and yo

We've discussed the VCF Operations Management Pack Builder (MPB) a few times so far: Aria Operations Management Pack Builder Building a Management Pack with the Aria Operations Management Pack Builder vROPs Management Pack Builder In this blog we'll detail the supported authentication methods and walk through an example of each, there are 5 total: No Authentication Basic Authentication Basic Authentication using Session Authentication Custom Authentication Custom Authenticati

We've discussed the new VCF Operations Fleet Manager introduced in VCF 9 a bunch already: VCF Operations 9 Password Management Updating VCF Operations Fleet Manager to 9.0.2 VCF Operations Fleet Manager Upgrade to 9.0.1 VCF Operations Fleet Manager SSH Connecting VCF Operations 9 Fleet Manager Deploying VCF Operations Fleet Manager via OVA Resetting the VCF Operations Fleet Manager admin@local Password Deploying Operations for Networks from VCF Operations Fleet Manager Deploy

VCF Operations 9 introduced the ability to manage VCF-related passwords from the Operations UI itself, here's what it looks like this. All screenshots here are taken from VCF Operations 9.0.2. You'll notice the VCF Management section first, this is the one that includes VCF Operations, Logs, Automation, and Fleet Manager. These passwords are monitored/managed through Fleet Manager itself. The UPDATE PASSWORD button is self-explanatory. The REMEDIATE PASSWORD button takes

Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.18 Patch 7 dropped last week, let's apply it! Log into the Broadcom Support Portal and get it here . You will also need the preparation script provided here . Once both of these have been downloaded you can SCP them up to /data on your ASLCM VM. First, run the script, mine looks like this. root@vrslcm-bpeterson [ /data ]# ./prep-for-upgrade-lcm_1769078228716.sh Checking for presence of /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/VMWARE-RPM-GPG-KEY ... Checking for pres

vIDM 3.3.7 Patch CSP-102457 recently dropped, let's apply it! Download it here . Like the KB says, once downloaded go ahead and upload it to /db/vidm-upgrade on the vIDM VM. I had to create this directory. Once uploaded, unzip it: unzip CSP-102547-Appliance-3.3.7-Patch.zip Once unzipped, cd to the new directory and run the script like this. cd CSP-102547-Appliance-3.3.7-Patch ./CSP-102547-patch-automation.sh -f CSP-102547-Appliance-3.3.7.zip -r This will apply the patch a

I've been searching for un-used capacity lately, specifically ESXi Hosts that aren't being fully used. Here's what I came up with, if you'd like this Dashboard you can get it here . It was built in VCF Operations 9.0.2. Top left I've captured ESXi Hosts showing CPU and Memory usage metrics, along with maximums over time using View Transformations. Once an ESXi Host has been selected all other widgets will be populated. Top right provides metadata for the selected ESXi Hos

I have a Custom Group of VMs and would like to know the number of total VMs in my environment minus the number of VMs in this Custom Group. I first considered a Super Metric against vSphere World taking Total VMs minus Custom Group Population (which is a metric on all Custom Groups), but there is no relationship between vSphere World and Custom Groups, so this didn't work. Alternatively, if I had a way to identify all VMs in my Custom Group I could use that, as VMs have a cl

VCF Operations 8.18.6 just dropped , let's apply it! Go the Broadcom Support Portal and download it here. Log into the Operations admin UI and take your Operations Cluster offline. Provide a Reason. Once done go to Software Update. Point to the new 8.18.6 binaries and UPLOAD. Click UPLOAD. Click NEXT. Click NEXT. Click FINISH. The upgrade will take about 10m. Once done, the Operations Cluster will be back online and look like this in the Admin UI. Notice we are now at 8.1

VCF Operations for Logs 8.18.6 just dropped , let's apply it! Log into the Broadcom Support Portal and download this. In this lab I don't have Aria Suite Lifecycle Manager, so we'll apply it locally. First, take a Snapshot of your VM/s. Then log into Operations for Logs and go to Management - Cluster. Select UPGRADE CLUSTER. Click UPGRADE and off we go. Agree to the EULA when asked. And we're done, took about 5m! Back on the Management - Cluster page it will look like thi

I was trying to determine what ESXi Hosts and VMs in my lab had Secure Boot enabled, here's what I did. A couple caveats before we get started: ESXi Host Secure Boot property isn't available in Operations 8.18.x, it's not available until 9.0. You should confirm it's enabled in the Policy/s. VM EFI Secure Boot property is available in VCF Operations 8.18.x+, but must be enabled in the Policy/s. ESXi Host TPM Version isn't available until VCF Operations 9.0, so you won't see t

I'm running Telegraf Agents on some VMs in my environment and wanted to see their status without going to the Workload Operations - Applications - Manage Telegraf Agents page. Here's what I did. I first created a Custom Group containing all Telegraf Agents I could use with Dashboards and Views. I then created a Super Metric against Object Type Environment (same as my Custom Group) summing up the number of Healthy Telegraf Agents. It looks like this. I'm basically summing up

We introduced Diagnostics in 8.18 , improved on it in 8.18.2 , and re-imagined it entirely in VCF Operations 9! In addition to Active Findings (exportable), we have Historical Findings, and the Findings Catalog. We also introduced Log Assist , the ability to upload Support Bundles to Broadcom Support for SRs. Active Findings are based on two things: logs and properties. To trigger a log-based finding run you select the REFRESH FINDINGS button. Log-based Active Findings wil

One of the top use cases for VCF Operations is VM Rightsizing, our ability to make recommendations on the size of your VMs. We've discussed this a few times over the years: Capture VM Rightsizing Data with the Aria Operations API Rightsize with VMware vRealize Operations Exclude VMs from Rightsizing via API in VMware Aria Operations Aria Operations Rightsizing VM vCPU and Memory Recommendations from VMware Aria Operations A recent ask was to find the minimum rightsizing reco