How to unpack raw .data file downloaded from vCloud Usage Meter in offline mode

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

vCloud Usage Meter in offline mode collects usage data from the metered products and stores it locally. You can download this data and upload it to vCloud Usage Insight, where it will be processed and aggregated. The aggregated data in vCloud Usage Insight will be automatically pushed to VMware Commerce Portal at the beginning of next month.

The downloaded usage data from vCloud Usage Meter is in .data file format. It is not in human-readable format as it is a raw file, and it cannot be opened directly. You need to unpack it to check what data has been collected by your Usage Meter appliance.

Environment

VMware vCloud Usage Meter 4.x

Resolution

Prerequisites

• On the machine from which you will run the unpack script, you must install Python 3.x.

Procedure

To unpack your downloaded usage data:

1. Open the Usage Meter web application from a local computer.
2. Under the Usage tab, select the period for which you wish to download usage data.

Note: If you choose the current month, then you will download partial usage data.

3. Click Download.
4. Download the unpack script from the vCloud Usage Meter 4.4 download page on your local computer.

5. Navigate to the directory on your local computer where you have downloaded the unpack script.

cd <full-path-to-the-folder>

6. Run the unpack command. You need to specify the full path to the .data file and the destination folder where it will be unpacked.

python3 unpack_usage.py <full-system-path-to-data-file> -d <full-system-path-to-destination-folder>

Example:

python3 unpack_usage.py ~/Downloads/2021-06-partial-usage-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.data -d ~/Downloads/Usage

You will see the below message.

Successfully unpacked usage data to -
      ~/Downloads/Usage/2021-06-partial-usage-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx-unpacked

7. Navigate to the subdirectory that contains the usage data that you want to see. The collected usage data is in JSON format and can be viewed by using, for example, Notepad or Notepad++.

Note: The downloaded and unpacked usage data is raw, and it is not a replacement for Usage Meter reports. This data can be decrypted to see what information has been collected from the Usage Meter appliance.
 

After running the command, vCloud Usage Meter creates a new directory with a similar name to the data file. The directory contains a hierarchy of subdirectories based on a product type and date. Inside the subdirectories are individual zip files that contain the product consumption data in JSON format. The following is an example of how the data of one such subdirectory is organized. In this example, each separate folder contains data for a specific reporting day.