VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics for vSphere - FAQ

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions about VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD) for vSphere.

Environment

VMware vCenter, ESX, vSAN, and SDDC Manager

Resolution

What is Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD)?

• VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics is a self-service tool that analyzes log bundles to detect issues and suggest relevant Knowledge Base articles or steps to remediate in vSphere, vSAN, VMware Cloud Foundation and EUC products. vSphere Administrators can use this tool for troubleshooting issues before contacting Broadcom Support.

What is the status on the product Skyline Advisor and SHD Enhancements ?

• Skyline Advisor has reached End of life on October 4th, 2024. Please refer to the FAQ Link.
• The SHD 4.0.7 has onboarded most of the signatures from Skyline Advisor thus enhancing the signature capabilities of SHD further.
• Log assist feature is also now onboarded with SHD 4.0.7.

What is the current release available?

• The latest version available for download is SHD 4.0.9.

What is Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)? 

• Joining the CEIP with Skyline Health Diagnostics, the tool collects data related to feature usage and issues identified without any personally identifiable items. This program is purely voluntary and can be opted out anytime simply by unchecking the box when prompted during the initial configuration of the SHD appliance.

Note: CEIP is checked by default and can be unchecked during the time of initial config of the SHD appliance.

• The VI-Admins or the cyber security experts in an organization can always check the Tool Usage Report which would provide detailed insight on what data is being collected by VMware SHD Tool. This report can be found by navigating to the SHD Admin login page > Click Settings > Help and Support > Tool Usage Report.

This will download a complete report and will help validate the data collected by VMware Skyline Heath Diagnostics.

• Skyline Health Diagnostics needs 443 and 80 outbound ports to broadcom.com.
  
  
• If the CEIP is disabled on the SHD appliance, then customers can choose to download the ISO image from Broadcom website and update the SHD appliance. With every monthly new release of the SHD versions, this will have latest VCG & vSAN database updates included.

What are the benefits of Skyline Health Diagnostics?

• SHD can help perform diagnostics on the vCenter Appliance even if the services are offline.

Note: SHD uses an SSH connection capture logs and perform analysis.

• SHD can also perform diagnostics on ESXi Hosts that are either disconnect/not responding from vCenter Server Inventory using SSH access.
• SHD can also gather Offline Health Diagnostics.
  • Dark site environments can install the appliance on a standalone ESXi Host to manually upload logs to the SHD appliance to perform analysis.
• SHD performs the below diagnostics checks as of today:
  • VMware Security Advisory alerts based environment status
  • VMware Compatibility Health Checks hardware & vSAN
  • SHD performs log analysis based on 1800+ signatures to root cause issues and provide next steps or knowledge base articles
• The SHD Report can be used for Audit and Documentation purpose for any reported issue in the environment. 
• The Security team or administrator can validate if the environment is up to date with the available VMware Security Advisories.
• SHD also provides vCenter and VCF precheck capabilities which can be driven prior upgrades thus enabling smoother upgrades.
• SHD tool is also used by the VMware Global Support team internally to root cause issues.

What are the different Products supported by SHD?

• vSphere 6.5, 6.7, 7.0.x, 8.0.x, and 9.0.x are supported by Skyline Health Diagnostics
• VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x, 5.x, and 9.0.x
• vSAN 
• VMware Horizon
• VMware SD-WAN in Tech Preview mode only 
• VMware Cloud Gateway

Where can I get more information regarding installation?

• Installation and other information can be found at About VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics
• For installation instructions, see:

• What's New in Skyline Health Diagnostics 4.0

 

Where can I download Skyline Health Diagnostics ISO image from ?

• Download VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics:

  • Navigate to Broadcom Support Portal
  • Under the Products tab, expand the vCenter version
  • Select the appropriate vCenter version release
  • In the new view, click on the "Drivers & Tools" tab
  • Search for "Skyline" / release ID "521085' 

What are the Minimum Requirements to Deploy Skyline Health Diagnostics?

Software Requirements

• ESXi installed with either vSphere 6.5, 6.7, 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0.

Hardware requirements 

• 4 vCPUs
• 16 GB RAM
• 250 GB hard disk
• A port group with network connectivity, for accessing this virtual machine from the workstation

How do I manually set the IP address to the Photon OS 

• Use the below link to assign Manual IP address to the Photon OS:
  Assign Manual IP to Photon OS

How does SHD save time and resources to resolve issues?

• SHD provides instant resolution for known issues seen by VMware support – currently the success rate of the tool is around 48%.
• This saves lot of time and resources in engaging with support, providing info, uploading log files, etc.
• Helps with stability and availability of the environment due to quicker resolution of known issues
• When engaging with support, availability of SHD log file will dramatically cut down resolution time as good amount of info required for troubleshooting is already captured in the SHD log file.

What are the available support channels for issues with SHD tool?

• Broadcom engineering and support teams are committed to fixes and serviceability of SHD. 
• Our VMware Docs page is also available for more information on Skyline Health Diagnostics: VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics for vSphere Documentation

Is there any cost / licensing associated with SHD?

• The product is free at this time.

Will SHD tool be expanded to other products?

• Broadcom Engineering is committed that SHD product is evolving to expand covering other products with additional functionality and coverage. The goal is to have a single unified diagnostics solution tool across multiple product portfolios.

How can I provide feedback about this tool?

• Please reach out on our SHD Community page: Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD)

How can I upgrade SHD if its being used in an Offline mode

• Download VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics:

• • Navigate to Broadcom Support Portal
  • Under the Products tab, expand the vCenter version
  • Select the appropriate vCenter version release
  • In the new view, click on the "Drivers & Tools" tab
  • Search for "Skyline" / release ID "521085' to find the patch-offline tgz
  • Updating offline instances (VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics deployments without internet connectivity) requires an offline patch or update bundle.

How can CEIP be opted out of?

• Choose the LEAVE PROGRAM option in the Settings Tab to disconnect from CEIP.
• Clicking on the "JOINED" button will show the below option to leave the CEIP.

 

How can customer rejoin the CEIP?

• Click on the option in the Settings Tab to Join Program in CEIP.