vSAN Skyline Health score remains low or shows penalty after silencing alerts

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Note: Silencing a vSAN health check does not restore the cluster health score. To return the score to 100%, the underlying findings must be resolved.

In VMware vSAN 8.0 and higher, the Skyline Health scoring engine provides a numerical representation of cluster health. Users may observe that the overall health score does not return to 100% even after silencing active alerts.

Symptoms

• The vSAN Skyline Health cluster score shows a numerical value less than 100% (e.g., 59%).
• Individual health check categories show "Green" or "Skipped" (Grey) icons because the alerts have been silenced.
• Specific alerts often found contributing to this behavior include:
  • "Critical vSAN patch is available for vSAN File Service"
  • "Controller firmware is VMware certified"

Environment

• VMware vSAN 8.0.x and higher
• VMware Cloud Foundation 5.x
• HPE Smart Array Controllers

Cause

The Skyline Health scoring engine calculates scores based on environmental risk. Silencing only affects visual notifications; weighted penalties remain active until the condition is remediated.

For more information on the silencing mechanism, see Silencing a vSAN health check (326925). Note that silencing is intended for temporary suppression and should not be used as a permanent workaround for critical patches or firmware updates.

Resolution

To restore the numerical health score to 100%, follow these steps:

1. Identify silenced contributors: Navigate to Monitor > Skyline Health and identify which silenced alerts are deducting from the total score.
2. Resolve the underlying issue:
   • For File Service: Navigate to Configure > vSAN > Services. On the File Service row, click CHECK UPGRADE and complete the upgrade process.
   • For Controller Firmware: Install the VMware-certified firmware version listed in the HCL. For HPE hardware using ssacli2, replace it with the required hpessacli utility.
3. Unsilence the alert: If the finding was previously silenced, unsilence it to allow the engine to clear the state naturally upon remediation.
4. Retest: Click RETEST in Skyline Health to update the score calculation.

If the score does not return to 100%, contact Broadcom Support.

Additional Information

• Skyline Health Scoring, Diagnostics and Remediation in vSAN 8 U1
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