VMware Skyline – The Basics
You may have seen or heard about VMware Skyline but do not really know much about it. The following blog post will, hopefully, provide more information about Skyline and help you to understand where and when it can and should be used.
VMware Skyline was created a few years ago with the aim to provide a tool that could proactively inform customers of potential issues in their environments and help guide them to the resources to resolve the findings before they were impacted by them.
Over time, Skyline has evolved and the Skyline name is used across a number of complementary tools, alongside the traditional Skyline Advisor (now called Skyline Advisor Pro).
Skyline Health
Skyline Health is the built in capabilities within vSphere, where vSphere and vSAN Health were amalgamated under a single umbrella available to all customers using vSphere 6.7 and up. This is designed to assist customers in a self-service manner, by discovering environmental issues and even best practices by analyzing telemetry data collected from the vSphere environment. There is a requirement to join the Customer Experienced Improvement Program (CEIP). The Skyline Health capability does not require any additional collectors to be deployed out as it utilises the capabilities exposed within vCenter.
Skyline Health does allow On-demand as well as the scheduled and automated analysis with notifications available via Alerts, SNMP and in-product notifications.
To enhance the capabilities you would need to look into Skyline Advisor Pro.
If you would like to learn more about Skyline Health, you can start here:
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2019/11/introducing-vmware-skyline-health-for-vsphere.html
Skyline Health Diagnostics
Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD) is a self-service diagnostics platform. It helps to detect and provide remediation to issues in the vSphere and vSAN products. Recommendations are provided in the form of Knowledge Base articles or procedures to remediate the issues. It utilises log files to help detect issues.
On the face of it, you may think that Skyline Health and Skyline Health Diagnostics are the same thing but they aren’t. Skyline Health Diagnostics is deployed out as a VM into your environment either using an ISO onto a supported Linux VM or as a virtual appliance. The main capability behind Skyline Health Diagnostics was to collect the log bundle and run analysis using the Diagnostics Platform. This can be a useful tool to have available if you are experiencing an issue. You could either utilise this tool before raising a ticket with VMware Global Support, to help identify issues and start you down a resolution route or even as a supplementary tool once you have raised a ticket with VMware Global Support and are awaiting log analysis to be performed by them, allowing you to perform your own log analysis.
In later versions of the tool, new capabilities have been added to perform pre-upgrade checks for VCF environments. Development on this tool is ongoing and more features are being added.
One of the key features with this tool is that it doesn’t report or send any data back to VMware and therefore is useful for use in ‘Dark Sites’ or offline locations.
If you want to learn more about Skyline Health Diagnostics, you can start here:
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Skyline-Health-Diagnostics/index.html
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2020/09/introducing-vmware-skyline-health-diagnostic-tool.html
Skyline Advisor Pro
When thinking about VMware Skyline, most people will think about Skyline Advisor… which became Skyline Advisor Pro with version 3 of the release, providing a number of additional capabilities.
Skyline Advisor Pro consists of three main elements (from the customers point of view):
- A free Cloud Organisation
- An On-prem Skyline Collector
- Skyline Advisor Pro web site
The VMware Cloud Organisation is used to control access to the Skyline Advisor Pro web site. If you already have a VMware Cloud Organisation used for products such as Aria Operations, then it is advised to utilise the same Cloud Organisation for Skyline.
The next component is the On-prem Skyline Collector. This is the component that connects to the supported endpoints to collect the details on the environment that are sent to Skyline which are then developed into the Skyline Proactive Findings.
The final component is the Skyline Advisor Pro web site. This is the main way to consume the Skyline service. It is the portal that shows you the findings that are relevant to your environment. It is the portal that you can utilise to upload log files to an open support request (Log Assist)… helping to simplify the process and speeding up the upload process.
All of the components work together. If you do not have a Cloud Organisation, then you cannot have Skyline as you would not be able to connect to the Skyline Advisor web site which is hosted on there. Without the Skyline Collector, the relevant data will not be uploaded to Skyline to discover the findings that are relevant to your environment. The Collector is vital for the Log Assist functionality as well, as the request is made from the Skyline Advisor web page which will then communicate with the Collector to initiate the log bundle creation. The Collector will communicate with the endpoint to request the log bundle creation and once the endpoint has created it, it will be sent to the Collector to upload it to the relevant support ticket.
Additional capabilities are also available within Skyline depending on what additional services you have purchased. For example, if you have Success 360 then an additional portal is enabled to provide enhanced finding reports. If you have a VMware TAM, then your TAM has the capability to export inventory type data which can be used in some additional PowerBI reports that helps to show how the environment is changing over time and to help target specific areas with regards to upgrades. Your TAM would also have a capability to perform a TAM Health Check which looks at your environment in a slightly different way. The findings generated through this Health Check are designed to help align your environment to Best Practices.
If you are interested in having a demo on Skyline Advisor Pro then you can request one here:
If you want to learn more about Skyline Advisor Pro and to get started, you can start here:
https://www.vmware.com/uk/support/services/skyline.html
The capabilities within all of the Skyline solutions are continuing to be developed, enhanced and improved.
Finally, if you have been utilising Skyline for a little while and would like to have a VMware badge to show your proficiency in the product, you can take the VMware Skyline Advisor Pro Technologist Course… more details available here: https://blogs.vmware.com/kb/2022/02/get-your-vmware-skyline-advisor-pro-technologist-certification-today.html