After initial data collection, resource data collection occurs automatically every 10 minutes. The data collection interval is not configurable and you cannot manually initiate data collection.

You can discover information about resource data collection and image synchronization for an existing cloud account in the Status section of its page. Do so by selecting Infrastructure > Connections > Cloud Accounts and then clicking Open on the existing cloud account of your choice.

You can open an existing cloud account and see its associated endpoint version in the Status section of its page. If the associated endpoint has been upgraded, the new endpoint version is discovered during data collection and reflected in the Status section on the cloud account's page.

Resource data collection

Data collection occurs every 10 minutes. Each cloud account displays when its data collection last completed.

show when data collection last completed

Image data collection

Image synchronization occurs every 24 hours. You can initiate image synchronization for some cloud account types. To initiate image synchronization, open the cloud account (Infrastructure > Cloud Accounts then select and open the existing cloud account) and click the Sync Images button. There is no image synchronization option for NSX cloud accounts.

Note: Images are internally classified as either public or private. Public images are shared and are not specific to a particular cloud subscription or organization. Private images are not shared and are specific to a specific subscription. Public and private images are automatically synchronized every 24 hours. An option on the cloud account page allows you to trigger synchronization for private images.

The cloud account page displays when image synchronization was last completed.

show when image sync last occurred and show button to initiate sync

To facilitate fault tolerance and high availability in deployments, each NSX-T data center endpoint represents a cluster of three NSX managers. For related information, see Create an NSX-T cloud account in VMware Aria Automation.

Cloud accounts and onboarding plans

When you create a cloud account, all machines that are associated to it are data-collected and then displayed on the Resources > Resources > Virtual Machines page. If the cloud account has machines that were deployed outside of Automation Assembler, you can use an onboarding plan to allow Automation Assembler to manage the machine deployments.

For information about adding cloud accounts, see Adding cloud accounts to Automation Assembler.

For information about onboarding unmanaged machines, see What are onboarding plans in Automation Assembler.