With every VMware Aria Operations release, many metrics are either discontinued or deactivated. These changes update the capacity analytics and improve the product scale. VMware has made many of these changes transparent or nearly so. Still, multiple changes can impact management packs that you might be using, along with the dashboards and reports that you have created. Therefore, before upgrading, run the VMware Aria Operations Pre-upgrade Readiness Assessment Tool (Assessment Tool) that helps you understand the precise impact on your environment through a detailed report.

Why Run the Assessment Tool

Various changes in VMware Aria Operations can impact the user experience. When you run the Assessment Tool, you get an HTML-formatted report identifying all the points in your system affected by the changes. Further, the Assessment Tool gives recommendations for the correct changes to be made in your content for when you upgrade from a previous release.

Note: You must run the Assessment Tool on the instance of the VMware Aria Operations installation that you want to assess - typically your production system. The Assessment Tool does not alter anything in your system, and deletes itself when it has completed its run. It leaves behind only the assessment result - a support bundle that you download from the Support Bundles section of the VMware Aria Operations Administration user interface.

The Assessment tool validates your environment to ensure it is ready for the upgrade. For example, if the ESXi version does not match the product requirements, the assessment tool will identify the issue and provide you with a recommendation in the Systems Validation tab.

For detailed instructions on running the Assessment Tool, see Running the VMware Aria Operations 8.18 Pre-Upgrade Readiness Assessment Tool.

To view the upgrade path from an earlier version of VMware Aria Operations to 8.18, see VMware Aria Operations Upgrade Path.