Continuously monitor the health of your VMware Cloud Foundation environment by generating health and system alert reports on a recurring schedule. Utilize the pre-defined dashboards in the VMware Cloud Foundation health dashboard group in VMware Aria Operations to extend the parameters you monitor and proactively manage the health of your environment.

The PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting provides the ability to generate pre-defined HTML reports for VMware Cloud Foundation. Key reports for reviewing the health of your VMware Cloud Foundation instance include:

  • Health Report

  • System Alert Report

  • Upgrade Precheck Report

Ensure that you generate these reports on a regular basis, review the results, and perform remediation for any issues as part of your operational practices. To display issues only in each report, you can use the optional -failureOnly switch with each cmdlet .

Use the daily updated, pre-defined dashboards in the VMware Cloud Foundation Health dashboard group in VMware Aria Operations to continuously monitor the health of your environment. Use the custom alerts and notifications to improve monitoring of focus areas of the SDDC.

Generate a Health Report for Health Reporting and Monitoring for VMware Cloud Foundation

You use the Invoke-VcfHealthReport cmdlet in the PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting to generate a display only issues health report, that combines information from the VMware Cloud Foundation SoS utility and additional health checks performed against SDDC management components.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the host virtual machine.

    1. For Photon OS, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn>:22 as the admin user by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client.

    2. For Windows Server, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn> as the Administrator user by using a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client.

  2. Start PowerShell.

  3. Replace the values in the sample code with your values and run the commands in the PowerShell console.

    1. For Photon OS.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$sddcManagerLocalUser = "vcf"  
$sddcManagerLocalPass = "VMw@re1!"

$reportPath = "/opt/vmware/reporting"

    2. For Windows Server.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$sddcManagerLocalUser = "vcf"  
$sddcManagerLocalPass = "VMw@re1!"

$reportPath = "F:\Reporting"

  4. Generate the health report with display issues.

    Invoke-VcfHealthReport -sddcManagerFqdn $sddcManagerFqdn -sddcManagerUser $sddcManagerUser -sddcManagerPass $sddcManagerPass -sddcManagerLocalUser $sddcManagerLocalUser -sddcManagerLocalPass $sddcManagerLocalPass -reportPath $reportPath -allDomains -failureOnly
    Note: To generate a health report for a workload domain with displays issues only, you replace the -allDomains flag with the -workloadDomain parameter and the $workloadDomain variable.

  5. Review the HTML report and perform remediation of any identified issues.

Generate a System Alert Report for Health Reporting and Monitoring for VMware Cloud Foundation

You use the Invoke-VcfSystemAlertReport cmdlet in the PowerShell module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting to generate a display only issues system alert report that collects information about the currently active system alerts in your VMware Cloud Foundation environment.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the host virtual machine.

    1. For Photon OS, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn>:22 as the admin user by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client.

    2. For Windows Server, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn> as the Administrator user by using a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client.

  2. Start PowerShell.

  3. Replace the values in the sample code with your values and run the commands in the PowerShell console.

    1. For Photon OS.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$reportPath = "/opt/vmware/reporting"

    2. For Windows Server.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$reportPath = "F:\Reporting"

  4. Generate the system alert report with display issues.

    Invoke-VcfAlertReport -sddcManagerFqdn $sddcManagerFqdn -sddcManagerUser $sddcManagerUser -sddcManagerPass $sddcManagerPass -reportPath $reportPath -allDomains
    Note: To generate a system alert report for a workload domain with displays issues only, you replace the -allDomains flag with the -workloadDomain parameter and the $workloadDomain variable.

  5. Review the HTML report and perform remediation of any identified issues.

Generate an Upgrade Precheck Report for a Workload Domain for Health Reporting and Monitoring for VMware Cloud Foundation

You use the Invoke-VcfUpgradePrecheck cmdlet in the PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting to generate an upgrade precheck report for a Workload domain.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the host virtual machine.

    1. For Photon OS, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn>:22 as the admin user by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client.

    2. For Windows Server, log in to the host virtual machine at <host_virtual_machine_fqdn> as the Administrator user by using a Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) client.

  2. Start PowerShell.

  3. Replace the values in the sample code with your values and run the commands in the PowerShell console.

    1. For Photon OS.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$workloadDomain = "sfo-w01"

$reportPath = "F:\Reporting"

    2. For Windows Server.

      $sddcManagerFqdn = "sfo-vcf01.sfo.rainpole.io"
$sddcManagerUser = "admin@local"
$sddcManagerPass = "VMw@re1!VMw@re1!"

$workloadDomain = "sfo-w01"

$reportPath = "/opt/vmware/reporting"

  4. Generate the upgrade precheck report for a Workload domain.

    Invoke-VcfUpgradePrecheck -sddcManagerFqdn $sddcManagerFqdn -sddcManagerUser $sddcManagerUser -sddcManagerPass $sddcManagerPass -reportPath $reportPath -workloadDomain $workloadDomain

  5. Review the HTML report.

Continuous Health Monitoring of VMware Cloud Foundation with VMware Aria Operations

You use the predefined dashboards in VMware Aria Operations to continuously and proactively monitor your VMware Cloud Foundation environment. The included custom alerts and notifications enable you to review and mitigate the noted issues to minimize upgrade preparation and remediate any problems with your environment.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the VMware Aria Operations interface at https://<aria_operations_fqdn> with a user assigned the Administrator role.
  2. In the left pane, select Visualize > Dashboards.
  3. In Dashboards panel, select All > VCF Health.
  4. Observe health of the VMware Cloud Foundation environment by reviewing health statuses of each monitored SDDC components. If status is not green, review the reason and remediate the issue.
Note: For a list of available VMware Cloud Foundation health dashboards, see Logical Design for Health Reporting and Monitoring for VMware Cloud Foundation.