Deployment Specification for Health Reporting and Monitoring for VMware Cloud Foundation

The deployment specification details the design decisions covering physical design.

Deployment of the Host Virtual Machine

You deploy a host virtual machine to the management domain vCenter Server instance. You then install both the PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting and the Python Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Health Monitoring in VMware Aria Operations. The modules collect data from SDDC Manager and SDDC management components to create HTML reports, or populate custom dashboards, and generate alerts and notifications in VMware Aria Operations.

Table 1. Design Decisions for Deployment of a Host Virtual Machine

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
HRM-VM-CFG-001	Deploy the host virtual machine using a supported guest operating systems (VMware Photon OS or Microsoft Windows Server).	A dedicated host virtual machine is deployed to ensure isolation of the PowerShell and Python modules from other production components.	The host virtual machine must be deployed, configured, and maintained outside of VMware Cloud Foundation automated workflows.
HRM-VM-CFG-002	Deploy the host virtual machine in the default management vSphere cluster.	Required to communicate with SDDC Manager and VMware Aria Operations.	The host virtual machine must be able to connect to SDDC Manager and VMware Aria Operations.
HRM-VM-CFG-003	Protect the host virtual machine by using vSphere High Availability.	Supports the availability objective without requiring manual intervention during an ESXi host failure.	None.
HRM-VM-CFG-004	Place the host virtual machine in a designated virtual machine folder.	Provides organization of the appliances in the management domain vSphere inventory.	You must create the virtual machine folder during deployment.

Deployment of the Host Virtual Machine in Multiple Availability Zones

In an environment with multiple availability zones, the host virtual machine runs in the first availability zone. If a failure occurs in the first availability zone, the virtual machine fails over to the second availability zone.

Table 2. Design Decisions for Deployment of the Host Virtual Machine in Multiple Availability Zones

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
HRM-VM-CFG-005	When using two availability zones, add the host virtual machine to the VM group of the first availability zone.	Ensures that the host virtual machine runs in the primary availability zone hosts group.	After the implementation of the second availability zone for the management domain, you must update the VM group for the primary availability zone virtual machines to include the host virtual machine.

Deployment of the Host Virtual Machine for Multiple VMware Cloud Foundation Instances

In a VMware Cloud Foundation multi-instance environment, you deploy the host virtual machine in the management cluster in the first VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

Table 3. Design Decisions for Deployment of the Host Virtual Machine for Multiple VMware Cloud Foundation Instances

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
HRM-VM-CFG-006	In an environment with multiple VMware Cloud Foundation instances, deploy the host virtual machine in the management vSphere cluster in the first VMware Cloud Foundation instance.	Required to communicate with SDDC Manager in each VMware Cloud Foundation instance and VMware Aria Operations.	The host virtual machine must be able to connect to SDDC Manager in each VMware Cloud Foundation instance and VMware Aria Operations.

Sizing Compute and Storage Resources

The host virtual machine has the following resource requirements.

Table 4. Sizing Compute and Storage Resources

Operating System	CPU	Memory	Storage
Photon OS	1	2 GB	662 MB (Thin Provisioned) 16 GB (Thick Provisioned)
Windows Server	2	4 GB	60 GB

Installation of PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting

The PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting is an open-source PowerShell module that enables you to generate HTML based reports on the health of a VMware Cloud Foundation instance.

Table 5. Design Decisions for the PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
HRM-PWSH-CFG-001	Use or install a supported edition and version of PowerShell on the host virtual machine guest operating system.	The PowerShell module cmdlets may fail when run on an edition and version of PowerShell that is not supported by the PowerShell module and its dependencies.	None
HRM-PWSH-CFG-002	Install the PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting and its dependencies on the host virtual machine.	The PowerShell Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Reporting is required to generate HTML reports.	None

Installation of Python Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Health Monitoring in VMware Aria Operations

The Python Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Health Monitoring in VMware Aria Operations is a Python module that pulls data from SDDC Manager, and uses the VMware Aria Operations Nagini client which is a REST client to push the data to corresponding objects in VMware Aria Operations as custom metrics.

Table 6. Design Decisions for the Python Module for VMware Cloud Foundation Health Monitoring in VMware Aria Operations

Decision ID	Design Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
HRM-PY-CFG-001	Install Python 3.x on the host virtual machine.	Python 3 is required to run the Python script that pulls data from SDDC Manager and pushes it to VMware Aria Operations.	In an environment with multiple VMware Cloud Foundation instances, multiple copies of the Python module are installed, each corresponding to a VMware Cloud Foundation instance.
HRM-PY-CFG-002	Install the Nagini client, a Python binding package for VMware Aria Operations, on the host virtual machine.	The Nagini client enables the Python module to send data to VMware Aria Operations.	Manual installation and setup depends on the host virtual machine's operating system.
HRM-PY-CFG-003	On the host virtual machine, schedule daily runs of the Python module to collect health data from SDDC Manager and send it to VMware Aria Operations.	Automates gathering health data.	Manual installation and setup depends on the host virtual machine's operating system.
HRM-PY-CFG-004	Configure the default log retention for logs, generated by the Python module, to 30 days.	Automatic cleanup of logs generated when the send-data-to-vrops.py script saves capacity on the host virtual machine's local disk and ensures old data is removed.	You must manually set the log retention period by configuring the log_retention_in_days setting in the env.json file.