My previous blog – ‘Customer Favorite Capabilities and Where to Find Them’ – was extremely popular and quickly became a customer favorite. This blog is an updated version, reflecting the continued commitments that Broadcom has made to R&D and product improvements. I’m excited to show you the new home for Log Assist and a streamlined experience for Environment Health Checks, TAM Insights Data, and Compliance Readiness Assessments.
Log Assist
Previously, Log Assist within VMware Skyline allowed customers to select and upload log bundles directly to an existing support case which offered both a streamlined user experience as well as quicker time to resolution. I personally loved Log Assist because it was something I always wished existed back when I was a customer. In late 2024, Log Assist capabilities were added to Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD), a standalone Virtual Appliance, previously detailed in the Customer Favorite Capabilities and Where to Find Them. With VMware Cloud Foundation 9, I’m excited to share that Log Assist is now available in VMware Cloud Foundation Operations and even easier to use than ever before!
From the Diagnostics Finding Tab (under Infrastructure Operations) click on ‘Log Assist’ in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
This takes you to the main Log Assist screen where you can see Transfer History and take action on initiating a new transfer if necessary. To start a new transfer simply click the blue ‘Initiate For Transfer’ button.
On this next screen you select which logs across the various components of your VCF environment that you want to gather and transfer to the Broadcom Support Portal.
Log Assist will then validate that it has connectivity and permissions to gather logs from the components that you selected.
Finally you’ll need to let Log Assist know which Support Case ID the logs should be attached to and hit click the blue ‘Transfer’ button.
At this point you can sit back and relax – Log Assist will take care of the rest. It will generate the logs bundles that you have selected, transfer them to Broadcom Support, and attach them to your open Support Request without any further interaction! You’ll be taken back to the main Log Assist screen where you can monitor the progress of your new transfer.
You can always dive into the details of the Log Assist transfer by clicking the double carrot on the left of the transfer to see the Activity Feed and Log Bundle Details.
Upgrade your VCF environment to 9.0 today and start taking advantage of the many new capabilities including the built in Log Assist.
Introducing VMware Health and Security Toolkit (HST)
Over the years, TAM Data Manager (TDM) and VMware Health Analyzer (vHA) have become beloved tools leveraged by VCF Technical Adoption Managers (VCF TAMs), VCF Professional Services, and partners to help customers optimize, improve resiliency, and report on environment trends.
VMware Health Security Toolkit (HST) is a new all-in-one tool that combines the best capabilities of TDM and vHA along with the addition of a Compliance Readiness Assessment capability. HST can be used as either a standalone JAR or deployed as a virtual machine from an OVA file. For details on the installation process please consult the HST User’s Guide.
Once the tool is installed customers, partners, VCF Professional Services and TAMs all have roles with permissions in the tool. Air gapped/disconnected environments are supported through an offline mode.
Once logged in, everything within VMware HST is project based. You can create new projects within a user defined folder/sub-folder structure.
When creating a project, you select the Data Sources to collect the data from (currently only VMware vCenter/VMware vSphere) and then which applications you want to collect data for. Selecting ‘TAM Data Manager (TDM)’ collects the necessary data for TAM Customers to receive various TAM Insights reporting. Selecting ‘Health Analyzer (vHA)’ collects the necessary data to perform a Health Check on the environment. Details on TAM Insights Reporting and Environment Health Checks can be found in those respective sections in ‘Customer Favorite Capabilities and Where to Find Them’.
Based on your project selection you’ll be asked to provide appropriate credentials for your environment. For larger environments, instead of manually adding each host/endpoint you have the ability to bulk add them using a .xlsx template. Once the TDM and/or vHA collections complete, you’ll provide those collection files to your TAM/partner and they will use that information to provide your TAM Insights or Health Check.
HST also powers the Compliance Readiness Assessment service offering. The Compliance Readiness Assessment validates your environment against hundreds of Security Best Practices that cover SDDC Manager, VMware NSX, VMware vSAN, vCenter, virtual machines, and ESXi hosts.
Again, as the HST tool is project based, a project must be created for the Assessment where the controls your environment will be assessed against are selected.
Similar to the TDM/vHA Project covered above, vSphere information login information is required. If the Security Assessment includes NSX or SDDC Manager, you’ll need to provide credentials for NSX Manager or SDDC Manager as well. Once the data has been collected, your Broadcom services team will explore the results of the assessment on a control by control basis. In this case we can see numerous failed controls, including ‘The ESXi host must enforce the limit of three consecutive invalid logon attempts by a user.’
Additional details are available for each control including how/where your environment does not pass.
All of the information is available to be exported in both a high level Executive Report (PDF) or a detailed Administrative Report (HTML) designed to be leveraged by your organization to easily identify and create remediation plans to meet your compliance requirements.
The VMware Health and Security Toolkit is the next generation tool replacing VMware TAM Data Manager and VMware Health Analyzer. TDM and vHA will reach end-of-life on August 31st, 2025. If you are currently using either of those tools, please work with your TAM, Professional Services, or partner to ensure you transition to the new VMware Health and Security Toolkit.
In closing
VCF 9.0 and the Health and Security Toolkit are two examples of how Broadcom continues to usher in a new era of integration and capabilities into VMware software. Talk to your VCF Technical Adoption Manager about planning your VCF 9.0 upgrade – they’re here to help you be successful! And if you’re interested in exploring any of the capabilities covered in this blog, please reach out to your VCF TAM (if you have one) or your Broadcom Account Team.
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