Diagnostics for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.1 with Old Versions of VCF Components

While supporting Skyline and now Diagnostics for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) I come across a lot of customers confused about the Diagnostics feature set between the versions and integration support. I decided to create this blog to help customers understand the different versions of VCF Operations and how they can take advantage of them. 

Diagnostics Findings found in VCF Operations is supported for both VCF and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) customers. Those who are on vSphere 8.x and NSX 4.x can install or upgrade to VCF Operations 9.x and findings for these integrations will still work. Customers can get findings that recommend configuration changes and upgrades to their 8.x environment. They can also get upgrade recommendations to 9.x. For customers who have VCF licensing, this will introduce them to some of the features like VCF health, certificate management, etc.

Let me break down Diagnostics Findings between versions to help you understand how we have evolved to the latest version of VCF Diagnostics 9.1. 

8.18.x: This is the first version of the Diagnostics Management Pack in Operations. In this version we could only create rules that used the data Operations already collected. This data was very limited and we were only able to create build- and version-based rules. We had about 250 property findings in 8.18.0 and we released VMSA rules in follow-up versions. For example, 8.18.4 has rules for VMSA-2025-0008, VMSA-2025-0009, and VMSA-2025-0010. In this version we also have about 30 log-based findings. We also have log-based rules that look for log snippets in Operations for Logs. Log-based findings are manual findings that analyze your environment when you refresh findings. Property findings are automatically generated every 4 hours. Refresh findings does not update property-based findings; it only updates log-based findings. 

9.0.x: This is the second version of the Diagnostics Management Pack in Operations. In this version we perform our own data collection and it allows us to create all the rules that were in Skyline Advisor. There are about 600 property-based findings in 9.0.x. There are also about 100 log-based findings. This version also allows us to create hybrid findings which are log-based findings combined with property checks. New findings on 9.0.x are released in product, so we have new findings in 9.0.1 and 9.0.2. This version of Diagnostics also introduces Log Assist for most of the VCF components. 

9.1.x: This will be the third version of the Diagnostics Management Pack, which will also introduce the Diagnostics Content Pack. In this version the MP will be updated during scheduled product releases, but the CP I can release more frequently. The goal of the Diagnostics Content Pack split from the Diagnostics Management pack is to develop a regular content pack release that you can now update without a Operations product update. We have about 700 property-based findings and 300 log based findings in 9.1.x. 

I hope this clarifies the differences between the versions of VCF Operations. With VCF Operations 9.1 you can take advantage of the latest feature set of Diagnostics while still running vSphere 8.x and NSX 4.x. 

Also see Questions and Answers for Diagnostics for VMware Cloud Foundation at: https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/375104