First off, what are the differences between SHD and advisor?
What is Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD)?
- VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics is a self-service tool that analyzes log bundles to detect issues and suggest relevant Knowledge Base articles or Steps to remediate in vSphere, vSAN, VMware Cloud Foundation and EUC products. vSphere Administrators can use this tool for troubleshooting issues before contacting VMware Support.
- For more information, see Introducing VMware Skyline Health Diagnostic Tool
What is the difference between Skyline Health Diagnostics and Skyline Advisor?
- Skyline Advisor is a proactive analysis tool, whereas Skyline Health Diagnostics is a log analysis tool that performs health checks.
- Skyline Advisor is a web service tool hosted by VMware, whereas the Skyline Health Diagnostic tool is on-prem. Solution and doesn’t require you to have a cloud account.
| VMware Skyline Advisor | VMware Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD) |
| Proactive, Preventive: Alerts for Potential proactive issues | Reactive & Proactive: analyses the issues and provides remediation steps - KBs, Action plans, also includes Pre-Checks for vCenter and VCF environments |
| Typical use cases: Missing patches, best practices recommendation | Typical use cases: Debugging PSODs or VMkernel Panic providing analysis, Troubleshooting Server Hang Scenarios, vCenter Services crashes, Proactively updating inputs on Security Advisories, Driver upgrade information, Enabling vCenter and VCF prechecks prior upgrades validating the environment |
| Data is stored in VMware Cloud | Data resides in-house; execution stats are shared with VMware if you are signed up for CEIP |
| Needs online internet connectivity with an external portal | Works Offline mode; no connectivity to external sites required, useful for dark and isolated environments |
Have have the Skyline collector what does it mean?
The virtual appliance will continue to work and do its thing. The part you will loose is the cloud analytics if you are currently using that. All your Skyline information will need to be viewed in vCenter moving forwards.
Broadcom has end-of-life VMware Skyline Advisor on October 4th 2024..
At End of Life:
- VMware Skyline Advisor service will be turned off for all customers. All collected data will be deleted and Skyline Advisor services will be disabled.
- All reports previously created will be deleted.
Broadcom has not removed the function completely, instead, they are pushing it into their higher-tiered packages:
- Starting with VCF 5.2 and Aria Operations v8.18 (July 2024), Critical Findings and Self-Help recommendations will be available in the product directly. Many of the other Skyline features are being planned for inclusion in future VCF and VVF releases.
If you wish to continue, you have to buy Foundation or VCF.