Skyline Advisor End of Life: What You Need to Know

As previously communicated on July 29th, 2024, the End of Life (EOL) for Skyline Advisor is fast approaching. On October 4th, 2024, VMware Skyline Advisor will officially be decommissioned. Moving forward, this functionality will be incorporated into the 9.0 release, slated for 2025, as announced at VMware Explore.

What’s Happening?

With the EOL of Skyline Advisor scheduled for October 4th, here are the steps that Skyline customers should follow to ensure a smooth transition:

Recommended Actions for Skyline Customers:

Shut down Skyline Collectors
Users should shut down any Skyline Collector(s) they have deployed.
Revert Deployment Changes
Any modifications made to accommodate Skyline Advisor should be reverted, such as:
- Removing firewall rules that were set to enable communication between Skyline Collectors and external networks.
- Disabling any internal accounts that were created solely for operating the Skyline service, such as vCenter read-only user accounts.
Export Data
Users may wish to export or download any current or historical findings and reports generated through Skyline Advisor before the EOL date to keep for their records.

For detailed instructions on how to remove inactive Skyline Collectors or exit from Skyline, refer to the Skyline Collector User’s Guide.

What’s Next?

In the interim, while Skyline Advisor is decommissioned, users can still leverage Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD) to maintain proactive oversight of their environments. Here’s an overview of SHD and how it differs from Skyline Advisor:

Skyline Health Diagnostics (SHD)

Skyline Health Diagnostics is a self-service tool designed to analyze log bundles, detect potential issues, and provide recommendations for remediation, supported by relevant Knowledge Base articles. Administrators managing VMware products such as vSphere, vSAN, Cloud Foundation, and End User Computing (EUC) can utilize this tool to troubleshoot problems before reaching out to Broadcom Support.

SHD remains available for proactive environment review and can be an effective way to diagnose issues and assess health metrics. For more information on this, refer to the VMware Skyline Health Diagnostic Tool.

Difference Between Skyline Advisor and Skyline Health Diagnostics

Skyline Advisor: A proactive, cloud-hosted tool that performs an overall environment analysis and provides recommendations to optimize performance.
Skyline Health Diagnostics: An on-premises, log analysis tool that performs health checks and provides insights based on logs, helping to identify and remediate issues. It does not require a cloud account.

Additional Insights Through Monitoring

For customers seeking further visibility into their VMware environments, Aria Operations 8.18 offers advanced monitoring and diagnostics.

Key Features of Aria Operations 8.18:

Diagnostics for VMware Cloud Foundation: Offers insights into common issues affecting VMware software components like vCenter, ESXi hosts, vSAN, NSX, SDDC Manager, and Aria Automation. It also provides remediation steps based on Knowledge Base articles.
Health Monitoring: Allows you to track the operational state of essential VMware Cloud Foundation use cases, providing detailed information on the success and failure status of tasks like vMotion, snapshots, and workload provisioning.
New Navigation Menu: The new interface focuses on task-specific navigation and integrates features for managing the VMware Cloud Foundation stack, including certificate updates and configuration drift management.

To learn more about these capabilities, consult the Aria Operations 8.18 Release Notes.

Conclusion

As Skyline Advisor approaches its EOL date, it’s crucial to follow the recommended steps to decommission your Collectors and revert any deployment changes. While waiting for the 9.0 release, Skyline Health Diagnostics remains an excellent tool to maintain oversight of your VMware environment. Additionally, for customers seeking deeper insights, Aria Operations 8.18 offers powerful diagnostics and monitoring capabilities.

For more detailed information, be sure to explore the provided resources, FAQs, and official guides.

Stay proactive and keep your environment optimized!