In the past month or so since joining the VMware Cloud on AWS (VMC) team, I have seen a number of inquiries from our Customer Success team, partners and customers on how to retrieve certain pieces information about their deployed SDDC, usually for information or integration purposes. Some of these questions can simply be answered by using the VMC Console UI, however there are others that is only available when using the VMC API, which provides a ton more data than what the UI could ever display. In any case, I figure it would be useful to share some of this information, especially as it pertains to the VMC API.
Below are just some of the frequently asked questions that I have seen and they can all be answered simply performing a GET /api/orgs/<orgId>/sddcs/<sddcId> on your specific SDDC via VMC API. In addition, I have also create two sample scripts which exercises these VMC APIs, one using the native VMC REST API and another with PowerCLI using the VMC cmdlet, which you can find more details below.
1) What version is my SDDC running?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the "Support" tab for a given SDDC.
You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.sddc_manifest.vmc_version property.
2) When was my SDDC created?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the "Support" tab for a given SDDC.
You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the created property.
3) How long do I have until my 1-Node SDDC expires?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the SDDC card summary view or detailed view.
You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the expiration_date property. This property will be null if your SDDC is NOT a 1-Node, which is the only configuration which has an expiration.
4) What type of an SDDC deployment do I have?
Today, you can deploy a 1-Node, 4-Node or 6-Node SDDC (stretched). There are a few ways to determine this using the VMC Console UI, by looking at the number of hosts and the number of availability zone(s) shown in the detailed SDDC view. It is actually easier to retrieve this info using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.deployment_type property.
5) Which region has my SDDC been deployed to?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the SDDC card summary view or detailed view. You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.region property.
5) Which availability zone(s) has my SDDC been deployed to?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the SDDC card summary view or detailed view.
You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.availability_zones property, if your SDDC is deployed in a Multi-AZ configuration, you will see all AZs listed in the output.
6) Which AWS Instance type is currently being used for hosts within my SDDC?
This information is currently not exposed in the VMC Console UI, but can be found when inspecting the ESXi hardware details using the vSphere UI. You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.sddc_manifest.esx_ami.instance_type property.
7) What is the Management CIDR network that is used for my SDDC?
This can be found in the VMC Console UI under the "Networking & Security" tab for a given SDDC.
You can also find this information using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.vpc_info.vpc_cidr property.
8) Is my SDDC currently using NSX-V or NSX-T?
This information is currently not exposed in the VMC Console UI, directly. You can some what tell by looking at the Networking & Security tab, since there are UI differences and capabilities between an SDDC with NSX-V vs NSX-T. However, without that you would have to inspect vCenter Server and its registration information on whether the NSX Manager is V or T-based. An easier way is by using the VMC API and referring to the resource_config.nsxt property which is a boolean that tells you whether the SDDC is using NSX-T. If you see this value as False, it means you are using NSX-V else it would be true which means you are using NSX-T.
9) What is my Shadow VPC's Virtual Private Gateway ID (VGW)?
This question recently came up from a customer who needed this information in order to purchase a Direct Connect (DX) from an AWS Partner. This information is currently not in the VMC Console UI but can be found using the VMC API by referring to the resource_config.vpc_info.vgw_id property.
Below is a sample shell script called vmc_sddc_summary.sh which uses the native VMC REST API to output all the information mentioned above:
To use this script, you will need to pass in three command-line options: VMC refresh token (for instructions, please see this post here), Org ID and the SDDC ID (both can be retrieved under the "Support" tab in VMC Console UI or API).
I have already stored the required data into these three variables below and you can run the script using the following:
./vmc_sddc_summary.sh $TOKEN $ORGID $SDDCID
Here are two sample output for both NSX-V as well as NSX-T based SDDC:
Below is a sample PowerCLI function called Get-VMCSDDCSummary which uses the VMC cmlet which is part of the community VMC PowerCLI module to output all the information mentioned above:
To use this function, you will need to first import the VMC module and then connect to VMC using the Connect-VmcServer cmdlet and provide your refresh token (for instructions, please see this post here). After that, you will need to provide the name of both your Org and SDDC.
I have already stored the required data into these two variables below and you can run the function using the following:
Get-VMCSDDCSummary -Org $OrgName -Name $SddcName
Here are two sample output for both NSX-V as well as NSX-T based SDDC:
Note: You may notice that the InstanceType property is currently empty, this is currently a known issue with the VMC Swagger file which prevents the SDKS from seeing the data. The native VMC REST API does not have this issue as demonstrated in the output above and this is something that hopefully will get resolved in the VMC service soon.
Thanks for the comment!