One really neat feature of the vSphere HTML5 Client that was shipped in vSphere 6.7 is the ability to deliver new data applications that can run in the vSphere UI without requiring customers to update or upgrade their underlying vCenter Server. An example of this is the vSphere Health Check plugin that was included in vSphere 6.7, which I am guessing most folks probably did not even notice, including myself. The vSphere Health plugin is located at the vCenter Server level and under Monitor->Health as shown in the screenshot below.
Unlike a traditional vSphere Plugin, where the code and business logic is local to the vCenter Server and must be updated each time for new functionality, these data applications are actually delivered automatically and more importantly, out-of-band to a vCenter Server patch or upgrade. This means as new functionality is added, customers will automatically get the latest updates without having to do anything. So how does this actually work?
This capability is actually part of VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) and must be enabled on your vCenter Server for this feature to work. In the case of the vSphere Health app, relevant data from your vSphere environment is sent back to VMware's Data Analytics Platform for analysis and is then checked against a number of datasets including known issues and KBs. Only the relevant vSphere Health Checks are then processed and displayed in your vSphere UI which are applicable for your specific environment.
When vSphere 6.7 had initially shipped, there were only 5 vSphere Health Checks that were built not including the CEIP and online health connectivity checks. Last Fall, the team has added an additional 22 new Health Checks and these were instantly made available within a customers vSphere UI without requiring any additional updates or changes to the vCenter Server, which is pretty darn cool if you ask me?!
In the example below, you can see there are now a total of 27 vSphere Health Checks, but only 9 of them are actually applicable for my particular environment.
Here is another environment, running the exact same version of vSphere, but now with 11 applicable vSphere Health Checks for this particular environment.
Customer who enable CEIP will not only help us improve our products, but they will start to see new brand functionality that can deliver unique insights that is customized for their specific environment. This is only the beginning and who knows, maybe things like vSphere HCL and VMware Interoperability checks could show up next which could even include upgrade recommendations for managing vSphere Lifecycle Management ... If you do not have CEIP turned on, definitely consider working with your organization to get it enabled!
How does this functionality compare or complement Skyline reports?
Why doesn't VMware provide this useful information withOUT having to enable CEIP? It seems like valuable information to have and it should be available regardless of CEIP status.
Whats about scenarios where customers didn't have the permission to enable ceip.
Are these new features are accesible with new patch releases from vCenter?
It would be usefull to get these minor changes via download and give it to the vCenter via local repository.
I understand that the ceip data are very usefull and valuable for VMware but it would not be fair to have a two-tier society in the customer base.
Please don't get me wrong, at the end oft the day i realy like this new feature.
I feel a little uneasy about having arbitrary changes pushed to my Production Environment without prior notice and organisational review. What happens if a change interacts badly with a 3rd-party plugin or custom script? How do I roll it back? How do I even know something's changed?
I'm generally happy to tick the CEIP box, as I'm sure the metrics and feedback go to good use, but this is an issue for risk-averse/change-controlled environments. Audits are scary 🙂
Is there a way to opt-in to the updates? Perhaps even an "update $PLUGIN now" button on the Administration page?
VMware is blatantly misleading customers about the Health checks and Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) in order to hide their real purpose. VMware have attempted to wrap together very basic, obvious checks and some knowledge base articles in an attempt to lure customers into opting in to VMware's mass data collection. They state individual information is not kept, yet then admin all collected information is tied directly to your license key – so they DO know exactly who you are. They witll then also know everything about your system as well. Our initial wireshark data shows the amount, breadth of data they are collecting is massive and the pulls constant… and since you agreed to it – they are allowed to pull, keep, share, abuse the information any way they want. They even pull all your logs of day-to-day activity, hardware information, geographical location and network topology. BEWARE!
By means of introduction my name is Hristo Maradjiev and I am the Product Manager for the Telemetry at VMware. I saw your comment here and decided to shed more light on the matter.
The Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) was introduced to help us take informed decisions on the direction of our products and where we should invest more. I believe we are fully transparent on what data is collected and why. You can check this document for more details: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/solutions/security-and-privacy-for-vmware-ceip.pdf
In return for the provided information, we found a way to share back some insights with our customers. This is the reason behind vSAN Health and vSphere Health, and we are very committed to add new functionalities and health checks in them. We see CEIP as a two-way communication which is beneficial for both sides.
Based on the aggressiveness with which joining VMware's CEIP is now a hard push at every leval and the obscure location of the 'opt-out' function once CEIP is enabled...We strongly question the motive, purpose - and need for this volume of enterprise internal data.
** VSphere and VCenter now show yellow alarms for health issues if you have not joined CEIP
We never had issues with VMware's declaration of the data collected - but few IT admins read carefully and even fewer have taken the time to consider the vast data being collected.
Just take a look at the incredibly broad list of continual data collected - virtually everything:
(as quoted from VMware's information)
"product environment information"
"product configuration settings"
"and technical data relating to the devices accessing those products and services"
** EVEN details about your client workstations!
"details about which product features your organization uses"
"performance and scale of VMware products and services, response times for User Interfaces"
"details about your API calls"
"Product Logs may also be collected"
"logs record system events and state during product operations"
"For example, this information may also enable a proactive discussion with your VMware account team to improve your VMware product deployment"
Marketing speak for - See how we can sell you other products, features or maximize our monetizing of our licensing terms...
Furthermore - VMware then states they now OWN all your system data they just collected:
"Since this data is product specific usage data from VMware software, and used
primarily for product improvement, the data becomes the sole property of
VMware."
I am having an issue with the non-vSAN health checks in vCenter 6.7. Can anyone shed light into the test to determine if there is internet access or not? https://communities.vmware.com/message/2878421#2878421
I'm working with a Customer who does not want to enable CEIP.
How can I get rid of the alarm in vCenter please?
"vSphere Health detected new issues in your environment"
Seems odd that by not participating I now need to spend time researching how to get rid of the alarm!
Just disable the Alarm as these are enabled by default. You’ll see them defined at the vCenter level
Thanks William.
So the alarm, 'vSphere Health detected new issues in your environment', is only related to the online checks, for which I need the CEIP enabled? Just wanted to make sure I'm not missing out on anything that other customers who aren't running CEIP get!
Get-AlarmDefinition | where Name -Like "vSphere Health detected*" | Set-AlarmDefinition -Enabled:$false
Hi William
Is there any way that we can generate the report (Excel)of health for all Esxi host within vcenter
Is there also a way to gather this inforation via PS or cli on the vcsa? it would be great to monitor this information about driver and security issues in an external central location ( f. E. a monitoring tool ) where we can trck it as we have several dozens opf different vCenters
Thank you for your suggestion. This is in our backlog and we will consider it for our future releases.