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Quick Tip - VCF 9.0.1 upgrade files now available on Broadcom Support Portal (BSP)

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When VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0.1 was initially released, some of the upgrade binary files were not published on the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP), but they were available when using the VCF Download Tool (VCFDT). For users that wish to manually download the VCF 9.0.1 installation and/or upgrade files from the BSP, they can now be accessed on the VCF 9.0.1 download section.


Note: VCFDT is the recommended method for downloading VCF software binaries and metadata, which will automatically build the required VCF software depot structure. If you manually download the binaries, ensure you also download the vcf-9.0.1.0-offline-depot-metadata.zip and place all binaries in the respective folders as outlined in my recent VCF Software Depot Structure Deep Dive for Installation & Upgrades. This method can also be used for VMUG Advantage users who have obtained their VCF Certification until 11/24, which is when we expect the new VCF licensing and download token generation to be available for VMUG Advantage users, which mirror the exact same experience as users with VCF entitlements.


In addition, to help users quickly identify the required VCF upgrade files, I have listed them below along with the direct download link from BSP for your convenience.

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Capturing Kasa Smart Plug Power Metrics using VCF Operations Management Pack Builder

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VCF Operations has long supported the ingestion of custom metrics and data through custom management packs, typically created by 3rd party vendors. While users can build their own custom management packs, it was a non-starter for many due to the development background required.

The newly integrated VCF Operations Management Pack Builder provides a no-code solution that can connect to any REST-based API endpoint, making it trivial to bring in custom metrics and associating that with existing or new objects within VCF Operations.


My recent purchase of a Kasa Smart Plug for energy monitoring gave me the perfect opportunity to use the VCF Operations Management Pack Builder!

Long story short, Kasa does not provide any public APIs to access their smart devices, but the open-source community has reversed engineer their protocol and built a python library called python-kasa allowing users to interact with their Kasa smart devices.

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Retrieving the vSAN Cluster Shutdown VMs running Pre-Check Results using PowerCLI

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The vSAN Cluster Shutdown capability has been around since vSAN 7 Update 3 and has been enhanced over the years, most recently with the introduction of a vSAN Cluster Shutdown Wizard as part of the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0 release.


For those looking to automate the shutdown of their vSAN Cluster, we have a number of PowerCLI cmdlets: Get-VsanClusterPowerState, Start-VsanCluster and Stop-VsanCluster that simplifies this process in addition to the new UI interface, all leveraging the vSAN Management APIs.

Before the vSAN Cluster can initiate the shutdown workflow, it needs to make sure all VMs (excluding the vCenter Server VM that is managing the vSAN Cluster) has been powered off. For large environments, it can take some time to power off all VMs, which means you might need to poll or wait before running the Stop-VsanCluster cmdlet.

Instead of having to write additional code to wait for all your VMs to shutdown, you can leverage one of the vSAN Health Check Perspectives that will conveniently let you know when the vSAN Cluster is ready to be shutdown.

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