VMware HealthAnalyzer

Release Notes
Release 5.1.0
December 2016

For Use Only by VMware and VMware Solution Providers

Not a Customer Deliverable
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and
intellectual property laws. This product is covered by one or more patents listed at
http://www.vmware.com/download/patents.html.
VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other
jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective
companies.

VMware, Inc.
3401 Hillview Ave
Palo Alto, CA 94304
www.vmware.com

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 2 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Contents

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.1.0................................................... 5

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.6................................................... 5
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.5................................................... 5
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.4.1 ................................................ 5
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.4................................................... 6
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.3................................................... 6
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.2................................................... 7
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.1................................................... 7
VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0...................................................... 8
Product Features .................................................................................................................... 8
Installing VMware HealthAnalyzer ......................................................................................... 8

Resolved Issues ................................................................................... 10

Known Issues ....................................................................................... 13
Installation and Support ........................................................................ 14
Supported Operating Systems and Browsers ...................................................................... 14
Supported VMware Environments ....................................................................................... 14
Memory Requirements for Large vSphere Environments .................................................... 15
Resources ............................................................................................................................ 15
Support ................................................................................................................................. 15
Support for Partners .................................................................................................................................... 15
Support for VMware Field ........................................................................................................................... 15
Downloading the VMware HealthAnalyzer Log Files ........................................................... 15

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 3 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 4 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.1.0

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.1.0 includes the following changes:
 Implementation of health check and best practices catalog for VMware NSX® for vSphere®.
 Data collection from VMware NSX Manager™ (REST APIs) and VMware NSX Controller™ (SSH
commands) to provide data tables and analysis of health check items and best practices.
HealthAnalyzer supports data collection and analysis for NSX for vSphere 6.2.2 and later.
 Desktop (End User Computing) best practices catalog has been updated to synchronize with EUC
Health Check Service Kit 3.0 that supports VMware Horizon® 7.
 Configuration maximums used in desktop best practices analysis have been updated for VMware
Horizon 7.
 The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version has been upgraded to 1.8 update_111 in the virtual
appliance.
 HealthAnalyzer virtual appliance is now distributed in OVA format.
 Several major and minor bug fixes have been included in this release.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.6

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.6 includes the following changes:
 VMware vSphere 6 best practices catalog has been updated to correct minor typos and hyperlinks.
 Analysis and data tables have been implemented for a few more vSphere best practices.
 The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version has been upgraded to 1.7 update 85 in the virtual
appliance.
 HealthAnalyzer virtual appliance now supports configuring static IP addresses during OVF
deployment.
 Bug fixes reported by field, including View compatibility issues and reporting issues.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.5

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.5 includes the following changes:
 VMware HealthAnalyzer Collector is introduced. This version includes the Collector functionality, but
not the analysis or reporting functionality. This version allows customers to collect data and then
provide it to VMware Global Services Engineering for analysis and reporting.
 vSphere 6 best practices catalog allowing the use of HealthAnalyzer against vSphere 6.0
environments and supporting the delivery of the Health check on vSphere 6.0.
 Support is no longer provided for vSphere 4.x.
 The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version has been upgraded to 1.7 update 80 in the virtual
appliance.
 Bug fixes.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.4.1

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.4.1 includes the following change:

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 5 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes
 The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version has been upgraded to 1.7 update 76 in the virtual
appliance.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.4

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.4 includes the following changes:
 Improved collection and analysis for licensing best practices, VMware vSAN™ best practices, and
DC-030, ST-007, CO-005 best practices.
 Added collection and analysis for desktop best practices 16.1 and 16.2.
 The following Health Check service kits are supported:
o VMware Virtualization Health Check Service Kit 1.2
o VMware vSphere Health Check Service Kit 6.3
o VMware Desktop Virtualization Health Check Service Kit 2.1
 The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version has been upgraded from 1.6 to 1.7 in the virtual
appliance.
 To use the Java Launcher, the minimum required JRE version is 1.7, but 1.7 64-bit is recommended.
 The virtual appliance operating system has been changed from CentOS to 64-bit SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server (SLES) version 11 SP 3.
 A new property for Storage Policies data collection has been added. The property adds additional
permissions on top of read-only permissions (see the VMware HealthAnalyzer User Guide for details
about permissions).
 The option to include a single sign-on (SSO) server is now available for both VMware Horizon View™
and vSphere catalogs.
 Bug fixes.
 By default, the collection.storagepolicies.enabled property is enabled in the vha.properties file. If you
want to bypass the Storage Policies data collection, follow these steps
Appliance configuration
1. Go to <vha 5.0.4>/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.storagepolicies.enabled to false.
4. Restart the appliance.
Java Launcher configuration
1. Go to <vha 5.0.4>/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.storagepolicies.enabled to false.
4. Restart the Java Launcher.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.3

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.3 includes the following changes:
 Addition of vSAN best practices (VMware Virtualization Health Check Service kit 1.1).

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 6 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes
 Bug fixes

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.2

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.2 includes the following changes:
 Change in launcher process.
 Performance improvements.
 Bug fixes.
 By default, the collection.iscsiport.enabled property is enabled in the vha.properties
file. If you want to bypass the iSCSI port information collection, follow these steps:
Appliance configuration
1. Go to: <vha 5.0.2>/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.iscsiport.enabled to: false.
4. Restart the appliance.
Java Launcher configuration
1. Go to: <vha 5.0.2>/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.iscsiport.enabled to: false.
4. Restart the Java Launcher.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0.1

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0.1 includes the following changes:
 Significant performance and memory utilization improvements have been made.
 A Rerun Analysis link has been added to the project page. If you have changed any best practice
settings, such as assigning a grade or adding observations, click the link to rerun the analysis and
return to the original settings.
 The export spreadsheet now contains a findings worksheet in addition to the worksheet for each of
the tables in the best practice.
 The option to collect VMware vCenter Server® diagnostic data has been removed from the user
interface. In most cases, it is not necessary to collect this information, and doing so has an impact on
performance. If you need to collect the detailed diagnostic information, use the following configuration
steps to automatically collect the diagnostics data:
Appliance configuration
1. Go to: /usr/share/vha/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.diagnosticbundle.enabled to: true.
4. Restart the appliance.
Java Launcher configuration
1. Go to: <vha 5.0.1>/tomcat/webapps/vha/WEB-INF/classes.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 7 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes
2. Open the vha.properties file.
3. Set collection.diagnosticbundle.enabled to: true.
4. Restart the Java Launcher.

VMware HealthAnalyzer Release 5.0

VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0 supports the delivery of desktop and virtualization Health Check services.
VMware HealthAnalyzer collects data automatically from VMware View® and vSphere, analyzes the data,
and presents findings, observations, recommended grades, and relevant data for each of the best
practices defined by the Health Check Service Kit. VMware HealthAnalyzer is designed as a workbench
for VMware consultants and solution providers to help streamline the delivery of the Health Check
service. Users have the ability to review and edit grades and observations and then generate a report in
Microsoft Word format.
The following Health Check service kits are supported:
 VMware Virtualization Health Check Service Kit 1.0 (supporting vSphere 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5)
 VMware vSphere Health Check Service Kit 6.3 (supporting vSphere 4.x through 5.1)
 VMware Desktop Virtualization Health Check Service Kit 2.0 (supporting VMware Horizon View™ 5.0
and 5.1)
Review these release notes before installing VMware HealthAnalyzer.

Product Features
VMware HealthAnalyzer 5.0 includes the following new features:
 Single instance of VMware HealthAnalyzer to perform desktop and virtualization Health Check
services.
 Support for vSphere 5.5 best practices.
 Easy installation of VMware HealthAnalyzer Java application on Windows or Mac.
 Easy deployment of VMware HealthAnalyzer virtual appliance on VMware vSphere ESXi™, VMware
Workstation™, and VMware Fusion®.
 Automated collection of View and vSphere inventory with configuration and utilization data.
 Catalog of best practices developed specifically for View and vSphere.
 Automated analysis of collected data to create findings and observations and grade the best practices
defined for View and vSphere.
 Export of categorized data and findings into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for graphing or offline
review.
 Health Check Report in Microsoft Word format.

Installing VMware HealthAnalyzer

See the VMware HealthAnalyzer Installation and User Guide for installation procedures.
 VMware consultants (only) can download the VMware HealthAnalyzer and the documentation from
VM Vault. Search for “HealthAnalyzer.”
 VMware partners who have a current Services Software Solutions subscription can download
VMware HealthAnalyzer and the documentation from Partner Central.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 8 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes
VMware HealthAnalyzer is distributed as VHA-5.0.x.x-build-xxxxxxx-App.zip and VHA-
5.0.x.x-build-xxxxxxx-OVF.zip.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 9 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Resolved Issues
This release addresses analysis suggestions provided by consultants and partners from previous
releases of VMware HealthAnalyzer. The following table lists issues resolved from earlier releases.

Bug number Description

VPSHA-135 “Export All” for certain vSphere projects fail due to “Out of memory” issues

VPSHA-133 vSphere BP CO-008 (host devices order) analysis is wrong and results in
duplicate entries.

VPSHA-125 Show Best Practice IDs (like CO-001) instead of internal folder names in
“Export All” output

DE9028 Collection/analysis can potentially fail if a VM (or any entity) is deleted

between discovery and collection.

VPSHA-136 In certain situations of Horizon 6 and 7 View Connection Server

configuration, HealthAnalyzer fails to connect and collect data.

VPSHA-137 vSphere analysis errors due to empty sequence and incorrect comparison
issues in certain situations

DE11115 View 6.1 compatibility issues with VHA 5.0.5.

DE11962 View Word report generation results in empty Word report when multi-disk
configuration exists in the View Connection server guest OS.

DE11716 Word reporting error − Non-VMware DVS causes reporting query to fail and
results in empty Word report.

DE11689 Fix Word report − remove pie chart related tag.

DE10938 NE-013 Fix max allowed NIC ports analysis − current rule does not check
single type of NIC.

DE11515 vSAN Host Disk Summary data table shows wrong data.

DE9807 vSphere best practice NE-013 does not take network driver into
consideration in analysis, resulting in false positives.

DE10910 Collection fails against VMware vCenter® 6.0.

DE10449 Best practice DC-007: incorrect observation text for isolation address
related findings.

DE8710 ST-007 − Data table content is not useful to validate analysis.

DE8686 Report generation fails for HW Inventory section.

DE8676 VM-026 Analysis and data tables are not in sync.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 10 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Bug number Description

DE8137 CO-005 Advanced config setting − analysis update.

DE8136 NE-026 − Update analysis to consider all versions of

DistributedVirtualSwitch instead of just four.

DE7990 Best practice CO-010: unnecessary P1 findings get created for firewall
changes.

DE7854 Analysis error when collected data is analyzed against View 5.3.

DE7809 DC-003: Analysis based on bytes but data table shows in GB.

DE7711 Folder with very long description results in hiding action hyperlinks.

DE7700 Network failure detection always shows incorrect failure criteria for
vSwitches.

DE7634 View 1.1 − BP 2.3 − Exclude “unknown” version desktops from analysis or
create lower priority findings.

DE7630 View 1.1 − BP 2.2 − Incorrect build number comparison.

DE7629 View 1.1 − BP 10.1 − Analysis incorrectly creating finding for LSI Logic SAS
Controller.

DE7581 ST-003 Analysis − Do not analyze datastores connected CD-ROM or floppy.

Look for VMDK based datastores only.

DE7260 DC-020 (6.4) Virtual machines directly under cluster are flagged if found to
exist with resource pools.

DE7258 SIOC is not applicable for NFS.

DE7257 Add a Findings tab in Excel worksheet for each best practice created from
Export All.

DE7396 HostFirewallSettingsNotDefaultFindingRule findings with a

finding level of 5 do not map to any severity.

DE7184 Default VMware HealthAnalyzer OVF supports only up to 4 GB memory for

the virtual appliance.

DE7155 Stand-alone host in discovery filter uses CLUSTER icon.

DE6033 NE-019 − VHA 3.5 analysis skips vCenter Server versions 4.1, 5.0, and 5.1.

VMware HealthAnalyzer 3.5 does not show details of a distributed virtual

switch (DVS) that is not attached to an ESXi host.
DE6029

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 11 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Bug number Description

DE5401 NE-002 − VHA 3.5 does not generate findings on host or cluster if DVS NIC
speed is not consistent across hosts in the cluster.

602014 NE-002 − VHA 3.5 shows incorrect service console port group.

− Implemented significant performance and memory utilization improvements.

− Fixed several analysis-related errors.

− VMware HealthAnalyzer 3.5 − Advanced parameter related analysis results

in false positives.

− Export data fails for large environments with a large number of networks.

− VMware ThinApp® VMware HealthAnalyzer issues –ThinApp has been

replaced with a Java App that makes it easy to run on Windows as well as
Mac.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 12 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Known Issues
The following issues are known in this release of VMware HealthAnalyzer.

Bug number Description

VPSHA-124 Font in Appendix C of NSX Word report is not consistent with other parts of the Word
report.

VPSHA-113 Extra line after each generated table in several sections of NSX Word report

DE10538 In some scenarios, View collection fails against View 5.x/6.x servers with an error in
logs “com.sun.jndi.ldap.LdapCtx”

DE9081 [Desktop 6.0] 11.1 – Only one finding per affected entity is needed.

DE7487 Pasting or deleting content does not auto save observation text.

DE7424 Server restart during vSphere collection (past discovery) results in an Invalid
Credentials error and no way to enter a password.

DE6186 When collection for a project is in progress, Delete Project or Delete Folder does not
stop collection.

DE5999 DC-013: Take into account localized values of User/Group for analysis instead of built-
in Window groups.

DE5981 Include DistributedVirtualSwitch and not only VMwareDistributedVirtualSwitch for data.

959068 Behavior of export functionality for filtered data.

969928 Collector UI allows two vCenter Server entries with the same vCenter system.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 13 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Installation and Support

Supported Operating Systems and Browsers
VMware HealthAnalyzer is available as a Java application or as a virtual appliance. The VMware
HealthAnalyzer user interface uses HTML and JavaScript and is accessible through a web browser. You
can use the VMware HealthAnalyzer web interface with the following browsers.
 Windows 7 or later:
o Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 or later.
o Mozilla Firefox 15 or later.
o Google Chrome 21 or later.
 Windows Server 2008 or later:
o Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 or later.
o Mozilla Firefox 12 or later.
o Google Chrome 21 or later.
 Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra:
o Google Chrome 21 or later.
o Apple Safari 6 or later.
o Mozilla Firefox 15 or later.
You can execute / run the VMware HealthAnalyzer virtual appliance on the following VMware platforms:
 VMware vSphere 4.0 or later.
 VMware Workstation 9 or later.
 VMware Fusion 5 or later.

Supported VMware Environments

VMware HealthAnalyzer works with
 View 4.6 and later.
 VMware vCenter Server 4.x and later.
 VMware NSX for vSphere 6.2.2 and later.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 14 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes

Memory Requirements for Large vSphere Environments

VMware HealthAnalyzer needs to be configured with additional memory to collect and analyze data from
large vSphere environments. When VMware HealthAnalyzer is configured with more memory, the
underlying physical or virtual machine should also have equivalent available memory for Java to allocate
for VMware HealthAnalyzer processes.
Use the following memory recommendations:
 Small vSphere environments (less than 25 hosts, 500 VMs, 100 datastores): 1024 MB
 Medium-sized vSphere environments (approximately 50 hosts, 1000 VMs, 300 datastores): 2048 MB
 Large vSphere environments (above 100 hosts, 3000 VMs, 500 datastores): 3072 MB or more
Refer to the VMware HealthAnalyzer User Guide for information on changing the VMware HealthAnalyzer
memory configuration.

Resources
The following VMware HealthAnalyzer resources are available from Partner Central (for VMware solution
providers) and VM Vault (for VMware consultants).
 VMware HealthAnalyzer Release Notes (this document).
 VMware HealthAnalyzer User Guide.

Support
If you contact Support, include a full description of the problem. Support is handled differently depending
on whether you are a partner or a VMware consultant.

Support for Partners

VMware partners who have a current Services Software Solutions subscription can call or send email.
HealthAnalyzer community
https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/servicessoftware/healthanalyzer
 Phone: 1.650.427.7550
 Email: PartnerNetwork@vmware.com
Support is available in English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and other
languages.

Support for VMware Field

Email: Services-software-support@vmware.com.
HealthAnalyzer Socialcast group (https://vmware-com.socialcast.com/groups/15227-
vspherehealthanalyzerproduct)

Downloading the VMware HealthAnalyzer Log Files

Before contacting support, visit the VMware HealthAnalyzer Socialcast group or Virtual Community to see
if a solution is available. If you encounter a problem while working with VMware HealthAnalyzer,
download and send the log files to Support.
The preferred method for downloading the log files is to use the UI. To download the log files, select
Admin > Log Files.

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 15 of 16
 VMware HealthAnalyzer
Release Notes
If the UI is not available, you can copy the log files directly from the following locations (you might need to
work with Support to identify and copy other log files that might be needed).
 Virtual appliance:
o /usr/share/vha/logs/vha.log
o /usr/share/vha/tomcat/logs/catalina.log
 Application:
o <vha install location>/logs/vha.log
o <vha install location>/tomcat/logs/catalina.log

© 2016 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Page 16 of 16