VMware VCF Operations

VMware Cloud Foundation Operations (formerly vRealize / Aria Operations) is an infrastructure operations management platform that provides monitoring, capacity planning, troubleshooting, and inventory visibility for vSphere and VCF environments.

Use Cases the Adapter Solves

• Monitor virtual infrastructure inventory: Bring VMware virtual machines and hosts into a single asset inventory.
• Track operational health: Review resource health, power state, and related-resource information when investigating infrastructure status.
• Prioritize active alerts: Collect active VMware VCF Operations alerts with their severity and affected resource information.

Asset Types Fetched

• Devices
• Alert Findings

Data Retrieved through the Adapter

Devices - fields such as: Hostname, Device Name, Operating System, Power State

Alert Findings - fields such as: Alert ID, Finding Name, Finding Severity, Resource ID

Before You Begin

Required Ports

• TCP port 443 (HTTPS)

Authentication Methods

Username and password authentication.

APIs

Axonius uses the VMware VCF Operations API. The following endpoints are called:

• POST /suite-api/api/auth/token/acquire - Acquires a session token.
• GET /suite-api/api/resources - Retrieves VMware resources.
• GET /suite-api/api/resources/properties - Retrieves properties for each resource when enabled.
• POST /suite-api/api/alerts/query - Retrieves alerts for the configured resource kinds.

Required Permissions

A VCF Operations user (local or from an imported auth source) with read access to inventory, properties and alerts. Read-only role is sufficient; exact privilege names can be found via GET /suite-api/api/auth/currentuser/permissions.

Supported From Version

Supported from Axonius version 10.0.1

Setting Up VMware VCF Operations to Work with Axonius

1. Identify the HTTPS base URL for the VCF Operations appliance.
2. Obtain the user name and password for an account that can access the required API endpoints.
3. If the account belongs to an imported LDAP, Active Directory, or vIDM source, obtain the exact authentication-source name.

Connecting the Adapter in Axonius

1. Navigate to the Adapter Catalog, search for VMware VCF Operations, and select the adapter.
2. Click Add Connection.
3. Provide the following parameters.

Required Parameters

1. Host Name or IP Address - The VCF Operations appliance host, including the https:// prefix. Do not add /suite-api or another path. Example: https://vcf-ops.example.com
2. User Name - The user name for the VCF Operations account.
3. Password - The password for the VCF Operations account.

Optional Parameters

1. Authentication Source - The name of the imported LDAP, Active Directory, or vIDM source for the user. Leave this empty for a local VCF Operations user.
2. Verify SSL - Select whether to verify the SSL certificate of the server against the CA database inside of Axonius. For more details, see SSL Trust & CA Settings.
3. HTTPS Proxy - Connect the adapter to a proxy instead of directly connecting to the host.
4. HTTPS Proxy User Name - The user name for the configured HTTPS Proxy.
5. HTTPS Proxy Password - The password for the configured HTTPS Proxy.

To learn more about common adapter connection parameters and buttons, see Adding a New Adapter Connection.

Advanced Settings

• Resource Kinds - Select the VMware resource kinds to fetch as devices and use to scope alerts. The default is VirtualMachine and HostSystem; an empty list uses those defaults.
• Skip resources in NOT_EXISTING state - Exclude resources that VCF Operations still lists after they were deleted from vCenter. This is enabled by default.
• Resource Properties - Enable retrieval of each resource's property list. This is disabled by default and makes one request per fetched resource.
• Resource properties request workers - Set the number of parallel resource-property requests. The default is 5; supported values are 1 through 20.
• Alerts - Enable or disable alert retrieval. This is enabled by default.
• Fetch active alerts only - Exclude suspended and cancelled alerts. This is enabled by default.