VCF 9 - Automating the VCF Support logs using Log Assist Feature

In IT infrastructure, support engineers handle a wide range of daily activities—maintaining, sustaining, and troubleshooting systems. At times, they also face complex bugs or advanced issues that require assistance from product support teams.

In this scenario, we’re using VCF as the example product a tightly integrated solution composed of multiple components working together to deliver its capabilities.

Let’s walk through a short story to understand the root cause of an issue and how it was resolved:

A support engineer named Vivek was working on importing a vCenter instance into a VCF 9 environment. During this process, he encountered a challenging error within VCF Operations that he was unable to resolve on his own.

Realizing he needed help, Vivek opened a support request with Broadcom. The support team asked him to provide the necessary log bundles for analysis. Vivek downloaded the requested logs locally and uploaded them to the Broadcom portal a task that took considerable time. Unfortunately, Broadcom later informed him that the uploaded logs were corrupted and asked him to repeat the process. This repeated effort consumed several productive hours, leaving Vivek frustrated.

Determined to find a better way, Vivek began researching and discovered a feature called Log Assist—the successor to one of his previous favorite tools, VMware Skyline.

Log Assist is a built-in capability in VCF 9 that automates the collection and upload of logs directly to Broadcom, eliminating the need for manual downloads or uploads. This significantly reduces operational overhead and allows support engineers to focus on actual troubleshooting rather than time-consuming log handling.

Now that we have a basic understanding of Log Assist, let’s look at what is required to enable and use it in a VCF 9 environment. Note that this feature is available only from VCF 9.0 onward.

Prerequisites for Enabling Log Assist in VCF 9

• VCF Operations Deployment
  The VCF Operations appliances must be deployed in the environment.

• Unified Cloud Proxy
  A Unified Cloud Proxy must be installed and configured. It acts as the secure communication bridge between the on-premises VCF environment and Broadcom Cloud Services.

• VCF Operations for Logs
  VCF Operations for logs must be integrated with the vCenter instance, licensed with VCF or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) version 9 or later.

• Network Connectivity
  The Unified Cloud Proxy must have outbound HTTPS connectivity (port 443) to Broadcom Cloud Services (eapi.broadcom.com), as well as access to VCF endpoints such as vCenter and ESXi hosts.

Now, As we had discussed about the requirement of technical requirement to enable "Log Assist" Feature.

Lets begin with Deployment and configuration steps:

Step 1: Download "Unified Cloud Proxy OVA" from Broadcom support Site.

Step 2: Login to VCF Operation > Administrator > Cloud Proxies

Step 3: Click on ADD under "Cloud proxies" section

Step 4: Copy the Unique registration key which is at #5 for future reference " This will be required during deployment of Unified Cloud proxy OVA installation"

Step 5: Installation of Unified Cloud proxy:

Deploy the Unified Cloud proxy OVA on Managment vCenter

Note: Make Sure you select "Unified Cloud Proxy" During deployment and select size as per your environment.

Step 6: Once the Unified Cloud proxy installation completed please validate it should say connected to VCF operation. It may take 5-10 min to get the connectivity. So please be bit patience.

Step 7: Once the Cloud proxy is well connected to VCF Operation follow below steps:
Administration > Cloud Proxies:     Here you will see your newly Cloud proxy vm showing with            status" Online" with Type " Unified" 

Note: As I have already activated my CloudUnified Proxy, thats the reason its showing as "Activated" . However, initially you need to Activate it using below option

Select the Cloud Proxy > Click on 3 dots > Activate Log Assist

Step 8: Now, its time integrate your Unfied Cloud proxy with associated components like VCF, vCenter and others. 

For that Go to Administration > Integrations > Accounts > ADD > VCF or NSX or vCenter 

Here we adding VCF as an account type:

>Populate the VCF details

>Collector /Group : Select the Unified Cloud Proxy 

Like this you could add other Account type like vCenter, NSX and others.

Step 9: Now its time to access the LogAssist Feature:

Login to VCF operations > Infrastructure Operatons > Diagnostic Findings > Log Assist

Click on "Prepare A Transfer" to upload logs using "Log Assist"

Select the inventory for which you would like to generate and ship the logs to Broadcom support.

Here i have selected the VCF operations logs to be shipped.

Here, log assist will validate and confirm the connectivity

Add active Broadcom Support case ID and click > TRANSFER

Logs starting initiating > Downloading and processing.. 

Logs download and shipping got completed in just 4 minutes. But again it depends on logs size.

Using "Log Assist" greatly simplifies the support engineer's workflow and eliminates unnecessary los of productive hours.

Hope you found this article useful.