As we look ahead to the next evolution of our multi-tenant cloud platform, understanding how VMware Cloud Director (VCD) is used in the field has never been more important. VMware Cloud Director Environment Assessment Tool (EAT) — a lightweight, on-demand script designed to help Cloud Providers and VCD Enterprise Customers gain insights into their VCD deployments while contributing data to shape future platform enhancements.
What is the VCD Environment Assessment Tool?
The EAT is a diagnostic utility that collects environment-specific metadata from a VCD instance. It helps you:
- Review deployment scale, including:
- Number of Organizations, PVDCs, OrgVDCs, and networks
- Understand feature usage patterns
- Identify complex vApp constructs (e.g. large vApps with multiple networks or nested components)
The tool was built to support both Providers and VMware product teams in gaining better visibility into how VCD is being used across the ecosystem.
What Does It Collect?
EAT only gathers structural metadata about your deployment. This includes:
- Counts of tenants (Orgs), VDCs, networks, and edge gateways
- Feature usage flags (e.g. if vApp leases, storage profiles, or affinity rules are used)
- A summary of the most complex vApps for scale benchmarking
- System versioning and configuration indicators
The output is a human-readable Excel report, allowing you to:
- Review all collected data before sharing
- Remove or redact anything you prefer to keep private
No telemetry or automatic upload is involved. You stay in control of what gets sent.
Which VCD Versions are supported?
The EAT Tool supports collecting data from VCD 10.4.x, 10.5.x and 10.6.x deployments.
How to Share the Report
Once you’ve reviewed and, if needed, redacted your report, we kindly ask you to send it to our central coordination alias: VCDEAT.PDL@Broadcom.com
This helps us compile real-world data to guide platform direction and ensure we prioritize the capabilities you rely on most.
How to Download?
You can download VMware Cloud Director Environment Assessment Tool from the following link (under Drivers & Tools section).
How to Use the EAT Tool
Step 1: Download and Unpack
- Download the file: vcd-assessment-tool-1.0-release.zip
- Upload and unzip it on one of your VMware Cloud Director (VCD) cells
Step 2: Run the Script
- Navigate into the unzipped folder – vcd-assessment-tool-1.0
- Execute the script by running: ./eat.sh
Step 3: Locate the Report
- The report will be generated under the following directory:
/opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/ - Inside, you will find a folder named with the current date and time
- Look for a file named: assessment-reports-
.zip (Default location would be /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/
This ZIP contains the Excel report and additional metadata
Step 4: Review and Share the Report
- Open the Excel file and review the collected data
- If needed, remove any information you do not want to share
- Once finalized, send the ZIP file to: VCDEAT.PDL@Broadcom.com
Optional Parameters
The tool also supports command-line arguments. For example:
- –vcd-url VCD API endpoint
- –username or -u VCD API username
- –-password or -p VCD API password
- –output-dir or -d output directory for dumping zip, xlsx, json files [default = /opt/vmware/vcloud-director/data/transfer/]
- –interactive or -i Interactive Mode (True/False)
You can view all available options by running: ./eat.sh –help
