Offline VMware Capacity Planner:

I have mostly done online VMware Capacity Planner as most customers usually don’t mind it, though when I started offering VMware Capacity Planner for Banks & Ministries that’s when Offline VMware Capacity Planner came handy. Many of the companies & ministries mind you sending data online directly, where they are OK with you sending it after they inspect it. As VMware Capacity Planner allow you to queue all your inventory data & performance data on the Capacity Planner system and upload it from another system or at another time that problem can be over come by what I like to call Offline VMware Capacity Planner. Although you will need to use the same methodology if the system running the capacity planner does not have an internet & you want to upload the data at a later time using another machine with internet access. The procedure of Offline VMware Capactiy Planner is below as documented by VMware KB#1896:

Follow these steps:

  1. Register the Database ID from the primary (originating) collector. The secondary (sending) collector does not need to be registered to the Company ID. For more information see: Viewing and Adding Collector Database IDs to a Client Registration (1891) .

  2. On the originating Collector computer export the inventory data into a .CSV file. First setup the task to export only and process any Linux inventory data.  Click Admin > Options > Modules > Data Synchronize. Delselect all items except Export collection data for systems, and Import Collection Data for Systems.

  3. Click Tasks > Run Manual Tasks > Run Data Synchronization Task. Wait for the process to finish.

  4. Using Windows Explorer open the Capacity Planner base directory, typically %ProgramFiles%\VMware\VMware Capacity Planner .  Open the outbox folder.

  5. Copy the files from outbox folder on the originating Collector to the outbox folder on the sending Collector. For each file copied, verify that the copy is intact before you delete that file from the source computer.

  6. From the sending Collector upload the files copied into its outbox folder. Click Tasks > Run Scheduled Jobs > Run Scheduled – Data Synchronize. The data is now be securely uploaded from the sending Collector to the IW.

Important: As of the current release (version 2.6.0), the Support Dashboard does not display the files from the originating Collector that are sent from the sending Collector. While files do not appear in the listing, the dashboard does process the data. You notice that on the Server Stats tab, the Performance Data Collector Success Rate by Week graph gradually increases for the current week as more data is received. You might have to observe this progress over several days to verify data is being received and processed.

I hope that help some one find the instruction faster, as it took me some time to find them out few months back. Enjoy the tip & please leave me a comment if that help some one.