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Runecast

You may have searched for 'skyline vs runecast' to reach this page, so we want to clarify how Runecast is an entirely different solution. If you already use VMware Skyline™ Advisor, then you’ll appreciate the added depth of proactive, actionable insights that the Runecast platform provides your team to remediate issues without waiting for support SLAs – and no need to send any data outside your organization (essential for heavily regulated industries, e.g. banking/financial, healthcare/insurance, public/government/defense etc.). 

Runecast began by providing patented, predictive and actionable analytics in the VMware realm for vSphere®, vSAN™, NSX-V™, NSX-T™, Horizon® and VMware Cloud Director. 

Over time, Runecast expanded to support Security and Operations teams migrating to hybrid and multi coud, helping them optimize and secure AWS, Azure, GCP and Kubernetes environments along with VMware. Additionally, it provides OS-level insights for Windows and Linux.

In a single platform, Runecast delivers unparalleled visibility into misconfigurations, vulnerabilities (i.e. VMSAs, CVEs, KEVs), non-compliance with security standards and best practices and other critical issues, covering areas that would normally require disparate toolsets. Best of all, Runecast provides remediation scripts to enable even the most junior sysadmins to perform like seasoned pros.

Note: Tap on image to be able to view the full comparison table of Runecast Analyzer vs VMware Skyline™.

Skyline Advisor Pro

None

Runecast Analyzer

Automated Security Compliance

  • BSI IT-Grundschutz
  • CIS Benchmarks
  • Cyber Essentials
  • DISA-STIG
  • Essential 8
  • GDPR
  • HIPAA
  • ISO 27001
  • NIST
  • PCI-DSS
  • vRO plug-in for auto-remediation
  • Capability to build custom profiles over 3k checks built into the appliance
Skyline Advisor Pro

None

Runecast Analyzer

Validate your entire estate's server hardware, IO devices and vSAN against the relevant VMware HCLs. Includes full validation of BIOS, driver and firmware combinations.

  • Also validates existing hardware/BIOS/driver/
    firmware against planned upgrades, enabling easy planning for your vSphere upgrade
Skyline Advisor Pro

None

Runecast Analyzer

Configuration Vault keeps history of all of your configuration and allows you to:

  • Manage configuration drift
  • Maintain a desired state configuration
  • Maintain configuration consistency across your entire infrastructure
  • Get alerts on any drift and inconsistencies
Skyline Advisor Pro

Takes over 4 Hours

  • Basic Findings

There is no option to trigger analysis on-demand.It may take 24-48 hours for newly released rules to appear within Skyline Advisor.

Runecast Analyzer

Takes minutes

  • Findings of all levels
  • Scheduled scans as regularly as every hour
  • On-demand scans for latest results
  • Concise resolution steps are provided in order to minimize exposure to risk
Skyline Advisor Pro

None

Runecast Analyzer

PowerCLI and Ansible scripts generated with a click of a button. The scripts can be executed without modification and remediate the specific issue and affected objects. Admins can run the scripts immediately or at a scheduled maintenance window.

Skyline Advisor Pro

Limited

Only a high level basic overview of historical trending. It is not possible to see exact changes or issues over time or customize historical views.

Runecast Analyzer

In-depth

In depth, flexible historical insights for all issues history and configuration snapshots. Elaborate filtering and customizations allow for unmatched insights on the health and configuration drift of the analyzed environment.

Historical Insights

Skyline Advisor Pro

Manual

  • Assisted Log File upload and Investigation by senior-level TSE

Skyline Log Assist helps with uploading log bundles and associates them with a problem ticket for further investigation by a Skyline Technical Support Engineer.

No automatic log analysis.

Runecast Analyzer

Automatic

  • Real-time analysis of VMware logs for both ESXi hosts and VMs for maximum coverage
  • Real-time correlation of logs against the VMware Knowledge Base (KB)
  • Log inspector provides pre-built views of known bad keywords, and can help to minimize troubleshooting time
Skyline Advisor Pro

Monthly

Monthly, based on GSS trending for popular trouble tickets.*

It may take 24-48 hours for newly released findings to appear within Skyline Advisor.

Runecast Analyzer

Weekly

  • Constantly monitors the entire VMware Knowledge Base (circa 28k articles), HCL and security compliance guides for any new, updated or retired knowledge
  • All changes are bundled and made available on a weekly basis through both the automatic and offline knowledge update streams
  • VMSAs, KEVs and CVEs are also monitored 24/7/365, and updates to these are pushed down within 24 hours

Knowledge Update Intervals

Skyline Advisor Pro

All major VMware products

Supports vSphere, NSX, vSAN,vRealize Operations, VMware Cloud Foundation and Horizon.

Runecast Analyzer
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Config, AWS Health, AWS Inspector, Cloudfront, Cloudtrail, Cloudwatch, EC2, ECS, EFS, EKS, IAM, Kinesis, Lambda, RDS, Redshift, S3, VPC

  • Microsoft Azure

AAKS, Azure AD, Azure App Services, Disks, Key Vault, MySQL Server, Network Security Group, Network Watcher, PostgreSQL Server, SQL Server, Storage Accounts, Subscription, Virtual Machines

  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Cloud Functions, Storage Buckets, DNS Policies, Firewall Rules, VPC Networks, SQL Instances, Compute Instances, Service Accounts, Metrics & Alerts, IAM Policies.

  • Kubernetes

Amazon EKS, Microsoft AKS, Google GKE, VMware Tanzu, HPE Ezmeral Container Platform

  • OS Analysis

Vulnerabilities for any Windows and Linux versions. CIS CSC security compliance for Windows Server 2016 & 2019 and RedHat 7 & 8.

  • VMware

vSphere, Horizon, vSAN, NSX-T, NSX-V, VMware Cloud Director, SAP HANA (on vSphere), PureStorage (on vSphere), vSphere on Nutanix

  • Plugins

Available for integration with the vSphere Client and ServiceNow

Range of Supported Products

Skyline Advisor Pro

Reporting available

  • Via an online dashboard
  • A custom report can be requested from your Support Account Manager
Runecast Analyzer

Customizable reports

  • Various dashboards
  • Customizable Reports are available in PDF, CSV or XLS  format
  • Including historical trends and TOP issues summary

Reporting

Skyline Advisor Pro

Skyline takes data privacy seriously, nevertheless data collected may include customer-identifiable information

(Examples include ESXi hostnames, IP addresses, license keys, customer IDs or entitlement account numbers. Data is transmitted to secure data centres within the United States, operated by VMware. **)

Runecast Analyzer

Zero data collection

  • All data collected is kept on the virtual appliance, with no data leaving your control at any time

Data Privacy

Skyline Advisor Pro

As a cloud service, Skyline depends on the usage of CEIP

The user is required to participate in VMware's Enhanced Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). As part of the Enhanced CEIP, VMware collects certain technical data and product logs about your organization's use of VMware products and services on a regular basis. Data is accessible to VMware employees who perform customer support and engagement. Data can be shared across VMware teams to enable cross-product correlation and analysis. ***

Runecast Analyzer

Allows for full control over your privacy settings

Privacy Control

Skyline Advisor Pro

Online functionality only

  • As a cloud service offering, Skyline is available only as an online service
Runecast Analyzer

Full functionality available both online and offline

  • No requirement for internet conntectivity

Offline Functionality

Skyline Advisor Pro

462 KB articles

KBs are added periodically based on GSS reporting. Covers only the VMware Knowledge Base.

Runecast Analyzer

1000+ KB articles

New KBs added on a minimum weekly basis. Coverage for critical security vulnerabilities within 24 hours. Runecast covers over 3000 rules in total, not only the VMware Knowledge Base

Coverage of Knowledge Base (KB) Articles

Feature

Skyline Advisor Pro

Runecast Analyzer

None

Automated Security Compliance

  • BSI IT-Grundschutz
  • CIS Benchmarks
  • Cyber Essentials
  • DISA-STIG
  • Essential 8
  • GDPR
  • HIPAA
  • ISO 27001
  • NIST
  • PCI-DSS
  • vRO plug-in for auto-remediation
  • Capability to build custom profiles over 3k checks built into the appliance

None

Validate your entire estate's server hardware, IO devices and vSAN against the relevant VMware HCLs. Includes full validation of BIOS, driver and firmware combinations.

  • Also validates existing hardware/BIOS/driver/
    firmware against planned upgrades, enabling easy planning for your vSphere upgrade

None

Configuration Vault keeps history of all of your configuration and allows you to:

  • Manage configuration drift
  • Maintain a desired state configuration
  • Maintain configuration consistency across your entire infrastructure
  • Get alerts on any drift and inconsistencies

Takes over 4 Hours

  • Basic Findings

There is no option to trigger analysis on-demand.It may take 24-48 hours for newly released rules to appear within Skyline Advisor.

Takes minutes

  • Findings of all levels
  • Scheduled scans as regularly as every hour
  • On-demand scans for latest results
  • Concise resolution steps are provided in order to minimize exposure to risk

None

PowerCLI and Ansible scripts generated with a click of a button. The scripts can be executed without modification and remediate the specific issue and affected objects. Admins can run the scripts immediately or at a scheduled maintenance window.

Historical Insights

Limited

Only a high level basic overview of historical trending. It is not possible to see exact changes or issues over time or customize historical views.

In-depth

In depth, flexible historical insights for all issues history and configuration snapshots. Elaborate filtering and customizations allow for unmatched insights on the health and configuration drift of the analyzed environment.

Manual

  • Assisted Log File upload and Investigation by senior-level TSE

Skyline Log Assist helps with uploading log bundles and associates them with a problem ticket for further investigation by a Skyline Technical Support Engineer.

No automatic log analysis.

Automatic

  • Real-time analysis of VMware logs for both ESXi hosts and VMs for maximum coverage
  • Real-time correlation of logs against the VMware Knowledge Base (KB)
  • Log inspector provides pre-built views of known bad keywords, and can help to minimize troubleshooting time

Knowledge Update Intervals

Monthly

Monthly, based on GSS trending for popular trouble tickets.*

It may take 24-48 hours for newly released findings to appear within Skyline Advisor.

Weekly

  • Constantly monitors the entire VMware Knowledge Base (circa 28k articles), HCL and security compliance guides for any new, updated or retired knowledge
  • All changes are bundled and made available on a weekly basis through both the automatic and offline knowledge update streams
  • VMSAs, KEVs and CVEs are also monitored 24/7/365, and updates to these are pushed down within 24 hours

Range of Supported Products

All major VMware products

Supports vSphere, NSX, vSAN,vRealize Operations, VMware Cloud Foundation and Horizon.

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Config, AWS Health, AWS Inspector, Cloudfront, Cloudtrail, Cloudwatch, EC2, ECS, EFS, EKS, IAM, Kinesis, Lambda, RDS, Redshift, S3, VPC

  • Microsoft Azure

AAKS, Azure AD, Azure App Services, Disks, Key Vault, MySQL Server, Network Security Group, Network Watcher, PostgreSQL Server, SQL Server, Storage Accounts, Subscription, Virtual Machines

  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Cloud Functions, Storage Buckets, DNS Policies, Firewall Rules, VPC Networks, SQL Instances, Compute Instances, Service Accounts, Metrics & Alerts, IAM Policies.

  • Kubernetes

Amazon EKS, Microsoft AKS, Google GKE, VMware Tanzu, HPE Ezmeral Container Platform

  • OS Analysis

Vulnerabilities for any Windows and Linux versions. CIS CSC security compliance for Windows Server 2016 & 2019 and RedHat 7 & 8.

  • VMware

vSphere, Horizon, vSAN, NSX-T, NSX-V, VMware Cloud Director, SAP HANA (on vSphere), PureStorage (on vSphere), vSphere on Nutanix

  • Plugins

Available for integration with the vSphere Client and ServiceNow

Reporting

Reporting available

  • Via an online dashboard
  • A custom report can be requested from your Support Account Manager

Customizable reports

  • Various dashboards
  • Customizable Reports are available in PDF, CSV or XLS  format
  • Including historical trends and TOP issues summary

Data Privacy

Skyline takes data privacy seriously, nevertheless data collected may include customer-identifiable information

(Examples include ESXi hostnames, IP addresses, license keys, customer IDs or entitlement account numbers. Data is transmitted to secure data centres within the United States, operated by VMware. **)

Zero data collection

  • All data collected is kept on the virtual appliance, with no data leaving your control at any time

Privacy Control

As a cloud service, Skyline depends on the usage of CEIP

The user is required to participate in VMware's Enhanced Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). As part of the Enhanced CEIP, VMware collects certain technical data and product logs about your organization's use of VMware products and services on a regular basis. Data is accessible to VMware employees who perform customer support and engagement. Data can be shared across VMware teams to enable cross-product correlation and analysis. ***

Allows for full control over your privacy settings

Offline Functionality

Online functionality only

  • As a cloud service offering, Skyline is available only as an online service

Full functionality available both online and offline

  • No requirement for internet connectivity

Coverage of Knowledge Base (KB) Articles

462 KB articles

KBs are added periodically based on GSS reporting. Covers only the VMware Knowledge Base.

1000+ KB articles

New KBs added on a minimum weekly basis. Coverage for critical security vulnerabilities within 24 hours. Runecast covers over 3000 rules in total, not only the VMware Knowledge Base

The above information was verified at the time of publication on 30 August 2022.

* Source: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Skyline-Advisor/services/rn/VMware-Skyline-Advisor-Release-Notes.html
** Source: VMware Skyline FAQ, page 2, https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/55928
*** Source: VMware Skyline FAQ, page 3, VMware Skyline Collector Terms and Conditions,
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Skyline-Collector/2.7/user-guide/GUID-74C573DE-FC7F-4B25-8173-75129E20DE6A.html

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