What is the vc-ws1a-broker service?

[markey165]

When i run cloudvm-ram-size -l (lower case L) on my vCenter 8 appliance, i see a service called vc-ws1a-broker is configured with the highest memory settings of all the services listed, with a total of 2GB RAM. I can't find any reference to this service, does anyone know what it does?

I'm running in a homelab and would like to streamline vCenter wrt to its RAM utilization, as its currently trying to hog 14GB of RAM, and this unknown service is the biggest consumer.

[lamw]

This is Workspace One Access which provides new IdP functionality including supporting Okta & AzureAD

[markey165]

@lamw Great, thanks William 😊 I was surprised to see zero hits for it when trying to research the service name.

Kudos to VMware for adding support for AAD, we've been wanting this for a while for MFA, but can i disable this in my homelab, where i'm not using any of these services, and reclaim that 2GB?

I've only got 32GB in my NUC atm, so every GB counts! I know I know, I need more RAM, but in the meantime, it would be useful if i could disable that service and adjust the reservation as i believe you can with other services 👍

[Kinnison]

Hello,

Yours is a good question, but IMHO I'm afraid the only "answer", if you really want to, is to give it a try and then see what happens.

Regards,
Ferdinando

[lamw · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can disable the service. I've been doing this for awhile now but can't comment on whether this is "officially" supported of course. I've got blog post that I'm currently working on, so stay tuned for the details (been on my to do list pre-VMware Explore but this was a good reminder to finish that up)

[markey165]

@lamw Thanks William,

Funnily enough i was thinking this would make a good blog post, I will keep an eye out for it 😊

Many Thanks for picking this up 👌

[lamw · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the reminder! As promised, here's the blog post with all details https://williamlam.com/2023/09/what-is-vc-ws1a-broker-service-on-vcenter-server-appliance-vcsa.html 

[markey165]

Great blog post William, my VCSA appliance is running much better now, thanks 😁