A virtualization project is like every other business-related process and should follow a set of proven methodologies and a flow to manage it in the right way. In each methodology, the first step is the planning and designing part, where you must define your objectives and how to reach them properly. There are several methodologies and approaches for managing the life cycle of a product or process, but for a virtualization project, we could consider the typical plan-do-check-act (PDCA) workflow, which is based on the following four main steps:

• Plan: This phase establishes the objectives and processes necessary to deliver all of the results in accordance with the expected business requirements. In this phase, you will also produce a design for the solution.
• Do: This is the implementation phase, according to the previous plan and is usually...

In this phase, it’s really important to identify and interact with the key stakeholders, and to collect all the requirements in order to deliver a design that meets all customer and business needs. Sometimes the importance of this phase is underestimated, or it is simply not performed at all, perhaps because of time or budget constraints. This can be a huge risk for the project itself.

Also remember that, if you are providing a professional service (as a consultant or as a solution partner), you should prepare for this phase with pre-engagement planning and a kick-off in order to be prepared for the engagement. Also, if the project is handled internally, inside a customer, a successful engagement requires the right participants, defining the different roles, and good sponsors.

Tasks in the assessment phase include the following:

• Review the current state of the existing...

The design process is well covered in the VMware vSphere Design Workshop course. But the VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) certification also provides some useful information; the entire path of VCDX-DCV certification provides a complete VCDX methodology. This methodology is focused on how to find business needs and how to map them to design and implement decisions.

Also, if you are not VCDX certified, you can learn about this type of approach from the VCDX Boot Camp, the VCDX Blueprint, or the books and posts written by other VCDX users.

Following the VCDX methodology, or a similar one, you can have a deep look at how a large number of variables can affect the design of a virtual infrastructure. Some effects may define some creativities or risks, but also, any assumptions that are unknown or that you are unsure of should be considered risks as, depending on their probability...

There are different types of typical scenarios where most use cases can fit, but much can also depend on the type of workload and business requirements.

We will consider and discuss, at the high level, just three different cases: Enterprise, SMB, ROBO. For other, more specific examples, such as for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), there are several reference architectures, and also some specific VVDs:

Large companies are usually qualified, by their size, as enterprise or corporate. Their business needs are usually very strictly defined and almost all workloads can be really business critical, including infrastructure workloads such as the vCenter Server.

The number...

This chapter has explained how to approach a virtualization project, using reference architectures and best practices, from the analysis of requirements, constraints, and risks to the different types of design(conceptual, logical, and physical). Network and storage aspects we discussed, as were different vCenter Server and ESXi design and planning aspects.

Three different scenarios have been used as examples of some design decisions—SMB, Enterprise, and ROBO.

In the next chapter, we will discuss the other phases, like the initial assessment for an existing environment, useful for planning and design.