Almost a year and a half ago I teamed up with Chris Colotti and Jeremiah Dooley and we wrote the first version of vCloud Director on Vblock Design Considerations. Well, it was time for an update. Since that time VCE Vblock Systems have rapidly matured as well as vCloud Director itself.
Introducing Designing VMware vCloud Director on Vblock Systems. This new version 2.0 of the paper was inspired by the first version but was written solely by me and a bit of help from VCE's graphic design team. Many of the old design considerations have been re-thought and re-architected with the maturity of the platforms. You can access the download page by going here: http://www.vce.com/solution/infrastructure/iaas and looking for Designing VMware vCloud Director on Vblock Systems.
Version 2.0 was originally published in May 2013, but of course it needs to go through the usual branding and legal review before it can be published. This new version introduces many new concepts that you will find interesting (even if you aren't a Vblock customer). Many of the design considerations are real-world examples from VCE customers as well as from my recent book VMware vSphere Design - vCloud Design by Kendrick Coleman. Please feel free to send me any feedback you may have.
View it below...
Here is a breakdown of the contents:
- Introduction
- Disclaimer
- Document objectives
- Scope
- Audience
- Feedback
- Management infrastructure
- Advanced Management Pod
- VMware vCloud Director management requirements
- Suggested minimum configuration
- Using a separate management infrastructure
- Additional servers
- Using Vblock System server blades
- Mid-market Vblock™ Systems to manage larger Vblock Systems
- Using existing management infrastructure
- Designing for two (or more) VMware vCenter Servers
- Example 1: Using a logical AMP to move workloads
- Example 2: Using a mini-AMP for non-critical workloads
- Example 3: Using a mini-AMP or HA AMP for a distributed failure domain
- VMware vCenter protection
- Database considerations
- Database placement after moving critical workloads to the management infrastructure
- Database placement in a distributed failure domain
- Using an existing SQL Server or SQL Cluster
- Using a dedicated database
- Networking infrastructure
- Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch
- Configuring the VMware vSphere ESXi host
- Extending network ports
- Using VXLAN for network pools
- Provider vDC strategy
- Provider vDC strategies
- Disk types
- RAID types
- Storage software technologies
- Server hardware
- Block versus file-based storage
- Vblock System approach
- Replication and higher availability
- Provider vDC strategies
- Vblock System and VMware vCloud Director System scalability
- Multiple Vblock Systems in the same vCloud
- NFS considerations
- Making responsive catalogs
- Summary
- Next steps
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