VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 2.2

We already had a detailed discussion about VCAP6 - DCV Design exam, where we discussed about the Path we need to follow and what are the objectives that we need to take care, If in case you missed it here is the link for your reference Kick Start Your Journey Towards VCAP6-DCV Design.

We have also seen VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1, VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.2 and VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.3 in which we discussed about Business and Application Requirements,Risks,Constraints, Assumptions and also discussed how to map the business requirements into VMware vSphere Logical Design here are the links for your reference in case you missed it VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1, VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.2 , VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.3 , VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 2.1

Objective 2.2  Map Service Dependencies

Skills and Abilities

• Evaluate dependencies for infrastructure and application services that will be included in a VMware vSphere design.
• Create Entity Relationship Diagrams that map service relationships and dependencies.
• Analyze interfaces to be used with new and existing business processes.
• Determine service dependencies for logical components.
• Include service dependencies in VMware vSphere 6.x Logical Design.
• Analyze services to identify upstream and downstream service dependencies.
• Navigate logical components and their interdependencies and make decisions based upon all service relationships.

How to Prepare

• Datacenter Operational Excellence Through Automated Application Discovery & Dependency Mapping
• VMware Application Dependencies and Entity Relationship Diagrams MK2

Recently came across a very informative blog post which talks about the downstream and upstream components and how it affect's the overall design here is the link for your reference VMware Application Dependencies and Entity Relationship Diagrams MK2

Upstream components are those which are more close to the end user and Downstream Components are those which support the upstream components.

So "If a DOWNSTREAM component fails the UPSTREAM components will be affected"

Another important article which help us to prepare for VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 2.2 Datacenter Operational Excellence Through Automated Application Discovery & Dependency Mapping talks about methods for Effective application discovery and dependency mapping.

Active Discovery method uses common network protocols to remotely query servers and obtain supplementary data about network hosts. However, using just active discovery can place an unnecessary burden on the network. 

Image Source - VMware

Passive Discovery method provides more of relationship data by connecting to core span or mirror ports on network switches and sampling network traffic, passive discovery can identify network hosts and servers, their communications and connections, and what services and protocols are being exchanged at what time. 

Discovery Analytics—Complements the first two with the ability to perform deep-packet analysis of observed traffic, and to help establish the relationships between passively and actively discovered entities. 

The same article also highlights about "VMware Approach to Application Discovery and Dependency Mapping" using VMware vCenter Application Discovery Manager which provides the automated, real-time application discovery and dependency mapping capability we need for effective, dependency-driven change, configuration, incident and problem management across physical and virtual environments.

Image Source - VMware

Active Discovery‐ UNIX Collects data from the configuration objects in our data center and doing IP Discovery (method for detecting hosts or other configuration items with a specific IP address when Passive Discovery fails to discover them) and Detail Discovery (Extending the information received using passive and ip discovery)

Active Discovery‐ Windows is a discovery engine that uses WMI based discovery policies for performing active discovery on Windows machines. 

Passive Discovery observes the network traffic by performing a deep‐packet analysis to discover applications and component relationships in physical and virtual environments.

Aggregator receives data from the discovery components and reconciles the data before transferring it to the database component. 

Database Oracle RDBMS used for storing discovered data and ADM configuration.

vCenter Application Discovery Manager Administration Guide

VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 2.1

We already had a detailed discussion about VCAP6 - DCV Design exam, where we discussed about the Path we need to follow and what are the objectives that we need to take care, If in case you missed it here is the link for your reference Kick Start Your Journey Towards VCAP6-DCV Design.

We have also seen VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1, VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.2 and VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.3 in which we discussed about Business and Application Requirements and also talked about Risks,Constraints, Assumptions  here are the links for your reference VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.1, VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.2 , VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.3

Objective 2.1 : Mapping Business Requirements to a vSphere 6 Logical Design.

Skills and Abilities

• Analyze requirements for functional and non-functional elements.
• Build non-functional requirements into a specific logical design.
• Translate stated business requirements into a logical design.
• Incorporate the current state of a customer environment into a logical design.

How to Prepare

• What’s New in VMware vSphere 6.0
• Conceptual Architecture Action Guide

As part of the design process conceptual design is the first step when climbing the Design ladder which categories the assessment findings into requirements, contraints, assumptions and risk as discussed in our last post VCAP6-DCV Design Objective 1.3.

Sharing one  recent example from one of the project on which i worked , wherein we got requirements from customers (Marketing Business Firm) and they were looking to Virtualize their existing workload (Windows + Linux).

When doing the current state analysis and understanding the business requirements as part of the initial design phase we captured Business Requirements and I am highlighting few of them.

• Virtualize and consolidate all existing physical servers running on the x86 platform

• Architecture should meet the performance requirements calculated during the initial assessment phase.

• Geographies Architecture should support both the Prod and Dev data centers.

• The design should be scalable to support a virtual machine growth of 22 percent year over year growth.

• The design should provide a centralized management console to manage both data centers.

It's definitely not the real diagram talking about the conceptual design for the same Marketing Business Firm, but it's more of near to real design diagram which talks about the conceptual design.

To maintain the integrity of their design i couldn't used the real picture but was able to manage and document almost everything included in conceptual design.

Now moving towards the original discussion of creating a Logical Design which typically includes the design decisions with proper justifications to arrange all the infrastructure level components (Management, Clusters, Networking, Storage, Virtual Machines) ensuring all the business requirements are satisfied as mentioned in conceptual design.

Design is an iterative phase within which we need to ensure that we are taking care of all the business and application requirements in conjunction with VMware and Industry Best practices.

It's not mandatory when working towards Logical Design all the design decisions should always come from business/application requirements it can also come from the non functional requirements for example Availability (How to ensure that services are available), Manageability (Is the Solution Flexible Enough), Recoverability (How well the solution meets RTO and RPO requirements).

Another example in Non Functional requirement which should be mentioned when working towards logical design (design decision) is Cost, every project has an associated cost if we are not able to lay the project in the defined cost we need to mention the same with proper justifications so as the required stakeholders can take necessary actions.

Let's have a look on Logical Design for the same Marketing Business Firm for which we have seen the Conceptual Design.

                                           

Decision	Design Justification	Design Implication
vCenter Server Platform
Windows Based vCenter	Marketing Business Firm mentioned they are comfortable with Windows based vCenter Appliance with their trained Windows Admin.	Frequent Patching is required for Windows Based vCenter Server
vCenter Server database
SQL DATABASE	Embedded database is not large enough for complex deployments	Must be Prepared in Advance
Number of vCenter Server instances
Two	Both for Prod and Dev Datacenters	Separate Licenses are required