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Revision and Signoff Sheet
Change Record
Date / Author / Version / Change Reference[Date] / [Delivery Consultant] / 1.0 / Delivered for customer completion
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 4
1.1 Scope 4
2 Current Environment Questionnaire 5
2.1 Hardware 5
2.2 Compute Infrastructure 5
2.3 Network Infrastructure 6
2.4 Storage Infrastructure 7
2.5 Security 8
2.6 Virtualization Infrastructure 8
2.7 Management Infrastructure 9
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1 Introduction
The goal of the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) Offering is to help organizations to implement and use a state-of-the-art, highly-virtualized software defined datacenter based on Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016.
This offer utilizes consolidated guidance from the Product Groups and Microsoft Services. The SDDC Product Line Architecture document provides rules and recommended practices to guide your decision making, to help make sure that you implement a predictable, supportable, and high-quality set of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) capabilities in your on-premises datacenters.
The SDDC Product Line Architecture document provides a reference architecture that combines Microsoft software, consolidated guidance, and validated configurations with partner technology such as software defined compute, software defined security, software defined networking, and software defined storage architectures, in addition to value-added software components.
The new Windows Server Software-Defined Datacenter Offers (WSSDO) hardware program is your fastest option for solution deployment and reducing implementation risk. OEMs design and test complete hardware solutions using guidance and tooling from Microsoft. After validation and stress testing, the OEM’s Windows Server Software-Defined Datacenter Offer is listed in the solution catalog.
1.1 Scope
This questionnaire is intended to capture information pertaining to the design of the core components and dependencies surrounding the current infrastructure as it relates to the deployment of a Software-Defined Datacenter infrastructure consisting of Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V and System Center 2016. The information captured will help by identifying current practices, and areas where further details will be required.
2 Current Environment Questionnaire
Please complete the following brief questionnaire to provide the onsite delivery team with some context about your current environment.
2.1 Hardware
Ref. / Question / Response /H1 / Do you have or plan to have Certified WSSD OEM Hardware to deploy and configure a Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Software-Defined Datacenter Solution? What is the OEM SKU you intend to use? / IMPLICATION: HW is a gate. Not having HW onsite and ready should delay project start. There’s only so much we can do without HW. WSSD alignment is good. If not WSSD, then DIY which adds time and resources to the engagement. WSSD SKU must also align to the design pattern and intended use: TPM 2.0 for Shielded VMs, all network offloads for VXLAN.
H2 / If H1 answer was affirmative. Do you want to adopt a Hyper Converged architecture where compute and storage run on the same Hyper-V hosts? / IMPLICATION: Does customer understand the Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure design patterns vs the Converged/Disaggregated Software Defined Storage pattern? Is customer bringing forward older SAN, shared storage design patterns?
H3 / If H1 answer was affirmative. Do you plan to extend your current infrastructure with the new WSSD OEM hardware? Or you want to move all your existing workloads to the new Hardware? Or are you planning to stand up a new IaaS platform? / IMPLICATION: Hints at extent of work to do (possible mass migration from old platform, possible VMWare to HV). If extend, then detailed System Center upgrade must be designed (and is currently out of scope for SDCD PLA). Must address the order in which to upgrade System Center, and the order in which to upgrade the existing platform’s HV hosts.
H4 / Is your current infrastructure running in more than one physical location? Do you need a multi-site architecture and/or disaster recovery strategy for the new environment? / IMPLICATION: More complex design.
H5 / Are you interested in Shielded VMs? / IMPLICATION: Partly this is just another check on the right HW. It also signifies other potential security work such as PAW and ESAE.
H6 / Are you interested in adopting SDN and Network Functions Virtualization? (Network Controller, Load Balancers, Gateways, Firewalling…) / IMPLICATION: Another check on the right HW.
2.2 Compute Infrastructure
Ref. / Question / Response /C1 / What is the average VM configuration (processor, RAM, disk) in use in your environment?
C2 / What is the average physical host configuration (processor, RAM, disk, Network Cards) in use at your organization?
C3 / Are you using Windows Server with Desktop Experience, Core or Nano Servers?
C4 / What is the current density of VMs (virtual to physical ratio)? (Min, Avg, Max)
C5 / What Operating Systems does your VMs use today?
· Windows Server
· Linux distributions
· Others
C6 / Are you protecting your VMs and data?
· What backup solution are you using?
· Are you doing host based backups?
· Are you doing Guest based backups?
· Are you combining host and guest based backups?
2.3 Network Infrastructure
Ref. / Question / Response /N1 / What is the overall topology of your network?
· How does the datacenter network interconnect with the internal network of the organization?
· How does the datacenter network interconnect with the organization’s external customers?
N2 / How does the organization currently manage/maintain separate networks for use within the datacenter?
· Management
· Storage
· Cluster communications
· Internet
· Intranet
· Backup
· Others
N3 / How does your organization implement network segregation and isolation?
· VLANs
· ACLs
· MAC filtering
· Firewalls
· IPSEC
· Network Virtualization using VXLAN or GRE
N4 / What is the network link speed used within the datacenter?
· Does the speed depend on the end purpose (50GB, 10GB to storage, server interconnect & 1GB to client devices)?
N5 / If you have more than one Datacenter
· What is the network link speed and latency between datacenters?
· Are you using L2 Stretched VLANs?
N6 / What specific network equipment has your organization standardized on?
· And what roles does the equipment serve? (Load Balancers, Gateways, Traffic Inspection…)
N7 / Please outline the DNS topology.
N8 / Please outline the DNS namespace used internally.
N9 / Please outline the DNS namespace used for external customers.
N10 / Is DHCP allowed within the datacenter?
N11 / Please, outline the routing topology and if dynamic routing protocols such as BGP or OSPF are in use
2.4 Storage Infrastructure
Ref. / Question / ResponseS1 / What is the overall topology of the storage infrastructure in the datacenter?
· DAS (Local Storage)
· SAN
· Shared (SMB or NFS)
· Hyper Converged
S2 / Does the current storage infrastructure support any of the following capabilities?
· iSCSI
· Fiber Channel
· ODX
· SES (SCSI Enclosure Services)
· Persistent Reservations
· Storage Replication
· Deduplication
· Storage Tiers
· Storage QoS
S3 / Do you know the number of IOPs your storage needs to provide to satisfy your workloads and application needs?
S4 / What is the storage capacity requirement for your workloads and applications?
S5 / Describe any current storage investments which are expected to be leveraged in the new environment.
2.5 Security
Ref. / Question / ResponseS1 / How are you securing your Hosts and virtual machines today?
S2 / Do you need to protect virtual machines from a compromised host?
S3 / Are you using anti-virus in your servers? Which One?
S4 / How are you delegating the administration of your current Infrastructure? Did you hear about JEA (Just Enough Administration) and JIT (Just in time Administration)?
S5 / How are you protecting your networks and subnets? Do you use host based firewalls? Which one?
2.6 Virtualization Infrastructure
Ref. / Question / ResponseV1 / What is the current level of familiarity/expertise with Microsoft Software Defined technologies within the organization?
V2 / What is the current level of familiarity/expertise with Microsoft PowerShell and DSC technologies within the organization?
V3 / Are there any virtualization appliances in use within your organization?
V4 / Does your organization consume commercially available Public IaaS services?
2.7 Management Infrastructure
Ref. / Question / ResponseM1 / Does your organization currently use a converged network architecture where network and storage share a common switching fabric?
· How is the converged fabric achieved today?
· What hardware is in use?
· What priorities, QoS are defined?
M2 / What tools does your organization is using to manage the infrastructure fabric today?
· Network: Hardware, IP, DNS, DHCP, ACLs, Firewall rules, IDS rules
· Storage: Provisioning, Monitoring
· Compute: OS, Workloads, Configuration
M3 / How are the technical teams organized today?
· Per customer
· Per technology (compute, network, storage)
· Per workload
M4 / What aspects of your datacenter are automated today?
· Deployment
· Provisioning
· Operations
· Other
M5 / What is the automation solution in use today?
· Specific product
· Scripts
Is there a team dedicated to automation?
M6 / Please describe your release pipeline.
M7 / What is the Monitoring solution in use today?
· Is there a team dedicated to monitoring?
Do you support the business with Data Insights technologies?
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