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HI All,   I recently blogged my VVD 5 update mind map and useful links.  It was suggested to pop a copy on here too.  Original posting and useful links are on www.elasticsky.co.uk  .  PDF file of the mind map here. Any comments or corrections please let me know.

With each release of the VMware Validated Designs, the Solutions Architecture and Information Experience teams create or update the diagrams provided in the Architecture and Design sections of the documentation. These are created as vector files with which we export the PNG files you see in the official documentation.   It's my pleasure to now share the diagrams from VMware Validated Design for SDDC 5.0 in Microsoft Visio format with the community. If you have deployed or plan to deploy the VMware Validated Design, you can use these diagrams to update hostnames, IP addresses, and the like for your environment.   The set includes: Standard Architecture, plus Multi-AZ Consolidated Architecture Download from the GitHub repository.   NOTE: All official diagrams for the VMware Validated Design are provided in the product documentation found at vmware.com/go/vvd-docs.

VMware Validated Design for SDDC 5.0 Design Decision Checklist Updated 19 March 2019 This document provides you all 370+ design decisions in the VMware Validated Design for Software Defined Data Center 5.0 Architecture and Design into simple spreadsheet for quick reference. It includes columns for determining your level of adherence to the architecture and any justification for deviations.

We would like to leverage the SDDC design to provide different shared edge/compute clusters to represent different environments like dev, test, pre-prod, and prod. We currently have a physical workstation for each environment and would like to implement a horizon solution to virtualize all workstations except prod. We would hope this solution could be hosted/integrated into our SDDC design. Also can we manage/deploy physical compute payloads in a SDDC? I know vRA can be used to deploy physical resources, but I would like to know how we can incorporate that, as well as the protection of these workloads. Virtual payloads can be protected by NSX, but can we do the same for physical? We have SAN storage, could we use the management cluster to host tools used to manage SAN infrastructure? Same question regarding network/security device tools. I know there would be a tone of follow up questions to provide the right answer, i'm more looking at it as, are these use cases common when it comes to building SDDC? or are these completely out of scope and designed/implemented outside of the SDDC design completely. Does anybody have any reference docs/whitepapers/vids on these types of use-cases I could reference?

As many of you may know, this Early Access sub-community provides you an opportunity to download and discuss pre-released design materials for the VMware Validated Designs. We want you discover the latest content that is in development and learn about the potential directions in these designs. Today the VMware Validate Design team is pleased to announce the Early Access version of the Extending VMware Validated Design with Multiple Regions guide. Extending VMware Validated Design with Multiple Regions provides guidelines for expanding an SDDC to more than two regions. Although multi-region support is not a design objective for VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center, the Standard SDDC architecture can support deployments beyond two regions. This document defines options to select from if you must extend your SDDC to multiple data centers. Select an extension option according to data center location, latency between data centers, use case profiles, availability objectives, and other requirements. As always we value your feedback, post it here and we'll take it into consideration for the GA release.

As many of you may know, we opened this Early Access sub-community to provide you an opportunity to download and discuss pre-released design materials for the VMware Validated Designs. We want you discover the latest content for blueprints that are in development and learn about the direction of the next generation architectures. Today the VMware Validated Design team is pleased to make the latest Early Access document available. Scaling Up and Scaling Out provides guidelines to extend the supported number of managed tenant workloads in an SDDC. This documentation defines the initial scalability limits of the current architecture of VMware Validated Design for Software-Defined Data Center. You can follow the options to grow the existing design to support scale maximums that are supported by products included in VMware Validated Design. As always we value your feedback, post it here and we'll take it into consideration for the GA release.

As many of you may know, this Early Access sub-community provides you an opportunity to download and discuss pre-released design materials for the VMware Validated Designs. We want you discover the latest content that is in development and learn about the potential directions in these designs. I'm please to share the work that we recently completed, Design and Deployment of VMware Skyline within the VMware Validated Design for SDDC. This early access material covers the architecture and design elements, plus deployment guidance, for adding Skyline Collector 1.4 to the VMware Validated Design and is applicable to single-region, dual-region, and multi-availability zones. VMware Skyline is a technology for proactive support. VMware Skyline uses automation to securely collect data and perform environment-specific analytics on configuration, feature, and performance data. The resulting information improves visibility in your environment. As a result, VMware and your organization interact without extensive time and investment by support administrators. As a result, proactive, predictive, and prescriptive recommendations by VMware improve the stability and reliability of the environment. In addition, reactive support issues can be resolved more quickly. Got feedback? We want to hear from you. So dive into this latest early access content and share your feedback directly with our solutions architects and product managers!

As many of you may know, this Early Access sub-community provides you an opportunity to download and discuss pre-released design materials for the VMware Validated Designs. We want you discover the latest content that is in development and learn about the potential directions in these designs. I'm please to share the work that William Lam and I had the pleasure to develop recently, VMware Pivotal Container Service for Workload Domains. This early access material covers the architecture and design elements for adding PKS 1.1.x to a VMware Validated Design workload domain for a new container services layer. The container services layer enables enterprises and service providers to simplify the deployment and operations of Kubernetes-based container services within the VMware SDDC. In the container services layer, access to production-grade Kubernetes distribution with advanced networking, built-in private registry, and full lifecycle management support of the clusters is provided on top of and integrated with the SDDC. Got feedback? We want to hear from you. So dive into this latest early access content and share your feedback directly with our solutions architects and product managers!

Many of our customers deploy VMware Validated Designs with the expectation that they will enhance the environment to configure, harden, and secure it to meet compliance regulations. The compliance requirements can range from NIST 800-53, PCI, HIPAA, FBI CJIS, DISA STIG, to international standards such as ISO27001, GDPR, et cetera. We are working towards embedding additional security and explicitly citing compliance within the standard design, providing mapping of controls to specific regulations to facilitate auditing the system, and defining a baseline to build upon across all VMware Validated Designs. This Early Access document represents an initial release of architecture and design guidance specific to NIST 800-53. This compliance domain will serve as our baseline that will then be translated and enhanced into specific guidance documents to address each regulation as a stand-alone document. However, the similarities in the security principles, configuration steps, and ennoblement of security controls should maximize content standardization. I am eager to share this document with the wider community and listen to your input, suggestions, and thoughts. Got feedback? We want to hear from you. Please explore this latest early access content and share your feedback directly with our architects and product managers!   -- Carlos Phoenix, CISA Global Cyber Strategist

With each release of the VMware Validated Designs, the Solutions Architecture and Information Experience teams create or update the diagrams provided in the Architecture and Design sections of the documentation. These are created as vector files with which we export the PNG files you see in the official documentation.   It's my pleasure to now share the diagrams from VMware Validated Design for SDDC 4.3 in Microsoft Visio format with the community. If you have deployed or plan to deploy the VMware Validated Design, you can use these diagrams to update hostnames, IP addresses, and the like for your environment.   The set includes: Standard Architecture, plus Multi-AZ Consolidated Architecture Download from the GitHub repository.   NOTE: All official diagrams for the VMware Validated Design are provided in the product documentation found at vmware.com/go/vvd-docs.