VMware Cloud Foundation: Solution Architecture and Design (v9.1)

Architects, Solution Engineers, Senior Administrators.

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives:

• Understand and select the right design blueprints and models based on stated requirements.
• Design instance, management domain, workload domains, cluster layouts, and host specifications.
• Design the three management domain recovery tiers, from component restore to fleet disaster recovery.
• Design for both traditional shared storage (NFS and Fiber Channel) and vSAN storage as part of a VCF solution.
• Design the appropriate network architecture given physical network constraints and stated requirements.
• Design a VCF Automation tenancy model, including Supervisor and VKS-related services.
• Understand the design considerations relating to a Private AI Foundation / Services solution.
• Appreciate physical datacenter design considerations that affect a VCF solution design.
• Apply AMPRS design qualities to all aspects of the VMware Cloud Foundation solution design.

1. Introduction

• Explain the value of VCF as an operational cost argument, not a feature list.
• Describe what VCF 9.1 consolidates, and what is still yours to design.
• Differentiate the personas a private cloud serves and the decisions each one drives.
• Describe the five AMPRS qualities and the trade-offs they create.
• Sequence a design decision as requirement, decision, justification and implication.

2. Fleet Designs and Blueprints

• Describe how the Fleet, Instance, Domain, Cluster and Host constructs nest.
• Choose a fleet deployment model and a fleet sizing model from stated requirements.
• Design a fleet from a published blueprint, substituting Design Library models.
• Choose an edge design pattern for a given site count, WAN budget and autonomy requirements.
• Differentiate the three recovery tiers and identify which one answers a failure.

3. Fleet Components

• Size a VCF Operations analytics cluster from an object count and an availability model.
• Choose a License Server model and defend the choice against a named requirement.
• Describe what runs on the VCF Management Services runtime and what stays a separate appliance.
• Differentiate the Simple and High Availability VCFMS models by their failure behavior.
• Design Log Management retention, partitioning and archiving to a stated requirement.
• Place the Identity Broker as a per-Instance service and pick its deployment model.

4. Instance, Domain and Cluster Designs

• Describe the Instance, Domain and Cluster constructs and the related design decisions.
• Design a Management Domain: sizing, storage, networking and the reserves it must hold.
• Place every management component correctly in a first and an additional Instance.
• Choose how many Workload Domains an estate needs and defend each one by what it isolates.
• Choose a cluster model and a vSAN cluster type, then size the host count that follows.
• Explain how a storage policy sets usable capacity and the minimum host count.

5. Consumption

• Identify every path a consumer can take to reach the platform.
• Design a VCF Automation tenancy model from Organizations down to quota.
• Choose between the All Apps and VM Apps Organization models.
• Explain Supervisor activation and associated design decisions.
• Design the substrate a VKS cluster and its related services need.
• Place VCF Operations Orchestrator, Harbor, DSM and Private AI within a solution design.

6. Physical Datacenter Architecture

• Explain the five physical layers comprising a VCF-ready datacenter.
• Size rack power and cooling for mixed VM, container and accelerated AI hosts.
• Design a leaf-spine fabric that meets VCF bandwidth, latency and MTU needs.
• Choose a single-site, multi-site or multi-region fabric based on stated requirements.
• Identify the CPU, memory, NVMe drives and uplinks a ReadyNode must carry.
• Explain how NUMA and the 9.1 Topology Aware Scheduler affect placement.

7. Networking

• Design the VLAN and MTU plan a VCF solution requires, end to end.
• Choose a distributed switch model from the physical adapters you can justify.
• Differentiate centralized and distributed connectivity and size what each need.
• Place a workload on the network and choose where its traffic is inspected.
• Choose between the NSX load balancer, Avi Load Balancer and an incumbent ADC.

8. Storage Design

• Choose a principal and a supplemental storage model based on stated requirements.
• Explain the vSAN ESA architecture and the data services it delivers by default.
• Design storage policies and size raw capacity from the resulting space factor.
• Design the vSAN network, encryption and operational model.
• Integrate Kubernetes persistent storage with vSAN through storage policies.
• Design NFS and Fiber Channel storage where an array estate already exists.

9. Management Domain Backup and Restore

• Design a backup solution that covers every VCF management component.
• Size an SFTP target from backup size, retention and instance count.
• Sequence a full instance restore in the documented dependency order.
• Outline the instance recovery toolkit, its prerequisites and its cmdlets.
• Design fleet disaster recovery across two instances in two regions.
• Explain the recovery point and recovery time each tier can support

This course has the following prerequisites:

• Working knowledge of vSphere, vCenter, ESX, vSAN and NSX networking.
• Experience with enterprise datacenter operations and solution design.
• Attendance of VMware Cloud Foundation: Build, Manage, Secure and VMware Cloud Foundation: Automate and Operate courses or equivalent experience.

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