Mapping out a VMware environment

[tnt]

In the old days (a few short years ago) mapping out a service involved drawing relationships between servers, storage, switches, etc. It was pretty much a straightforward exercise. Today, with the advent of VMware, vCenter, ESXi, vMotion, and service profiles…   relationship mapping is more abstract. For example, you can't designate that a virtual server lives on a certain computing blade because within a few minutes it could live on another blade.

My organization employs a Cisco FlexPod system that integrates computing, networking, and storage (NetApp) into one bundle. My challenge has been to figure out how best to draw service relationships from say… a virtual server to other configuration items. I'm thinking about a relationship flow something like…

          VM -> Runs on —> VMware Cluster —> Managed by —> vCenter —> Contained by -> FlexPod

…although, I haven't yet determined how to present the FlexPod environment in the CMDB.

So, after all that, my question is… is there anyone who has a perspective on mapping this type of virtual environment?

Thanks All!

[Deepak Ingale1]

Hi Thomas,

I can suggest something like below,

          VM -> Runs on —> ESXi Server   -> Hosted by VMware Cluster —> Managed by —> vCenter —> Contained by -> FlexPod

I will also extend this feature to form a relationship between ESXi servers which are part of same cluster node.

[tnt]

Thank you Deepak...

My thought would be that it's difficult to put an ESXi server in the mix because you can't depend on a VM to live on any single ESXi server... it moves around and can reside on a different ESXi server at any given time. That's why I chose to only specify the VMware Cluster, which contains several ESXi servers. You can't count on a VM to always live on a single ESXi server... but you can depend on it always living on the same VMware cluster of ESXi servers.

[ritikrathor]

Hey,

I could suggest something

VM---Runs on::Run--> ESX servers --Members::Member of --> Vmware Vcenter Cluster -- Managed by::Manages --> ESX Server(MAIN host/Datacenter)

NOTE: Always add from child node for Vm to ESX-- Runs on:: run
Add from ESX to Vmware Vceneter cluster-- Member::member of

Add from Main node(Data center/resource pool/physical server)--Managed by:: Manages