Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - VMware Validated Solutions

VMware Validated Solutions are well-architected and validated implementations designed to help customers build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications and workloads deployed on VMware Cloud Foundation.

Each VMware Validated Solution comes with detailed design with design decisions, implementation guidance consisting of manual UI- based step-by-step procedures and, where applicable, automated steps using infrastructure-as-code. Individual VMware Validated Solutions may be supplemented with code samples & how-tos, customer success stories, and links to other published assets to provide a one-stop experience for our customers. 

VMware Validated Designs are prescriptive blueprints, best practices design with comprehensive manual deployment guidance and operational practices. VMware Validated Designs until 5.x do not require a VMware Cloud Foundation license. Newest version (VMware Validated Design 6.x) incorporates VMware Cloud Foundation in the design and requires a VMware Cloud Foundation license.  

VMware Validated Solutions are well-architected  and  validated implementations deployed on VMware Cloud Foundation. VMware Cloud Foundation SDDC Manager is required to implement VMware Validated Solutions. These solutions are designed by VMware architects to help customers build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure and will provide faster time to value for VMware Cloud Foundation

VMware Validated Solutions are relevant, easily discoverable, and consumable validated architecture for deploying value-enhancing solutions on top of the core VMware Cloud Foundation platform. These solutions are available to customers at no additional cost. Each VMware Validated Solution Guide provides all-encompassing documentation that delivers:

• Design Objectives  
• Detailed Design with Design Decisions  
• Planning and Preparation  
• Implementation Procedures (UI and Infrastructure as Code where available)  
• Operational Guidance  
• Solution Interoperability 

The benefits of VMware Validated Solutions are as follows:

• Validated - VMware Validated Solutions are designed by VMware architects to help customers build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure.
• Scalable - Easily scale infrastructure and applications running on VMware Cloud Foundation with technically validated, repeatable, and automated solutions.
• Secure - Security-centric designs that offer prescriptive guidance and enhance post-deployment hardening of VCF infrastructure.
• Lower costs - Infrastructure as code accelerates deployments through automated workflows that reduce manual labor and rework.
• Faster time to value - Rapidly implement solutions on top of VMware Cloud Foundation.

VMware Validated Solutions requires an active VMware Cloud Foundation license (edition may matter per solution) with SDDC Manager. Each solution has additional pre-requisites listed in the solution, including specific versions of VMware Cloud Foundation, additional components as needed.

Infrastructure-as-code examples with Terraform or PowerShell will assist customers in automating the deployment of solutions, with the following benefits: 

• Accelerate deployments through automated workflows  
• Code offers a time-saving alternative to UI-based step-by-step procedures.

VMware Validated solutions are available at https://core.vmware.com/vmware-validated-solutions

Terraform code can be found on https://github.com/vmware-samples/validated-solutions-for-cloud-foundation

PowerValidatedSolution a PowerShell module can be found at https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PowerValidatedSolutions

Each Validated solution has multiple tiles including-

• Before You Begin - Before you apply this validated solution your environment must have a certain VMware Cloud Foundation configuration.
• Design Objectives - Design objectives drive the prescriptive outcome of this validated solution to deliver a faster deployment suitable for use in production
• Detailed Design - The design considers the components of the this validated solution. It includes numbered design decisions, and the justification and implications of each decision.
• Designs Decisions - Consolidated view of design decisions, their justification and implications of each decision.
• Planning and Preparation workbook - Before you start implementing the components of the validated solution, you must plan and gather inputs such as external service information (DNS, NTP), IP Addresses, host names and more.
• Implementation - Step-by-step procedures guide you through the implementation of this validated solution.
• Operational Guidance - After you complete the implementation of the validated solution, you perform common operations on the environment, such as examining the operational state of the components added to the environment during the implementation and updating the certificates and account passwords for these components.
• Solution Interoperability - Integrate the validated solution with components added to your VMware Cloud Foundation environment by other validated solutions. You can use such validated solutions for monitoring and alerting, logging, backup and restore, disaster recovery, and life cycle management with certain considerations.

Each Validated solution has multiple tiles and can be accessed in left to right order.

• Before You Begin
• Design Objectives
• Detailed design
• Designs decisions
• Implementation
• Operational Guidance
• Solution Interoperability 

Estimated Time to Deploy provides an approximate time to deploy the specific VMware Validated Solution following manual guidance and automated deployment code and procedures.