Designing a Resilient VMware Infrastructure for Barney's Incorporated

The assignment is to design a virtual infrastructure for Barney's Incorporated, a restaurant chain company that wants to improve resource utilization by virtualizing their existing servers and reduce the number of physical machines in their backroom. The company has multiple hardware servers running, with requirements for web servers, ordering server, email server, user PCs, SharePoint server, backup server, cash registers, display computers, and managers' computers. The design should consider consolidation of servers, high availability, fault tolerance, thin clients, costs, and network layout. The report will include an executive summary, a summary of the existing system with opportunities for improvement, hardware/software/license requirements, configuration outline, infrastructure diagrams, instructions for configuration, comparison of competing products, and appendix.

Report writing:
Assignment is to plan out a new system for a small enterprise that is planning on using
virtualization to improve their resource utilization. For this assignment you are to
imagine that you are the administrator in charge of designing and configuring a virtual
infrastructure in your company’s production environment. Note that you may not
need/want to virtualise everything in your company. The decisions on what should be
virtual are part of the design. Details of the specific requirements are provided below.
You will design the vmware and network configuration for a company system, specifying
the following:
 Virtual switches
 Ports and port groups
 Port group policies
 Physical connections
 Host Configurations
 Server Hosting
 VM Configuration
 VCenter Configuration
** Please note that you are not to go to town picking networking switches and
configurations of them. (I leave that for Grant) I am happy if you give some model
suggestions, prices and features that they require.
The Context
For this assignment imagine that you are going to virtualize a restaurant chain
companies infrastructure. This company "Barney's Incorporated" has multiple hardware
servers running and they often find that many of the machines are running idle. They
are interested in if they can save money or at least space by virtualizing their
infrastructure. The company has the requirements for the following services that
currently run on various servers/computers that are hosted at their headquarters and
restaurants. At present they are all run on separate physical servers in the racks at the
sites.
Head Quarters
 2 x Web Server (Server LAMP, i7,8Gb,1TB)
 1 x Ordering Server (Server LAMP, i7, 8GB, 1TB)
 1 x Email Server Exchange (Server Win10, i7,16Gb,1TB)
 10 x User PC's used by admin staff with word, outlook (Standard PC Win10,
i7,8Gb,1TB)
 1 x Sharepoint server for documents (Server Win10, i7,16Gb,8TB)
 1 x Backup Server (Backup tape embedded controller)
Restaurants
 2 x Cash Registers (Standard PC's with Win7, i5,8Gb,256GB)
 1 x Display Computer (drives the shop displays) (Standard PC's with Win7,
i5,8Gb,256GB)
 1 x Web Server (Used for Local Store Promo's) (Server LAMP, i7,8Gb,1TB)
 1 x Managers Computer (Standard PC's with Win7, i5,8Gb,256GB)

 1 x Ordering Computers (Standard PC's with Win7, i5,8Gb,256GB)
These sites are connected via a 1 Gig WAN connection with 10G networking at head
quarters. You can assume that the WAN connection is sufficient for needs. The business
has one central office with 10 employees and 7 restaurants with 5 FTE employees each.
Total salary budget for the company is $2 million with a total turnover of $10 million.
The business wants to host their servers but they are concerned there is no resilience on
their system and they are also running a lot of servers that need constant maintenance.
Your job is to design the system to bring resilience into the system whilst reducing the
number of servers running in their back room. Some form of San storage should
considered for integration into any solution you have. The design computers and admin
computers need to be replaced with thin clients with suitable software for their software.
You will need to examine what is possible to achieve resilient vmware system yet keep
the price down.
Things to consider and justify in your design
1. Number of physical switches/routers
2. Consolidation of servers
3. High availability? Is it possible how would it be implemented?
4. Fault Tolerance? Is it possible how would it be implemented?
5. Thin clients? 3D support?
6. Costs. Total cost, Other options?
7. Number of Hosts, CPUs and Memory on hosts
8. Network layout (teaming, vlans, security etc.)
9. Should a server even be virtualised ?
10. The price tag relative to the means of the company.
You are to propose a new system and explain how you would configure it using vmware.
You are also to do a compare vmware to competing products and give an overview of the
relative merits of each product in this context.
What is Required
You are to hand up a single document with the following sections.
1. Executive Summary
2. Summary of existing system with opportunities for improvement
3. Outline of hardware/software/license requirements along with costs (in the form of
a budget).
4. Outline of configuration of the system.
5. Sketches of the infrastructure of the platform. (At least a physical, logical and rack
diagram)
6. Instructions for configuration. Very specific instructions that step you through the
setup and configuration of the required features. Feel free to screenshot steps
where possible rather than write them out in detail. You may not have access to
some of the software you are configuring. In that case use existing instructions
and customize it for your situation.PLEASE NOTE: you do not need to talk about
configuration/installation of servers as they already exist. You simply need to give
instructions on how to virtualize them. In other words you should be able to hand

this document to a network/vmware engineer and they would be able to build the
entire system without having to look anything up
7. Comparison of relevant features, price of competing products. (Eg other
virtualisation offerings)
8. Appendix containing any outlines for hardware, licenses etc...
The Target Audience for This Report Are
1. CTO/CEO to decide to proceed with the plan. With no real understanding of
virtualisation.
2. Purchasing/Finance for ordering but don't understand technology.
3. Technicians to implement the design. Who understand virtualisation and VMware
but needs a guide to install.
Write your report accordingly
Marking Criteria
1. Well-reasoned outline of the hardware and software requirements of the system.
Including budgets and alternatives if appropriate.
2. Specific list of servers that are required and how they will be configured
3. Specific design of network both virtual and physical.
4. Examination of at least 3 other products that could be used as an alternative with a
comparison.
5. Easy to follow instructions for configuring the VMWare Infrastructure (don’t concern
yourself with any guest configuration except network configuration).
6. Professional presentation.
7. Executive Summary at the Start of Document.
There are bound to be questions. Can you please post them on the discussion board so
that everyone has access to the same information.
How long should this be? The assignment should be as long as it needs to present the
required information. The long bit will be the step by step instructions. Other sections
might consist of a few pages each.