VMware Validated Design 6.x is Discontinued

VMware Validated Design 6.x has been discontinued after VMware Validated Design 6.2 and VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2. Starting with VMware Cloud Foundation 4.3, the guidance for the SDDC components natively supported by the VMware Cloud Foundation automation is moved to the VMware Cloud Foundation documentation and the guidance for the solutions on top of VMware Cloud Foundation is now published under a new class of technical reference implementations called VMware Validated Solutions.

For full information on VMware Validated Solutions including guided documentation flows, solution overviews, FAQs, and CLI repository, see The Cloud Platform Tech Zone.

VMware Validated Design 5.1.x Support is Continued

The VMware Validated Design 5.1.x product line continues until a feature parity and architectural equivalence in VMware Cloud Foundation 4.x becomes available, and a transition guide to VMware Cloud Foundation is published. Starting with VMware Validated Design 5.1.2, new releases consist of updated Bill of Materials (BOM) to support updates to latest supported product versions. They no longer contain guidance on clean deployment of VMware Validated Design. Security patches and hot fixes are addressed by using BOM updates for the latest VMware Validated Design 5.1.x version.

Guided Documentation Map

The documentation of VMware Validated Design implements a sequence which reflects the stages for implementing and maintaining an SDDC.

Overview of Documentation Delivery

The VMware Validated Design documentation is published in several iterations. At the release date, the core documents that introduce VMware Validated Design and provide guidance on the SDDC design, planning, and deployment become available live. The remaining documents are updated in groups until the entire set is compliant with the Bill of Materials of the VMware Validated Design release.

What's New in VMware Validated Design 6.2

See VMware Validated Design 6.2 Release Notes.

Versions of VMware Cloud Foundation in VMware Validated Design

Documentation for VMware Validated Design 6.x

Guided Documentation Map for VMware Validated Design 5.1.x and Earlier

The documentation of VMware Validated Design implements a sequence which reflects the stages for implementing and maintaining an SDDC.

VMware Validated Design supports three SDDC implementations - Standard SDDC, ROBO SDDC, and Consolidated SDDC. See SDDC Architectures.

After you deploy the SDDC, VMware Validated Design provides several types of post-deployment guidance:

• Operational guidance
• Security and compliance guidance
• Scenarios for using the system according to an IT use case, such as workload provisioning and intelligent monitoring
• Guidance on adding workload domains with an architecture for VMware software that is additional to the list of required products.

You can also use technical notes to adjust your system to a certain network and data center setup.

For information on the document types, see VMware Validated Design Documentation Structure and Audience. For information on Standard SDDC, Consolidated SDDC, and ROBO SDDC architectures, see VMware Validated Design SDDC Architectures.

Documentation for VMware Validated Design 5.1.x and Earlier

Use the following documents, available for the latest or earlier release of VMware Validated Design, to design and implement a validated SDDC.

Documentation for VMware Cloud Foundation

The following documents extend the portfolio of VMware Cloud Foundation.

Learn More About VMware Validated Design

• VMware Validated Design Product Page
• VMware Validated Design Community Forum
• VMware Validated Design Sizing Tool
• VMware Cloud Foundation Blog

Hands-on Labs for the SDDC

For hands-on experience with the SDDC, try the Software-Defined Data Center hands-on labs.