Microsoft Virtualized Infrastructure Assessment - 5 Week Assessment

Objectives: Respond to VMware’s aggressive licensing price increases and uncertainty regarding the future of VMware products and services under Broadcom ownership. Perform a deep-dive review of current infrastructure capabilities, review technical and business requirements, and assess alternative paths for re-platforming applications on Microsoft infrastructure solutions while downsizing the enterprise’s VMware vSphere footprint.

Activities to be Completed:

1. Infrastructure Deep Dive Engage data center and edge computing SMEs to gain a comprehensive understanding of the enterprise infrastructure:

• Review and document data center systems: vSphere hosts, storage, and network infrastructure.
• Assess current hybrid cloud solutions
• Examine edge compute and networking environments
• Operations solutions review: systems management and orchestration/deployment, replication/backup/recovery, VDI/app streaming, monitoring and observability

2. Technical Requirement Review Assess workload/application documentation, associated vendor recommendations, SLAs, RTOs/RPOs, and other key requirements related to performance, availability, and compatibility.

• Review workload/application inventory, CMDB, and other documentation
• Identify performance and availability outliers and document workload performance and availability characteristics
• Cross-reference application inventory with vendor guidance regarding system sizing and compatibility
• Assess current workload placement proximity to end-users or other upstream/downstream dependencies

3. Business Review Review historical and current operating costs, governance and policies.

• Review documentation related to current infrastructure operating costs, budget, and if available, future increases in licensing expenses
• Review the current governance impacting workload placement, data management and retention, system and application lifecycle
• Review the enterprise’s operational and strategic goals

4. Re-Platforming Roadmap Protiviti will outline a roadmap for VMware product footprint reduction.

• Identify best ‘landing zone’ for workloads: Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI, Azure VMs, or conversion to Azure *-aaS service; document supporting case for workloads that should migrate to Azure VMware Solution or remain in a reduced-footprint on-premises vSphere environment
• Construct roadmap outlining recommended approach for executing vSphere footprint reduction while maximizing value from existing infrastructure assets
• Document recommendations for proof-of-concept testing and/or pilot workload migrations