[VMware] Solution Designer

A new fling by VMware

The Solution Designer Fling provides a foundation for managing custom VMware solutions.

What does it do?

Building a custom VMware solution involves many challenging tasks. One of the most difficult is continuous manual verification: checking interoperability of multiple VMware products and performing validations of compatible hardware. VMware’s “Solution Designer” is designed to solve these problems by automating repetitive manual steps and consolidating scattered resources into a single application.

It provides an interactive user interface to understand the interoperability and upgrade capability of multiple VMware products.
This feature can easily determine the best VMware version combinations that work together. This fling also automates the complicated validation of hardware compatibility. This makes it easy to enter or import hardware configuration into the platform and detect hardware compatibility issues with a particular ESXi version.

• Custom VMware solution management
• Validation of VMware product interoperability and upgradeability
• Hardware inventory management
• Validation of hardware compatibility with ESXi

All you need is a Customer Connect Account which you can get for free at https://customerconnect.vmware.com/ if you don’t already have one.

Who is supposed to use it?

VMware customers building and managing a custom solution can benefit from this fling.

Where can I get it?

As with every fling you can get it right here: https://vsd.esp.vmware.com

How does it work?

A new project can be opened under “Interoperability”. To completely create your own environment, you must set “No Solution, will select VMware Products from scratch”:

Now the VMware products can be added on the top right, when complete “VERIFY INTEROPERABILITY” must also be clicked:

The upgrade check etc. can also be done directly:

Click “PREV” to return to the “Create Custom Solution” wizard.
If you want to reuse the project later, you can do so using the “Create Solution” button. (top right):

Give it a name and save it:

This project is now visible under “Solution Manager” and can also be adapted with the help of versioning.

All functions such as upgrade check, interoperability and lifecycle of the products can of course also be done here:

In case of changes or possibly after an upgrade, this can also be imported into a newer version. To do this, simply click on “IMPORT TO NEW VERSION” and you will have a new version with the updated products:

Next Steps

You can see the Solution Designer Fling provides a foundation for managing custom VMware solutions. Now that you know about another great fling from VMware you will ask yourself “What’s next?”. Well, if you’d like to talk shop about VMware products or technical challenges, let us know. We’re happy to help.