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VCAP6-DCV Design – Section 1 – Objective 1.3

Section 1 – Create a vSphere Conceptual Design

Objective 1.3 – Determine Risks, Requirements, Constraints and Assumptions

Differentiate between the concepts of risks, requirements, constraints, and assumptions.

The exam will focus on these concepts, you will need to understand each one. remember that something can belong to one of many of the concepts. Do not underestimate these concepts, they are critical to a good design and successful project delivery.

  • Risks
  • Anything that that might prevent you from adhering to the requirements. Example, The IT team have no virtualization knowledge. This is a risk because there is a requirement for the IT team to support the new virtualized solution platform. We can remove the risk by hiring new experienced staff or training existing team members.
  • Requirements
  • There are two types; Functional and Non-functional. Functional are objectives or functions. Non-functional are about how the design will work
  • Constraints
  • These are what restrict the design to certain options. A constraint might be that the storage vendor might need to be EMC due to current supplier relationships
  • Assumptions
  • These are things that have no validation or are not based on facts. An assumption could be that the IT team inform you that the existing storage array has enough capacity for 3 years of growth

Given a statement, determine whether it is a risk, requirement, constraint, or an assumption.

The best way to learn this objective is by example:

  • The project has a budget of $250,000. Constraint
  • N+1 resilience should be maintained during normal operations. Requirement
  • There is sufficient cooling in the datacenter for the new project. Assumption
  • The switches are to be reused but are no longer under support. Risk & Constraint. This could also be seen as a requirement

Analyze the impact of VMware best practices to identified risks, constraints, and assumptions.

Best practices should be followed but they do not always need to be adhered to. You need to use your judgment to ensure that the requirements are met, even if one or two best practices cannot be. Remember you might have edge-case scenarios that best-practices are not developed for. Ensure wherever possible that best practice is included in your design and use them to remove risks, constraints and assumptions from your design to satisfy the requirements.

Spend time learning configuration maximums and VMware best practices for compute, network, storage and security for the exam. A simple example is to disable SSH on hosts when not used as a security best practice.