By Jason Gaudreau
It is no secret, designing a virtual infrastructure is a complex undertaking, but one aspect that certainly needs to be considered is how the environment will be supported. In small- to medium-sized businesses, a majority of the IT departments support all aspects of the infrastructure; but in enterprise organizations, different divisions support technical competencies in end-user computing, servers, mid-range, networking and storage. For instance, when deploying a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), you need to understand which team is going to support different aspects of the technology solution. Who will support the VMware vSphere® ESXiTM hosts? Will it be the server team or the end-user computing team? How about the master desktop images and pools? Having a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities makes it easier for IT departments to gain alignment for complex technology solutions.
It is important to be mindful that IT departments are paid to serve the business units. They need to focus on business priorities and working together to deliver cost-effective solutions. Infrastructure investments made in corporate-wide technologies are to support business outcomes. The business outcome for a virtual desktop solution may be to lower operational costs by allowing IT administrators to make upgrades and patches to a core Windows OS image, and then replicate this image out to the company, instead of having to patch scores of individual machines.
Not working cohesively is one of the primary drivers of IT ineffectiveness and, more specifically, IT overspending. The responsibility for designing, deploying, and operating a technology solution that supports business requirements should be shared equally by all stakeholders, including the end-user computing team, server team, storage team, networking team, database administrators (DBAs), and enterprise architects, to name a few.
A responsibility assignment matrix (RACI) is crafted by listing the activities along the left column of a table and the roles across the top. A matrix is then designed to identify which roles are responsible, accountable, consulted and informed within the process. A RACI model ensures that end-to-end accountability is identified for the process activities, safeguarding that gaps are identified and can be corrected.
Below is a sample RACI document for Horizon View deployments; I hope you find it useful when designing a responsibility matrix for supporting your environment.
Server Team |
EUC |
Other Team (DBA, Networking, Storage, EA) |
|||
R, A,C, I |
R, A,C, I |
R, A,C, I |
|||
Strategic |
|||||
| Conduct research and make recommendation on VDI products, services and standards in support of the infrastructure |
R |
A,R |
C,I |
||
| Partner with the EA group to define, execute and maintain the Enterprise Infrastructure Technology Roadmap – 3-year strategic plan |
R |
A,R |
C,I |
||
| Initial implementation of pilot or proof-of-concept of new, emerging technologies, and major upgrades |
A,R |
R |
|||
| Identify, recommend, design and implement cost-effective VDI solutions |
R |
A,R |
R,C,I |
||
| Define roles and responsibilities for the VDI tools |
R |
A,R |
|||
| Project future computing capacity requirements to meet business needs |
R |
A,R |
|||
| Research, architect, deploy and manage third-party tools related to the View server infrastructure |
A,R |
R |
R |
||
| DMZ/off-line mode evaluation |
R |
A,R |
|||
| Integration with View to the Application Virtualization initiative or the Global Standard Desktop |
I |
A,R |
C |
||
Tactical |
|||||
| Server hardware configurations |
A,R |
I |
|||
| Server hardware procurement approvals |
A,R |
I |
|||
| Client hardware configurations |
I |
A,R |
|||
| Data center planning |
A,R |
||||
| Data center support (i.e. Rack & Stack, Break Fix) |
A,R |
I |
|||
| Hardware load balancing |
R |
C |
A,R |
||
| ESX host monitoring |
A,R |
C |
R |
||
| ESX host upgrades, management and maintenance |
A,R |
I |
I |
||
| ESX tools roll-out |
A,R |
||||
| ESX host deployments |
A,R |
I |
R |
||
| vCenter upgrades, management and maintenance |
A,R |
C |
|||
| VMware View Manager virtual machine upgrades and maintenance |
R |
A,C |
|||
| VMware View Composer virtual machine upgrades and maintenance |
R |
A,C |
|||
| Database Infrastructure Support |
R |
C |
A,R |
||
| Performance and capacity monitoring for ESX hosts and clusters |
R |
I |
|||
| Performance and capacity monitoring for View virtual desktops |
A,R |
||||
| Disaster Recovery Support for View servers and host environment |
A,R |
R |
R |
||
| Backup and recovery strategy for View Management and View Composer servers |
A,R |
R |
|||
| Troubleshoot ESX host incidents |
A,R |
C |
|||
| Troubleshoot View Management server and View Composer server incidents |
A,R |
C |
|||
| Troubleshoot vCenter incidents |
A,R |
C |
|||
| Virtual desktop incident management |
C |
A,R |
|||
| View virtual desktop security and patch management |
A,R |
||||
| Software distribution to View virtual desktops |
A,R |
||||
| Software distribution to View Management server and View Composer server |
A,R |
C |
|||
| Linked Clones implementation and standards |
I |
A,R |
|||
| Thin Provisioning implementation and standards |
A,R |
R |
C |
||
| vNetwork switching implementation |
A,R |
C |
R |
||
| Profile Management software |
R |
A,R |
C |
||
| View virtual desktop approvals |
I |
A,R |
|||
| Engage business partners to define virtual desktop requirements and solutions |
A,R |
||||
| Training for new VMware View consumers |
A,R |
||||
| VMware View software product management |
A,R |
C |
|||
| Create and administer the vCenter Resource Pools |
A,R |
C |
|||
| vCenter Security |
A,R |
I |
|||
| View Security and Access Management |
I |
A,R |
|||
| Build and maintain additional View Connection servers |
A,R |
C |
|||
| GPO management |
R |
A,C |
|||
| Client network protocol selection (PCoIP or RDP) |
C |
A,R |
C |
||
| View Admin Console support |
A,R |
R |
|||
| Create View virtual desktops and pools |
A,R |
||||
| Create and maintain the View virtual desktop base image |
A,R |
||||
| Distribute View client to physical workstations and laptops |
A,R |
||||
| Recomposing images |
A,R |
||||
| Rebalancing images |
A,R |
||||
| Image optimization |
A,R |
||||
| View virtual desktop file storage locations (persistent disk design, LAN server location) |
R |
R |
A,R |
||
| R – Responsible | |||||
| A – Accountable (one team accountable) | |||||
| C – Consults | |||||
| I – Inform |
Jason Gaudreau is a Senior Technical Account Manager, VMware Professional Services. To read more from Jason, be sure to visit his blog here.
