Virtualization Visualization with Visio

Whether you are looking to conserve energy, optimize your hardware usage, or rapidly test a wide variety of software configurations, some sort of virtualization is surely in your future.

And if you are a Visio Guy or a Visio Gal, you’ll surely want to make a diagram to better see how your network’s hardware is set up.

I’ve been hopping around the net looking for (mostly-free) Visio-related resources for virtualization. Here’s what I found…

Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Professional Add-In for Rack Server Virtualization (Virtual Rack)

Microsoft offers and add-in that might save you having to do any manual drawing in the first place! This add-in that works with Visio 2007 to help you plan virtualization. It auto-generates your rack and detailed server diagrams from an Excel template, allowing you to visualize where you can save on space and power.

SoftGrid Visio Stencils

Mike Burke created these SoftGrid shapes “While SoftTricity was still homeless — before the Microsoft acquisition.” Here are some samples:

VM Guru Visio Virtualization Stencils

Scott Herold has updated his site recently and has posted a link to his Visio 2003/2007-compatible stencils. He mentioned that the link-location might change once he gets a proper download manager working, so here’s the top-level link to his site, just in case: VM Guru.

It’s so much nicer with a preview, isn’t it? Here’s VM Guru’s offerings::

Virtual Center VI3 Network Configuration Template

Ryan of p2vd.com (a blog about virtualization and server consolidation) put together this template that helps him to view his network configuration

VMware Consolidated Backup Template

P2VD also has this consolidated backup template. The drawing can be easily modified to show the various components of VCB and a very high level view of what’s going on. The Snap, Mount, and Backup markers include extra space so that you can add further details about the process.

VMWare VI3 Server Configuration Template

More from P2VD, this VI3 Server Configuration template helps you to detail the configuration of a VMware VI3 Server, and can be modified to document any server in your environment.

VMWare or Virtual Server Infrastructure Stencils

Roelf Zomerman works for Avanade, and created these shapes for VMWare and Virtual Server. They are available in Visio 2002 or Visio 2003 versions.

Here’s a look at the VMWare Shapes:

And a snapshot of Roelf’s Virtual Server Shapes:

Veeam Reporter 2.5

Veeam offers a for-sale software product that allows you to know “all there is about your VMWare infrastructure.”

The company’s description of the product goes like this: “Veeam reporter automatically discovers and collects information about VMware Infrastructure 3 environment, its components and configuration settings, and provides comprehensive visual reports for analysis, documentation and decision-making support.”

It looks like Veeam Reporter produces reports in Visio, Excel, Word & PDF, with the Visio part providing configuration diagrams to show the virtual network elements, their properties, and interdependencies.