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Virtualization, Cloud and Containers

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In this lesson, you will learn:

  • What to capture about vCenter and cloud accounts
  • Why containers need their own questions
  • SNWR’s virtual and cloud estate

🔁 Quick look back: Last time: Network Devices and Appliances. You learned how to capture network devices, SNMP versions and third-party devices.

1 The Problem: Servers Hide Behind vCenter and AWS

Many SNWR servers are virtual machines. Some run in AWS. From a plain IP scan:

  • You don’t see which ESXi host a VM runs on.
  • You can’t see AWS resources that have no IP to scan.
  • You can’t see what runs inside containers.

🎯 The problem: Servers hide behind vCenter and AWS, so IP scans alone miss part of the picture.

👉 The fix: Capture every vCenter, cloud account and container cluster, with who owns it.

Cards for vCenter, AWS and EKS.
Figure 1. SNWR’s virtual, cloud and container estate.

2 What to capture

  • Each vCenter: name, version and a read-only account.
  • Each cloud account: provider, regions and a read-only role.
  • Each container cluster: where it runs and who owns it.

Key term: Hypervisor

Software that runs virtual machines, such as VMware ESXi.

Key term: Container cluster

A group of machines running containers, managed by Kubernetes.

3 Scope decisions

Containers change quickly. Many clients start with the cluster itself and add workloads later.

📝 Note: SNWR’s SOW includes the EKS cluster, but not the workloads inside it. That’s phase 2.

4 Project Clear View: How We Implemented It

📍 Situation: Priya and Kenji own the virtual and cloud parts of SNWR.

🧭 Decision: Capture every platform, and agree scope for containers.

🛠️ Steps we took:

  1. Recorded vCenter snwr-vc-mum-01 with its 3 ESXi hosts.
  2. Recorded SNWR Production AWS: region ap-south-1, 8 EC2, 1 RDS.
  3. Recorded EKS cluster snwr-eks-01.
  4. Agreed with Hana: the cluster is in, workloads are phase 2.

✅ What we verified:

  • Kenji confirmed the region and account.
  • Hana signed the container scope note.

📁 Evidence: The virtual and cloud section of the requirements.

5 Quick recap

  • Capture every vCenter, cloud account and container cluster.
  • Each needs its own read-only access.
  • IP scans alone miss part of virtual and cloud estates.
  • Agree container scope early.

6 Check yourself

Think of your answer first. Then tap to check.

1 Why do you need vCenter access, not just IP scans? Show answer

vCenter shows which host each VM runs on, which IP scans can’t.

2 What access does AWS need? Show answer

A read-only role for Discovery.

3 Are SNWR’s Kubernetes workloads in scope? Show answer

No. The EKS cluster is in scope. Workloads are phase 2.

Nice work! SNWR’s virtual and cloud estate is captured. 🎉
Next up: Applications and Databases in Scope

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