In my work as a senior systems and VMware administrator I'm part of a group tasked with creating and continuously improving server policies and procedures. One of the best ways of doing that is by creating documentation policies, ensuring they are useful and easy to use, and then actually using them, keeping them updated and improving on them as we find more things that we want documented.
I've been looking for free VMware documentation templates to measure against our current model. I have found a lot of scripts that can get information of an already existing environment, but I have not found the VMware documentation templates that I want. There are VMware design documentation guides, but not as many day-to-day, "whole 5 years plus of lifecycle" documentation templates around (and if I'm wrong, please send a link my way).
A common topic in the vCommunity is going into a new job and finding no (or barely useful) documentation. This is my way of helping with this. If there are free templates around that any administrator, whether new to VMware or a seasoned admin, finds useful, we can create a "community standard" in our practice that helps everyone do a better job.
I hope you can also contribute. Find me on twitter, or if you are a vExpert, on the Slack channel, and we can discuss your ideas. For now it's just me, but I really would welcome at least two more engaged "directors" to help me decide on direction of the templates "for the long run".
My requirements are that these templates must be:
Include information that a lot of VMware administrators will find useful.
Use a PowerCLI script when possible to help create the documentation
Here is the list of documents - which may change at any time depending on community participation:
Before installing VMware - documenting the enterprise environment ods xlsx
Standard for managing accounts and passwords ods xlsx
Vendor specific settings and HCL considerations ods xlsx
ESXi installation build standard ods xlsx
ESXi installation and upgrade log per host ods xlsx
vCenter installation document ods xlsx
vCenter installation and upgrades log per vCenter ods xlsx
Single inventory file to track all VMware environments company wide ods xlsx
VMware security hardening policy ods xlsx
Implementation details per location ods xlsx
Security patching log ods xlsx
Each document has version control and a small explanation of its intended purpose in the first tabs.
As I create the actual files the links become available. They are made in Libreoffice 5 and saved in both and xlsx formats so both *nix and MS Office users can use them.
I decided to stick with Calc/Excel since it's a pretty standard way of storing, viewing and sharing information in today's enterprises. That is something else that you can help me improve.