This chapter explained how to perform an analysis and assessment of an existing physical or virtual environment, in order to gain all the data you need to plan your migration, upgrade your environment, or improve it. Different tools and approaches were described as a way to reach the goal. Specific application-level tools were not considered but must be part of a complete analysis.

Although those aspects are not specific to the vSphere version (and, in some cases, could also be generalized to other hypervisors), we also provided specific hints for VMware vSphere 6.5 editions.

The key takeaway lessons of this chapter are how to analyze a physical or virtual infrastructure, how to collect data from an existing environment to drive planning or performance analysis, and how and when to perform a health check of your environment.

With the next chapter, we are now able to start using the vSphere product, starting from the deployment of its components.