Virtualisation Health Check

Use this checklist to take a structured look at your virtual infrastructure before problems force your hand. It is designed for businesses running VMware ESXi, Hyper-V or similar hypervisors on on-premises hardware.

Platform

• □ Hypervisor product and version recorded (ESXi, Hyper-V, Proxmox, other)
• □ Vendor support status confirmed — product is still receiving security updates
• □ Licensing model confirmed and compliant with current vendor terms
• □ Management interface (vCenter, vSphere Client, web UI) functional and patched
• □ Last update/patch applied within the past 12 months

Hardware

• □ Physical host hardware age and warranty status confirmed
• □ Firmware and BIOS updated to current vendor-recommended version
• □ CPU, RAM and storage capacity reviewed against current workload
• □ Disk health checked — RAID status, SSD wear levels, error counts
• □ UPS or power protection in place and battery condition verified
• □ Vendor hardware support availability confirmed (not end-of-life)

Virtual Machines

• □ All virtual machines inventoried — no orphaned or forgotten VMs
• □ Each VM's purpose and owner documented
• □ VM tools / guest agent installed and current on each VM
• □ Snapshot policy reviewed — stale or excessively large snapshots removed
• □ Resource allocation (vCPU, RAM, disk) reviewed against actual usage
• □ Guest operating systems are within vendor support lifecycle

Security

• □ Hypervisor management access restricted to authorised administrators only
• □ Default or shared credentials changed
• □ Hypervisor management interface not directly exposed to the internet
• □ Security patches applied to the hypervisor host within defined timescales
• □ Guest VMs patched and running supported operating systems
• □ Network segmentation between VMs reviewed where applicable

Backups

• □ VM-level backups confirmed active and completing successfully
• □ Application-aware backup in place for VMs running Exchange, SQL, AD
• □ Backup target is separate from the host (not on the same hardware)
• □ Offsite or immutable copy of backups confirmed
• □ Backup retention period reviewed and appropriate for business needs
• □ Backup credentials and encryption keys documented and accessible

Recovery

• □ VM restore tested successfully within the past 12 months
• □ Recovery time objective (RTO) defined — how long can VMs be offline?
• □ Recovery procedure documented — who does what, in what order?
• □ Alternative host or destination for recovery identified
• □ Bare-metal or rebuild procedure documented for the hypervisor host itself

Licensing

• □ Current licence terms reviewed and understood
• □ Renewal cost and timeline confirmed (VMware perpetual licences no longer sold)
• □ Guest OS licences valid and compliant (Windows Server, SQL, etc.)
• □ Any software running on VMs with per-VM or per-core licence terms reviewed
• □ Cost of continuing the current platform compared with alternatives

Future Plan

• □ Decision on platform direction documented: keep, upgrade, migrate or retire
• □ Migration alternatives assessed if the current platform is end-of-life or unaffordable
• □ Cloud or hybrid options assessed for suitable workloads
• □ Budget and timeline agreed if change is needed
• □ Project owner identified and accountable for next steps