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Representing Datacenters with Logical Datacenter Designer 

Logical Datacenter Designer (LDD) is used to create diagrams of interconnected logical servers that represent the logical structure of a datacenter. These logical datacenter diagrams communicate important information to the developer about the target deployment environment. Using this designer, infrastructure architects can specify and configure the types of servers in the datacenter, the types of communications allowed, specific communication pathways, and types of services enabled. Logical datacenter diagrams will typically be created and owned by infrastructure architects, but will be used by developers.

After creating a logical datacenter diagram, the infrastructure architect can version the diagram throughout the application development life cycle to keep it current with datacenter design changes. Like the other Distributed System Designers, Logical Datacenter Designer is fully integrated with Visual Studio. However, logical datacenter diagrams are created independently of the application development process. These diagrams are stored as .ldd files and can be reused by other distributed systems that will be deployed in the same target environment.

A logical datacenter diagram provides the source for the deployment diagram, which mirrors the logical datacenter diagram. Application architects use deployment diagrams to define and validate deployment in the logical datacenter for systems composed from applications. This section explains how to create and configure logical datacenter diagrams.

In This Section

Overview of Logical Datacenter Designer

How to: Create Logical Datacenter Diagrams

How to: Add Logical Datacenter Diagrams to Solutions

Defining Zones in the Datacenter

Modeling Logical Servers in the Datacenter

Defining Communication Pathways Between Zones and Logical Servers

Troubleshooting Logical Datacenter Diagrams

Extending Distributed System Designers