Start to SCOM: Phase 1: The design doc
So now that you normally have a clear view on the assessment and what people expect you can start writing your design document.
I’ll be pointing out how I usually write my design docs. You can use these guidelines or create your own totally different layout + structure. Feel free to do so.
NOG AANVULLEN
The different components in a design doc
First of all you need to write a design doc for people who are not familiar with the product. You already have some insights in the technology / product but be aware that most of the managers do not have these insights so you have to educate a little bit as well.
Therefore it’s a good thing to explain all the different components of your SCOM structure briefly before pointing out your decision concerning the component.
This is a brief overview of my framework for my design doc. Again this is my framework. Feel free to use it or alter it as you please:
- Goals of the project
- Introduction
- The current situation and why you want to implement the new product (remember the assessment phase)
- Explanation of the Operations environment and different components
- The proposed architecture + sizing
- Security + accounts which are needed for the environment
- Conclusion and summary.
These are in general the 7 chapters you need to cover. Let’s start with the first one:
1. Goals of the project
This chapter will be an easy one. You formulate here what you came to know during the Assessment phase. It’s best to sum up where you want to be when the project finishes. Don’t go much into detail here yet. There’s plenty of room for this later on 
2. Introduction
Describe a little bit the purpose of this design document. Again don’t go into much detail here yet.
3. The current situation
Again you can use your notes from the assessment meetings to summarize what the current situation is and why there’s decided to switch to SCOM. Here you can already make a small high level comparison between the current system and the new SCOM environment.
Include maps of the current topology of the network environment and/or the old monitoring system.
4. Explanation of the Operations Environment and different components.
Here begins the hard work. Luckily you only have to do this once because you can reuse this section later on because the explanation of the components will not change except for the design decisions.