It seems like only yesterday, but it was actually almost 10 years ago when I gave something awesome to the VMware community - the first version of the VMware stencils.

The reason I did this was because at the time - there was no decent set of VMware stencils out there - so I took the initiative and created a set. And I subsequently set out to update them over the years.
I have a small confession. The VMware Visio stencils have been the biggest driver of traffic to my blog over the years. Even till this day - I have a minimum of 5000 monthly views (and this on a post that is more than 5 years old).

And I already hear you say - there is already a number of architectural Visio icon sets available - and even an official one from AWS - you can find them here. (I assume that the graphics are going to be updated just before / after re:Invent - with the new design that they have released a few weeks ago, in the meantime - only the current one is available)

There are other tools that have online graphics as well. LucidChart, Cacoo, Creately, draw.io, Cloudcraft (the only vendor who has original graphics - the rest are all the standard AWS icons). 
If you are following some of the AWS community work - will probably have heard of Jerry Hargrove (better know as @awsgeek). He actually works at Lucidchart and is famous for his unbelievable sketch notes on AWS and their products. Not only are they beautiful, clear and sometimes even really funny, they are also very informative and extremely useful.

Jerry was also recently awarded the honor of AWS community Hero.
I mean really - these are a real work of art!!




So without further ado I present to you version 1.0 of the AWS Community Visio Stencils.

Jerry was kind enough to allow me to use his graphics and provide the AWS community with a set of graphics - that (in my opinion) are not only more appealing to the eye - but are just plain fun!!

40 icons of AWS services.

• API Gateway
• AppStream
• Athena
• Cloudfront
• CloudTrail
• CloudWatch
• Code Build
• Code Pipeline
• Comprehend
• Directory Service
• EBS
• EC2
• EFS
• Elastic Beanstalk
• ElasticCache
• ELB
• GuardDuty
• IAM
• Kinesis
• KMS
• Lambda
• Lambda Edge
• Machine Learning
• Neptune
• RDS
• Redshift
• Rekognition
• Route53
• S3
• SES
• SNS
• SQS
• Step Functions
• Storage Gateway
• VMware on AWS
• VPC
• VPC Endpoint
• WAF
• WorkSpaces
• xRay
  

All of the graphics are from Jerry's artwork.
Each of the Icons is resizable

If you so please, the blue background can be removed.

You can modify the text on each icon.

Each icon has 9 possible anchor points.

All yours to use for free, to modify, and diagram to your hearts content.

And yes - this is only the beginning...  There are over another 200 graphics and icons that I will be taking out of these sketches and converting them into usable icons for your diagramming pleasure.

v1.0 is available for download here

I would love to hear your feedback!

Update Dec. 13, 2018

Today I have released version 1.1 of the Stencils. Here is what changed.

1. New AWS Product icon - DynamoDB
2. I decided to add a few additional stencils
   
   a. People
   
   
    
   
   
   
   
   b. Icons
   
   
   
   
   
   c. Shapes and Banners
   
   
    

Today I am releasing the latest version my VMware Visio stencil set (version 4).

This version contains all the previous icons with the addition of new NSX icons.

The new stencil includes ~90 new objects (some are just different colors of the same object).

I am assuming this is just what people will be looking for after the announcements from VMworld – which I think will have some NSX in it.

The new stencil can be found on my VMware Visio Stencils page.

Hope you all enjoy VMworld!

 

The VMware Visio Stencils I have created are by far the most popular post on my blog. Over the past few years I have posted a three versions over the years since they were released.

I decided last week that it was time to create a dedicated page that would hold the most up to date version and not to have them spread out all across my blog.
Therefore from now all the old versions will now redirect to this page.

Why "The Unofficial VMware Visio Stencils"?
That is because they are not prepared by VMware, but by me. On each occasion I have taken the icons and diagrams that VMware release every now and again and turn them into something that a large number of people have asked for, but VMware have yet to be able to supply, a re-usable Visio stencil that can be used in diagrams.

First the legal part:

This document was created using the official VMware icon and diagram library. Copyright © 2012 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents.
VMware does not endorse or make any representations about  third party information included in this document, nor does the inclusion of any VMware icon or diagram in this document imply such an endorsement.

Today (April 8th, 2013) I am also releasing the final and last part of the v3 version of the Stencils.
To make it more user friendly and easier to find what you would like, you can find below a graphical inventory of what is in each of the parts of this version (v3).

Part 1

Box Shots

Icons

2D Icons

Shapes and Assets

Build your Own

Part 2

VMware Concepts

Additional Icons

Part 3

Product Groupings

Part 3 includes the following products:

• Orchestrator (x2)
• CapacityIQ
• Chargeback
• Appspeed
• Site Recovery Manager (x3)
• Studio
• vCloud Director
• VMware Server
• View (x6)
• ThinApp (x2)
• vCloud Director (x2)

Today August 24th, 2014 the first day of VMworld US, I am releasing the 4th part of the stencils.

Part 4

Icons

Each of the shapes above are laid out (as much as possible) in such a way to allow you to move the components within your Visio drawing, to suit your needs.
So where are the actual stencils already???
Here you can find all the Downloads (including the historical versions)

Version
v4 (2014)	(Full Package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Part 4
v3 (2012)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
v2 (2010)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
v1 (2009)	(Full package)	Part 1	Part 2

I hope this continues to be a valuable resource for you all!