Virtual Desktop Blog

Xen Desktop confirmed dead on arrival

wponder — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:08:00 GMT

I just stepped out of Mark Templeton's keynote speech where he talked about five key topics. The fifth was Xen Desktop and was trumped up as the most exciting thing since the launch of WinFrame. The message was Xen Desktop offers a "High Definition user experience" and on demand, new PC, every day. Mark was really excited to demonstrate the Xen Desktop solution and what they call Desktop 2.0.

Mark claimed Xen Desktop was built and designed for 400 million office workers @ Home, @ The Office @ The Virtual Office and Off Shore

They were using what they call a Xen Desktop Appliance. A purpose built device which is not a thin client, Ok sure.

Off to the demo of a Citrix Desktop 2.0 solution designed to support 400 million office workers.

Mark had the demo guy join him on stage, where a Xen Desktop login was being presented from the Xen Desktop Appliance. The demo guy Aaron logged in, an then demonstrated Power Point. After that, it was off to show the "High Definition user experience" and a demo of MultiMedia.

Doh! Not sure what the multimedia was there but all the audience got was a an error and they could not demo the multimedia

The demo guy said maybe if I log out and back in I can get it to work? The demo guy logged out, and tried to log back in. He was then presented with a spinning wheel and no desktop access. I figured it was dynamically building him a new one?

I guess that on-demand desktop is a one time thing?

After a short diversion discussion form Mark, the demo guy tried again as he seemed eager to redeem himself and get it to work, more so than getting off stage and reducing the damage that had already been done. Unfortunately, there was nothing but a spinning wheel again, resulting in a desktop dead on arrival.

Across a silent, stunned audience Mark closed with a statement along the lines of, I guess that is what happens when you fly without a net.

VMware VDI is here today, shipping today and has been deployed to 1000s and 1000s of desktop users across some of the largest enterprises. We are only at the beginning of delivering the next generation desktop delivery and management with a strong ecosystem of VDI alliance partners. Stick with the creators of VDI and do not get caught flying with out a net!!!!

What will Citrix do?

wponder — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:49:00 GMT

I wanted to wait till the smoke cleared before sharing some thoughts regarding Microsoft opening the specifications on several of its APIs and communication protocols. Part of the released technology was the specification of RDP.

For VMware VDI, this is probably the most interesting of the released protocol specifications. The initial impact to customers may not be that obvious. However, over time, the benefits could be huge. RDP is the preferred protocol for accessing VMware VDI based desktops. Currently, this makes the most sense to leverage as there is no added cost in doing so which is typically the case with third party add on protocols.

Although getting the optimal performance in broad set of network conditions can be tricky, but it's quite adequate in the highest majority of desktop replacement use cases. RDP has always had virtual channels which allow a third party to add feature functionality to RDP. For example, with VDM 2 we developed a generic USB device redirector that allows you to connect most USB devices, not supported by RDP to a client access device and make them available for use with your VMware VDI virtual desktop.

In order for third parties to leverage virtual channels, you either needed a team of lawyers and a chunk of change or some really good engineers that could reverse engineer. For some time now there have been licensees of the RDP spec and others who reverse engineered it in effort to add value. This included people building feature add-ons as well as full RDP client implementations. Open Source efforts such as RDesktop and commercial efforts from companies such as WYSE, VMware, ThinAnywhere, Provision Networks, Sun Microsystems, Calista and others have all contributed to enhancing RDP.

Over three years ago I started researching the use of VMware virtualization as a way to better manage and deliver desktop computing and overcome traditional server based computing short falls. As we started meeting with customers and sharing the vision of VDI it was becoming clear Citrix had lost their seat at the table. Customers were concerned with the issues surrounding Citrix as a solution, such as complexity, application compatibility and loss of a personal computing experience.

VMware VDI was resonating with IT organizations and desktop management teams as an answer for more broad desktop deployments. I was a little surprised, as no one can take away Citrix's past contributions to server based computing. It's always been my opinion Citrix and Microsoft had become comfortable with their position and the direction they were leading customers and the market.

As VMware VDI emerged it was becoming clear this was what customers wanted. I had not seen such vast interest and adoption of a desktop solution in a long time. Despite Microsoft attempting to down play interest, VECD emerged. As Citrix lost ground trying to protect the Presentation Server stronghold, they finally broke down, did a 360 degree about face, and sank 500M on XenSource.

Since they have renamed their legacy products and are attempting to broaden their vision beyond just "Application Delivery". Here at VMware we are building things from the ground up with virtualization in mind, not trying to retro fit legacy solutions to fit in a virtual world. Since the emergence of VMware VDI, millions of dollars are going into the R&D of network delivered desktops and applications. The result is innovation that improves user experience, desktop management and choice for IT organizations.

What does this mean for Citrix? For years there have been the conspiracy theories that Microsoft will buy Citrix. Over the years I have seen less and less evidence or reason to believe this, but I guess it could happen. For some time now, I have said Citrix is getting squeezed from the top by VMware and squeezed from the bottom by Microsoft. The crown jewel for Citrix is ICA. Without that, there is not a lot there you can't get from other cheaper more simple alternatives.

With the acquisition of Calista by Microsoft, it's clear they intended to continue the enhancement of RDP. With the RDP spec now open, more and more engineers can come to the party and rapidly further enhance RDP improving its performance and features in a broad array of use cases. With the XenSource acquisition, Citrix has dipped a toe in the open source world. Now that Micosoft has openly published the RDP specification, will Citrix set ICA free? Do they have any other choice? What long term value does ICA have with so many big companies now able to enhance RDP and in fact, already doing so?

VDM 2 - Beta2 now available

wponder — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 13:14:00 GMT

The VDM 2 - Beta 2 is now availalbe for download! Thanks to all the customers and partners that participated in the VDM 2 - Beta 1. Becuse of your participation, were able to collect a tremendous amount of feedback an input regarding what's most important for your VDI environments. The interest and response to VDM 2 has been tremendous.

With Beta 2 there is a lot to look forward too. The UI has a ton of improvements. The new web based administrator look and feel as well as the added visual notifications should be well received.

Based on all the feedback coming in from the beta participants the pooling has been revamped. It has been simplified while still allowing an option for advanced configuration if needed.

If you were not able to participle in Beta 1 or were waiting for Beta 2 you can still participate. Click the link below and register to download Beta 2.

VDM 2 - Beta 2 registration, go to the bottom of the page

VMware VDI - Riverside Medical Success Story

wponder — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:31:00 GMT

Recently I was privileged to have the chance in sharing another VMware VDI success story. Sumit Sehgal joined me to share his experiance's and success deploying a VMware VDI based solution at Riverside Medical Center. This continues the trend of VMware VDI success in the Health Care space as the increased flexibility and mobility provided by VDI benifits Doctors and Nurses across the globe.

Here are some of my favorite highlights:

VDI Client Devices - Once again, repuroposed PC's leads the charge. Riverside started down their VDI path converting existing PC's into VDI clients using a PXE booted image from the network. As the PC's are decommissioned they are replaced with thin clients .

Time Savings - Avg. time to deploy a new VDI desktop 20 minutes compared to 120 minutes in the Past.

Faster Recovery From Failures - Recently a blade power supply failure resulted in the disruption of 32 virtual desktops. With the implementation of VMware HA these virtual desktops were back up and running in 4 min 33 sec. That was faster than Sumit was able to remotely connect once he received the notification or the failure.

Cost Savings - Expected a 6-9 VM per core consolidation. Acheived 11-12. Reprovisioned old PC's as thin clients eliminating traditional desktop lifecycle. Labor costs reduced by improved process.

In addition to these highlights Sumit shares with us some of his real world experiance regarding their storage design. In addition he highlights how they were able to leverage memory over-commit to increase the overall consolidation ratio. The entire webinar can be found here.

Riverside Medical Center Saves Time and Money on PC management with VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

From there search for Riverside Medical

VDI - Cardinal Healthcare - Webinar

wponder — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:30:00 GMT

Last week I had the privilege of doing a joint webinar with one of our first VDI customers, Cardinal Health. I was joined by Justin Hooper, Director of Windows Systems at Cardinal Health. Cardinal Health is the largest worldwide provider of health care solutions, with over 40,000 employees. They are global in nature and are recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of America’s Most Admired Companies.

Cardinal Health was an early adopter of VDI and selected VDI from VMware to support and deliver the desktop infrastructure of two mission critical call centers. At the time, there still was not a lot of information available regarding the architectural choices and deployment practices of VDI based solutions. Justin and his team did a tremendous job of being innovative in order to design a solution that meets the business requirements of Cardinal Health. One of the most innovative things I
feel they accomplished was in how they executed their client side strategy. After evaluating different alternatives from PC’s to thin clients.

They decided to go with low-end PC’s. Because VDI was new at the time, Justin’s team had to create their own custom image. The image is PXE booted from the network by each of the client end points. In essence this enabled them to create their own low cost unmanaged client end point. When a device is powered on it downloads its image from the network. Once the boot process is complete, the user is given a chooser created by Justin’s team for selecting the environment they need. Once the user has made their selection, a connection is established to their hosted virtual desktop.

Simple, clean and affective. This client side approach is also an effective way for organizations to move to a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure today, while still leveraging the existing investment in desktop hardware they might have. In addition, it provides a clean and effective migration path to adopting alternative client devices such as thin clients, once the PC investment has depreciated. In this webinar Justin shares with us the architectural details and lessons learned from their
deployment. The webinar can be found at the following location, Select recorded webinars and its listed on page 2:

Cardinal Health’s Call Center PC Virtualization with VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure VDI

Adding users to the local Remote Desktop Users group

wponder — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:24:00 GMT

Currently, I am working on a best practices guide for building VDI hosted XP desktops. It’s been an interesting exercise. Most the content is stuff I have collected over the years and has been repeated a million times across the Net. In a lot of ways it really is no different than building a solid standardized image for enterprise based PC's. The hardest part has been putting as much useful information in it without letting it creep and it end up being to long.

Last night I was doing some testing, when I should have been spending time with my dogs, for a section that is hands down the most commonly asked question I get. How do I add users to the Remote Desktop Users Group? This is one of the most common VDI stumbling blocks. There are a couple of approaches. Probably more than I am listing below even.

1. You could create a startup script that populates the local Remote Desktop Users group with users or groups. The script can be managed through GPO by adding it to the Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Scripts\Startup Policy.

When using this approach, I prefer to create a group called VDI users in AD, and populate it with users that will use VDI virtual machines. This group is then added to the local Remote Desktop Group at start-up.

A sample code snip-it is below.

option Explicit

Dim objGroup

Dim strComputer
strComputer = "."

On Error Resume Next

Set objGroup = GetObject("WinNT://" & strComputer & "/Remote Desktop Users,group")

objGroup.add("WinNT://DOMAINNAME/VDI Users,group")

Set objGroup = Nothing

2. Another approach is using a Restricted Group. Under Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Restricted Groups add
a group.

In this case I use the built-in Remote Desktop Users, once created add the appropriate users from this Restricted Group GPO Each has its pros and cons but this should give you a starting point.