Virtual Desktop Blog

VMware View Reference Architecture

wponder — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:35:40 GMT

I am well past do for a post and some might think we have fallen off the face of the planet. For the last six months I have been heads down planning, coordinating, validating and writing the first VMware View Reference Architecture.

This has been a lengthy project that had some very well defined scope from the beginning. Honestly, I allowed the scope to creep, as I felt the effort and output would go much further to benefit cusotmers and partners.

First, I would like to thank everyone who helped ensure the project was successful. I would like to especially like to thank our partners at EMC whom allowed us to leverage their Validation Facility in Santa Clara allowing us to build and validate the RA itself. In addition to providing us a place to validate future efforts. They have a world class facility where we can validate customer solutions as well.

Second, this effort is only one of many to come. The foundation we have laid allows us to rapidly change and add components or used cases based on the core architecture we have already validated. This first reference architecture effort primarily focuses on desktop replacement in the enterprise and other use cases will follow.

The first release of the reference architecture is availalbe from the following location - http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/1084

One of the documents that we intended to include but, were not able to finalize, was a document around the networking aspects of our efforts. We have received numerous requests for information on the networking specifically the load balancing and layer 2/3 configs and VLANs. Although we do not have a specific recomended design yet, we have been doing quite a bit of work in the labs in this area and have some information that might be useful to some. Later I plan to post some of the configs from some of our lab work here so check back.

Lastly, there are two other documents that I am working on and I hope to release those in the next few weeks.

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?

VMware VDI - Virtual Desktop Manager 2 Released

wponder — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:44:00 GMT

Last week at VMware we reached a major milestone in moving the next generation of desktop computing forward with the release of VDM 2. First I would like to thank the 1000’s of beta participants who took the time and downloaded, tested and provided enormous amounts of feedback. It’s all the tremendous feedback that will help us continue to deliver innovative features that help you execute and deliver your next desktop architecture.

Second I would like to thank the engineering teams that invested countless hours and sleepless nights to deliver a high quality product building a solid foundation that will shape the future of virtual desktop management. In 2005 VMware started executing on the VMware VDI vision. Since some of the biggest names in server based computing have completely changed their business models, rebranded their products, adjusted their message and spent 100’s of millions of dollars in effort to adopt the vision of VMware VDI.

VDM 2 was not a rebranding exercise of slapping a VMware VDM 2 logo on some legacy product. It was a completely new product built from the Propero technology acquired in 2007 with the vision of virtual desktop management in mind. Rather than taking the high road and fastest time to market a conscious decision was made to build a solid foundation from which the future of virtual desktop management could safely rest.

Some of the enterprise class features offered in VDM 2 included:

Support for multiple VirtualCenter instances
Support for existing individual virtual machines
Support for provisioning virtual desktops using persistent and non-persistent pools
Support for XP and Vista virtual desktops
Support for XPe, XP, Vista, 2000 Pro, Linux and integrated thin client devices
Advanced power control policies for automating suspending, powering off, powering on, destroying and resuming virtual desktops
Support for live migration of running desktops using VMware VMotion
Support for granular resource allocation using VMware DRS
Support for higher availability of virtual desktops using VMware HA

These are just a few features available in this release of VDM 2. In addition we have added a new community forum for VDM 2 that can be found here

~~c-2553~~

We also have started to release several deployment guides and tech notes to help with your virtual desktop deployments. If there are other topics you would like to hear about please feel free to send me your requests.

Using the Wyse V10L and S10 Thin Clients with VDM
Introduction to Virtual Desktop Manager

Windows XP Deployment Guide

VMware VDM 2 Load Balancing Guide

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vdm20_intro.pdf

Thanks again to all the VMware VDI customers for your support.

VMware VDI - Understanding VECD Licensing

wponder — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:58:00 GMT

Recently I read a blog explaining some of the early details of VECD. It described VECD as a hidden cost of VDI. There were also some snippets from a FAQ that was released by VMware, shortly after VECD was announced back in April. The blog makes some valid points, but there was one small detail that was not accurate. Not all VECD options require Software Assurance. Licensing Windows Desktop operating systems for use with VMware VDI falls in the top 10 questions I field on a day to day basis.

The initial white paper released explaining VECD. Created more confusion than clarity. I know I read it many times and each time, I came away with a new interpretation. Fortunately I have some close contacts at Microsoft I was able to sync up with, back in September, at VMworld. VECD was top of the list to get clarified. Who better to hear it from the horses mouth. At VMworld Microsoft was handing out a recently completed license brief that had yet to be published on the Microsoft web site.

This license brief as well as my conversation with the owner at Microsoft, went a long way in clarify things for me. Unfortunately, I failed to share it had posted when it did. I recommend, Anyone interested in better understanding VECD should read this license brief. It covers VECD for SA and VECD. The document is titled Licensing Vista for Use with Virtual Machine Technologies and can be found on the Volume Licensing Briefs site.

Sorry guys, the bandwagon is full....

wponder — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 21:40:00 GMT

It seems since late 2007 and early 2008 some virtualization players are still trying to hop on the VDI bandwagon started by VMware back in 2005. Since 2007, Citrix has been feeling the squeeze from the top by Microsoft with 2008 Server and Remote App around the corner, and squeezed at the bottom by VMware and the momentum of VMware VDI. Citrix had to do an about face on the Application Delivery strategy and messaging by getting in the VDI game with the purchase of Xen Source; an attempt catch up by trying to deliver desktops.

It also appears based on the recent release of a White Paper titled Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, SWsoft would like to ride the VMware VDI tailwinds. After reading this short overview on VDI, I wanted to offer some additional things to consider for readers that come across this paper.

“There are five components that comprise the VDI solution.”

A properly designed VDI solution is going to include more than five components. At a minimum, a proper VDI solution will encompass the following:

Client Access – Fat Clients, Thin Clients, Repurposed PCs and or Mobile / Remote
users.
Virtual Desktop Management Services – Connection Brokering, Session Management and desktop provisioning such as what’s provided with VDM 2
Virtualization Services – Such as what’s provided by VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 including tools such a HA, DRS and VMotion that simplify the operations of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
Virtual Desktop Instances – Such as Windows XP and Vista
Infrastructure Services – Such as Active Directory, File and Print, Email, employee portals etc.
Application Virtualization Services – The legacy tools such as Citrix and Terminal Server used for delivering applications as well as next generation Application Virtualization tools such as Softgrid, SVS and ThinStall.
Management Services – Such a VirtualCenter and other existing desktop management tools for patch management and software distribution such as Altiris, and SMS.
Storage Services – The storage infrastructure for storing and managing the desktop images and data being centralized.
Integration Services – The services and support provided to successfuly design, implement and integrate all
these components, such as those provided by VMware.

“The simple purpose of the connection broker is to manage the end user connection with the virtualized desktops.”

The purpose of a broker is not simple. The role of a broker is very important in enabling VDI. At a minimum, a broker's offering should include:

Virtual Desktop Management
Session Management
Desktop Life-Cycle Management
Desktop Provisioning
Desktop Pooling
User management and entitlement to virtual desktop resources
Providing secure encrypted connections across un-trusted networks

All these thing and many more will be provided by VMware VDM 2. Customer looking for other alternatives can also leverage solutions from our VDI Alliance
partners that closely integrate with VMware VI3.

“VDI is a new technology that gives IT departments some choice and control over how to manage their exploding desktop infrastructure.”

VDI is not new technology. VMware customers have been deploying VMware VDI based solutions since 2005. I would say most the IT organizations I meet with do a really good job managing desktop systems. Although, they are looking for a better way to deliver desktop services, gain more control over their desktop architectures and inprove deployment and management efficency. Distributed desktop architectures are difficult and costly to manage, but I do not expect any explosions.

One area glossed over in this paper were Virtual Desktop Instances. One of many key driving factors increasing the adoption in VMware VDI, is the ability to virtualize and deliver Windows XP and Vista desktops. Doing so allows IT organizations to overcome the shortcomings of typical server based computing solutions such as Citrix Presentation Server and Microsoft Terminal Services, where application conflicts and the loss of the personal computing experience often inhibit mass adoption as the desktop environment.

According to the following requirements http://kb.swsoft.com/en/1446, SWsoft does not support or deliver Windows XP or Vista desktops. Providing each user a Windows 2003 Server is a costly proposition. If the proposition is to virtualize each server instance and then use Terminal Services, most people have come to agree that is not VDI, but rather consolidating Terminal Servers which are typically underutilized. Although Terminal Servers can be of value and Remote App is showing a lot of promise in extending the value of a VDI architectue; alone they do not offer all the benefits of a true VDI solution, to organizations with complex applicaition environments.

VMware VDI - WYSE Multimedia Support added

wponder — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:18:00 GMT

On July 31, ESX 3.0.2 was released. VMware ESX 3.0.2 is a maintenance release that represents numerous functionality, performance, and compatibility enhancements to VMware ESX Server. As part of this release. VMware has included Wyse multimedia support. With this addition . Wyse Multimedia support can now be installed into compatible guest operating systems, enabling supported devices to receive encoded video streams via RDP/ICA. The decoding of the video is handled by the client device reducing the resources and overhead needed by the virtual machine running on ESX.

Check back for more detailed examples and information. I have been testing the Wyse multimedia enhancements for some time now and plan on posting
more detailed information. Official information and full details can be found here: VMware ESX 3.0.2 Release Notes For information on installing the Wyse multimedia support see KB1001699

Stabilizing iSCSI based Virtual Desktops

wponder — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:45:00 GMT

Starting with ESX 3.0.1 iSCSI support was introduced. This opens up the opportunity to leveraging lower cost storage options when hosting virtual desktop instances. The topic of, what disk to store desktop images on, is one that gets tossed around like a hot potato. For some customers it seems like a non-issue. Their cost per gig is the same regardless if its enterprise fibre channel storage or low end storage. Some are not interested in introducing a second architecture into their data center as is the case when considering iSCSI.

For others, cost is an issue, and the possibility of leveraging iSCSI is very important to them. In my lab, I currently have an older NAS array
with around ½ terabyte of usable storage.

Several months back I decided it was time to start running some virtual desktops on it and see what performance is like.
I quickly realized, there was a little bug where ESX would not see iSCSI LUNs on my NAS appliance. So, for some time I ran an unsupported patch. Because it was unsupported, I left things as is and did not really watch the performance. This past week I was building some Solaris Express VMs for another test, when all hell broke
loose. Somehow, during the eternal boot of the Solaris VM my ESX system hosed. Because I was having such an issue, I decide it was time to do
some basic patch management. In all fairness, I was way behind on all my ESX patches. I had actually moved more VMs to iSCSI than I had
realized. All of which where very important.

The moral of the story is now, an official iSCSI patch is available for ESX 3.0.1. Patch number ESX-6657345 solves previous issues with iSCSI. After loading the patch on my systems I still was having an issue though. My ESX hosts could not log into the iSCSI target. What was really odd, is my NAS box did not see
the login attempts. It logs denied connection attempts and it saw nothing. The messages log on my ESX hosts were logging connection
refused. I tried removing and adding the iSCSI adapter through the VIC which also did not work. Finally, I got everything working and very
stable using the following steps.

Download patch ESX-6657345 and install it using esxupdate

From the VIC under configuration, storage adapters disable any iSCSI adapters
From the ESX console run esxcfg-swiscsi –d
From the ESX console run esxcfg-swiscsi –k
From the ESX console delete any iSCSI targets listed in /var/lib/iscsi/bindings
From the ESX console run esxcfg-swiscsi –e
From the ESX console run esxcfg-swiscsi –s
From the VIC under configuration, storage adapters enable any iSCSI adapters
From the VIC under configuration storage adapters rescan for the targets

After completing this, I was back in business and it has been much more stable. Soon I hope to share how some virtual desktops are working via
iSCSI, stay tuned.

Reducing ambient noise and running ESX 3.0.1 on a Sun U40 Workstation

wponder — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 11:10:00 GMT

Because I work out of my home when I am not traveling, I have the plus of having my lab equipment local and the negative of having my lab equipment local, in that, the ambient noise and power consumption can get a little out of control. As often as I can, I look for the most powerful, quite systems I can find and consolidate.

When I first started researching desktop virtualization, a few years back. I started out with a Newisys 1U pizza box. It was one of the early units with Dual Core Opteron processors. The bad part is its defining loud. I kept it in a separate room and you can hear it all throughout the house. It has hosted my primary virtual desktop for over two years. Some time back, I decide to use a Sun U40 workstation as my Virtual Desktop testing environment. It has Dual Opteron’s and 10GB RAM with 4 x 250GB SATA drives. The problem I had going into it, was I knew it was not on the ESX HCL and because it’s based on the NVIDIA ck804, getting it too work seemed it would be near impossible. When ESX 3.0.1 released last year, I figured I would make another run at it. I have had it running for some time but, only shared the details with a few people 1:1

This week I decided to consolidate my lab systems further using ESX. Setup some iSCSI shared storage for my ESX hosts, for VMotion and testing virtual desktops running on iSCSI. This guide will outline the steps I took and explain what you need to do too run ESX on a Sun U40 Workstation and a Sun Java Station 2100. None of these systems are on the ESX HCL so this is completely unsupported. However, these are great systems for a lab environment as they are powerful and very quite.

Running ESX on a Sun U40 Workstation

Build of Materials:

Sun U40 Dual AMD 250 procs
10GB RAM
4 x 250 SATA drives
* Sun Dual Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
* Sun - LSI SAS HBA - SG-XPCIE4SAS-Z :4 x1 4-Port SAS PCI-E HBA internal connection LSI3041E
* SAS Cable # SAS-847P-F/.5m from www.cs-electronics.com

Notes a key component

Flash the U40 bios to the latest bios with patches using the downloadable supplemental CD.

Install the NIC, SAS HBA, and cable the Sun U40 disk back plane. Once installed boot the system and go into the bios. Turn off the onboard SATA controllers. Also disable the on board NIC’s the NVIDIA Ethernet will not work with ESX 3.0.1. Save and re-boot

Enter the LSI bios and configure and Array. I used a stripe volume risking failure for more capacity. I tried to create VMFS volumes on the disks individually however that did not work. You have to set the disks into some sort of array.

Boot from the ESX 3.0.1 CD at the GRUB prompt boot with esx noapic and install ESX as desired.

Running ESX on a Sun 2100 Java Station

Build of Materials:

Newisys 1U pizza box
2 x Opteron Procs - forget the model
4 GB DDR2 2700 RAM
2 x 72GB SCSI drives

Sun 2100 Java Workstation
2 x Opteron 248 Procs
2GB DDR2 3200 RAM
1 x 72GB SCSI drive

Flash the 2100 with the latest bios from the supplemental CD. I removed the 4GB of RAM from the Newisys system and put it in the 2100. I took the 2GB from the 2100 and moved it to the U40 making it 12GB. The 2100 has SATA ports on the motherboard and can take an additional four SCSI drives. I am sticking with the 72GB SCSI drive for now and have it hooked into the iSCSI shared storage with a 140GB volume. I might play with the SATA later. Boot from the ESX 3.0.1 CD and install as you prefer. On the storage side I have a 1/2 TB NAS appliance. It also is not on the HCL. It also will not work without an unsupported patch. Read hear for more details - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=468517 I also kept failing to realize the volumes needed to have 10% of space left for Metadata. Go figure after a lot of wrestling I got that sorted out. After applying the patch the NAS is working fine.

One note to mention, I run Virtual Center in a VM and it was running on the Newisys system to start with. I moved it with P2V to the U40 and shared storage. Once I had the 2100 running, I simply cold migrated it too the 2100. All the other VM’s that were on the Newisys system I also cold migrated before decommissioning it. Since my processors are not the same stepping level, I can not live VMotion but cold migrate and HA are working. At some point I might even out the processors. I am just glad I have two really, really quiet systems.