Do you need more than one instance of View Manager and Composer to use in a geographicaly dispersed enterprise

[mars2k]

We want to vitalize our desktop environment. We have 7200 desktops dispersed over about 100 sites. We have vSphere infrastructures in place at various sites. Whereever we have large groups of desktops we would like to leverage our vSphere. I'm thinking we should have View manager and Composer at each of the sites where the clusters of desktops will be. How does this work out with the licensing? We'll have 100 pack licenses for the desktops but do we need separate View manger and Composer licenses?

[Linjo]

That is ok from a licensing perspective, View is licensed by "concurrent connected desktop" and it does not matter how many sites you have.

Of course you need to make sure that you do not exceed the amount of licenses that you own...

Best regards,

Linjo

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[mars2k]

Yes I understand that thank you. What I am really gettin at is I'm thinking we will need multiple View manager and Composer installations because we will deploy desktops in geographically dispersed sites. A view manager and Composer for each site. Will we have to buy liscenses for each manager and composer instance. Or put another way do you get as any manager installs as wyou want but you pay for each virtual desktop.

[Linjo]

Exactly as your last sentence, you can install as many View Connection Servers as you like as long as your concurrently connected desktops does not exceed the amount of View licenses.

This is one of the big difference compared to some of the other competing solutions out there...

Best regards,

Linjo

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[mittim12]

Just for clarification the View server is the connection broker that user's will connect to and be allocated a desktop. Composer is the mechanism that allows the deployment of linked clones. You could put a View server in each site without any issues but if you wanted to install multiple instances of composer you would need multipe vCenters.

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[mars2k]

Very good insight on this question thank you. Our dilemma is a highly distributed topology. We have 270 sites spanning the globe. Some of these sites are manufacturing sites with very few desktop users. Others are our major datacenters where the ESX hosts and vCenter Servers but not necessarily a large grouping of desktop users reside

Still other sites exist with large pools of desktop users and some vSphere infrastructure.

My concerns center around the network bandwidth to support the View desktops in this sort of distributed environment. Placement of View Manager (connection broker), Composer (configuration manager) and ESX where the virtual machines actually reside are the biggest concerns. Placing the ESX hosts and View Managers locally where the desktop users are will be critical.

I'm thinking the question for Composer component would be what are the bandwidth requirements for the configuration data creating the virtual desktops at these remote sites. Or put another way whats the best way to provide service and minimize bandwidth requirements between sites.

[davesherman]

Exactly as your last sentence, you can install as many View Connection Servers as you like as long as your concurrently connected desktops does not exceed the amount of View licenses.

This is one of the big difference compared to some of the other competing solutions out there...

Best regards,

Linjo

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In the View 4.5 Architecture Planning Guide on pg.41 , they state 7 connection servers is the limit. I have verified this with VMware as I was looking to do more myself.

Also, on pg. 8 of the View 4.5 Installation Guide, they give some very specific guidance: Do not use a WAN to connect replicated View Connection Server instances.

Just thought I would point these things out, as they have been considerations in the global deployment View 4.5 project I have been working on.

-Dave

[Linjo]

Yes, but the original question was about licensing, not about how to set it up.

Best regards,

Linjo

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