One manager for both VDI and Physical VMDK/VHD

[Natestack]

Hi All,

Might be a silly question but thought I would ask it anyway.

So currently we have a mix of VDI and Physical my question is I want to use appvolumes for both but I do not want to look after different managers one for VDI and one for Physical.

Is there a way one appvolumes manager can look after both or is VMware looking at a feature for this to happen.

I would like one manager to look after not multiple.

Anyway, just a question or maybe VMware can look at having this as a feature?

[sjesse]

Using the vmdk version in a virtual desktop is not required you can use VHD is both locations

[Natestack]

So From the below your saying if i change redo everything to VHD it can be for both VDI and Physical machines ?

Hypervisor Connection Type	Description
VMware vCenter Server	Preferred connection type for mid-to-large environments. Enables the use of VMDK Direct Attached operation mode. When using this connection type, you can assign AppStacks and Writable Volumes to the virtual machines running on multiple hypervisor hosts. See Establish a Secure vCenter Server Connection to set up a secure connection to vCenter Server.
Single ESXi Host	Enables the use of VMDK Direct Attached Operation Mode, but only for a single ESXi host. Use this connection type for small deployments and proofs of concepts. You can assign AppStacks and Writable Volumes to the virtual machines running on a single hypervisor host.
VHD In-Guest Services	Disables other hypervisor connections and enables the use of VHD In-Guest operation mode. Use this connection type to assign AppStacks and writable volumes either to virtual machines running on an unsupported third-party hypervisor or to the physical computers. See Configure VHD In-Guest Storage.

[sjesse]

Yes,  if you look at the text for the vcenter one it says, "Preferred connection type for mid-to-large environments. Depending on your version vhd or vhdx are used, vhd may be a bit slower than vmdks, but last information I saw the lastest versions are using vhdx which are supposed to be just a quick. I have a few desktops pools using the same appvolumes manager as our phyiscal machines, and they've been running like that without any issues for well over a year.

[VirtualSpence · Accepted solution]

As suggested in the thread above, AVM can manage only VMDK or VHD, not both, at this time.

If you explore the VHD option, you might be interested in the App Volumes migration fling, which allows you to use VMDKs as input, and has the option to output VHDs: App Volumes Migration Utility | VMware Flings

Keep in mind App Volumes requires non-persistent desktops for support. That is, the Windows OS should be reverted to a clean state between user sessions as described in this KB:

VMware Knowledge Base

If you're planning to use physical machines, and AppStacks/Packages are routinely being attached/detached/reattached, you will likely run into anomalies.

[sjesse]

For physical machines, if you can enable this, it has worked well for me

Unified Write Filter (UWF) feature | Microsoft Docs

but I'm not a VMware employee and I've haven't seen if this is supported or not, I know in my instance it works.