Maximum number of view connection servers? Is there one?

[allenb1121]

From the configuration maximums for View 5.x, I can't determine if there is a maximum number of connection servers per VCenter/Composer server.  Does anyone know the answer to this?  I see a mention of 5+2 for 10,000 connections, but I can't tell if that is saying that it is the maximum number of connection servers supported, or giving an example of the maximum number of connections supported in that configuration.

Here is my dilema:  We are planning to use a separate pair of connection servers for each pool, and we could potentionally have 10-15 pools, meaning 20-30 connection servers - each in a load-balanced pair.

The reason for this is to limit connection to pools.  We have one large AD with all student accounts.  If a student walks into one lab, we ONLY want them to be presented with the VM for that lab, and if they go into another, we want the same.  The solution we came up with was to use the tags that control access to a pool per connection server.

Anyone have an insight into whether or not this will scale that that number of connection servers?  I'm going to send a request to VMware for an official answer, but was wondering if anyone here knows the answer..

Thanks.

Allen Beddingfield

Systems Engineer

The University of Alabama

[vmblogza]

Allen,

this is going to make your life a living nightmare with all the connection servers. There are better ways to chieve this than the route you are going.

Does each lab have a seperate IP range / Vlan ? Or does Each student have his own AD account?

In labs it is better to just have generic User/pass and lock down the lab desktops.

This will make your job easy as you just use entitlements to limit who sees what?

Also with a big project that you are atemting you will need a solid design in place. I reccomend contacting Vmware Professional Services

Rgs

Pete

[vmblogza]

Here is the vReference Card for View. Just to awnser your Question.

http://www.vreference.com/public/vReference-DesktopCard1.0.pdf

[allenb1121]

Pete,

Thanks for the reply. I looked through the reference card you attached (thanks!), but wasn't able to actually find a maximum number of connection servers, but did see some useful info

Let me elaborate a bit more on the setup, and the reason for this design.

All students have an AD account that is in a dedicated student AD environment.  It would be possible for each lab to have a separate IP range, and that is the plan.

One of the hard requirements of the project is that each student be required to authenticate with his/her AD credentials.  Generic credentials are unfortunately not an option.

We will be using 10Zig v9000 PCOIP thin clients (thanks for the link to the PCOIP offload card in the other thread, BTW).

We have multiple colleges that are currently operating their own computer labs (they use Ghost, Deep Freeze, etc.. on physical desktops).  Each lab has a unique purpose and unique software.  What we are going to offer them is the ability to manage their own computer labs (we are central IT and not in the business of actually managing computer labs) through View.  All VMs will be linked clones with no persistent storage (the students of certain colleges are given home directories on Windows servers, and that access is managed through AD).

I'm going to use two real world examples here of the setup we want to achieve:

The College of Engineering has several labs, and each of them has different software packages loaded.  If a student leaves one lab and goes to another, that student should only be presented with the image that is designed for that lab.  The base VM images are managed by IT stafff of that college.

The College of Arts and Sciences has the same setup, plus they have a couple off labs that have a requirement for testing purposes that the student not be able to access anything but the image that is provided, but they must authenticate with unique credentials.

For each of these labs, there will be a separate pool.

I (or my department) will not be involved in managing the VM images or creating them, beyond just suggesting the configuration changes from the VMware best practices document.

Our idea was to put a pair of connection servers for each of these labs, and use tags to limit pool access, and then to provide one pair for "public access" for a generic bring-your-own-device image.

We are already working with VMware on the design, but this requirement came along a bit later, and I haven't heard back from them on a better solution.  The project has only recently received tentative approval, so we will be engaging with them before we start the deployment.

Right now, I'm just trying to brainstorm a better way to do it if possible, and if not possible to find a better way, to verify that View 5.x will support that number of connection servers.

Thanks!

Allen Beddingfield

Systems Engineer

The University of Alabama

[vmblogza]

Ohh Ok now I understand a bit better.

So the only Maximum is that you can only have 2000vm's PCoIP per connection server.

Yea View is going to make life easier because to ghost just takes so long :smileysilly:

Rgs

Pete