Understanding and ROI

[Sparrohawk]

Maybe this question is not ideal for the forum, but I figured what better place to get feedback then here;

If my understanding of VDM is correct. Each user must connect to an isolated single VM located on ESX-1 to 1 relationship. There is no many to one, correct?

If that's the case I would need a honking ESX server for, say 30 desktops, each with 2 GB of ram to allow 30 users to have desktops.

Now where is the ROI in this?

Say I want to deploy 30 machines for training purposes. So I take the the VDM route.

a) I need to buy the product and license it accordingly through VM

b) I need to buy a kick ass 64 GB of mem and multi CPU's, plus SAN space

c) I need to the Thin clients!!! If I was going to use a standard desktop, then why do I want to use VDM? Sounds redundant to me.

I hear the arguments loud and clear.Managability! Now I can see that being a benefit. But's that 's all. Even here I am required to manage. Let's take my 30 machines again...I have a template that I use and deploy all 30 great. Now I have a different requirement for the training, I need to generate 30 more VM's after modifying the template and delete the original VM"s.

So someone convince me why this is such a good idea?

[jthoms]

VDI is a product that isn't meant to replace every desktop out there. You have to evaluate your needs and see if this solution will meet them.

The reason I deployed VDI? I'm a SSE for a multi-campus college. We used to have to custom build workstation images for specific classes. In the past, students were limited to one a few class room labs to use their software. With VDI, they can use any workstation on campus or even at home if we opened up web access to the internet.

This allows our college to increase the enrollment in these classes knowing that students will be able to work on their own in other labs to perform their homework instead of having to leave timeslots open for lab time.

I've also deployed a pool of VDI workstations for my coworkers. This allows them to have a "admin ready" workstation available without having to worry about leaving their desktop or laptop powered up and open to RDP connections.

Your situation may not be right for VDI, but it's darn near a god send for me.

-- System requirements --

Your system requirements are based on your physical machines. Your VM desktops do not require 2GB of ram to be reserved for each instance. So memory will be less important of an issue. We're running 35 workstations on two Dell R900 with 32GB of ram and 600GB of local 15k RPM SAS storage each. We're not even close to putting a dent in the CPU resources. We decided to use the local storage instead of a SAN for these specific workstations because they would be very disk intensive.

If you're planning on these workstations to be used by general computer users, you'll find that a 512MB reservation is more than enough.

For every change you need to perform for different desktop requirements - clone that to a template for future use. Next time you need a pool of Desktops for that requirment, your deployment tasks are a few clicks and some wait time. I currently have four templates for class requirements. It takes some pre-planning to get it setup, but now it's paying off in spades by not having to visit three labs with 30 desktops each and reimage the machines for the next semester.

[Troy_Clavell]

Maybe this question is not ideal for the forum, but I figured what better place to get feedback then here; If my understanding of VDM is correct. Each user must connect to an isolated single VM located on ESX-1 to 1 relationship. There is no many to one, correct?

Yes, that is the default setting for VDM, the mappings can be persistent or non persistent. Each user is tied to a particular VM

If that's the case I would need a honking ESX server for, say 30 desktops, each with 2 GB of ram to allow 30 users to have desktops.

I would say for 30 users you could easily get a way with a dual quad core and 32 BG of RAM and still be fine. If the 30 VM's are deployed off the same template resourse management will do quite welll. Our XP VM's are set with 1GB of RAM, and to be honest they would be just as happy with 512MB

Say I want to deploy 30 machines for training purposes. So I take the the VDM route.

a) I need to buy the product and license it accordingly through VM

Yes, but you can also download a fully functional trial for 30 days to see if VDM is the route you want to take

b) I need to buy a kick ass 64 GB of mem and multi CPU's, plus SAN space

You could get away with a smaller HOST server

c) I need to the Thin clients!!! If I was going to use a standard desktop, then why do I want to use VDM? Sounds redundant to me.

We use re-purposed fat clients for this and lock them down with a GPO. Doing this you have now extened the life of a PC, because in reality all is now is just a connection device into you desktop.

I hear the arguments loud and clear.Managability! Now I can see that being a benefit. But's that 's all. Even here I am required to manage. Let's take my 30 machines again...I have a template that I use and deploy all 30 great. Now I have a different requirement for the training, I need to generate 30 more VM's after modifying the template and delete the original VM"s.

Why would you delete 30, to deploy 30 more? Our classrooms are setup so that before a class starts the VM's are snapped and reverted back to their original state when the class it over. If you chose to delete them and provision new one's, if using the same template and deployment is done through a VDM pool, 30 new machines will be created automatically

So someone convince me why this is such a good idea?

I cannot convince you this is a good idea, this is something you need to decide for yourself. VDM may or may not fit into your enviornment.

My suggestion would be to get ahold of VMware, sign an NDA and have them go over a roadmap plan for VDM.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Sparrohawk]

Thank you.

[Troy_Clavell]

you're welcome.

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