VMWare View Dedicated VM

[demazter]

Current configuration:

Wyse Xenith Zero Clients

VMWare vSphere

VMWare  ESXi Hypervisor

XenDesktop Controller etc.

Our current XenDesktop configuration has a Desktop Group for each of our classrooms.  What we have done is assigned XenDesktop to connect a specific Zero Client IP address to a specific Virtual Desktop.

The reason for doing this is to ensure that when our students login to that particular client they always get a desktop in the correct Desktop Group and therefore the correct printer.  Downside, 3d rendering does not work unless we move to XenServer, which I am not keen to do.

Test setup the same as above except instead of XenDesktop we are using VMWare View.  I get the graphics functionality I am after and what appears to be signigicant performance improvements.

Problem is, how do I ensure that students loging in to a client in a specific classroom gets their appropriate printer?  There doesn't seem to be any way of ensuring the client is either given a specific deskop or always get's a desktop from a specific group.  If I could at least do group then I could at least assign the printers via OU.

Anyone got any thoughts on how to resolve this one?

Potentially, I could be looking to purchase 200-300 licenses and clients if I can get this to work.

Thanks

[markbenson]

Take a look at kiosk mode in View to see if that meets your requirement. The user switches on their thin client and immediately it connects to a specific desktop/pool.

Mark

[demazter]

Can you give me some guidance on how to do this?

[demazter]

OK, I think I have worked it out.

So under connection I have set the option View Connection Server + Kiosk

Entered the DNS name of the view server.  I then see the username/password option.

Do these need to be AD accounts or is there another way of adding these?  Can I use one username for a room of 30 clients and they will randomly pick a machine from the pool that user is assigned to?

[demazter]

The other problem is it auto logs in to Windows as that user.  The users need to be able to login under their own individual user accounts.

[markbenson]

The Architecture and Planning doc is a good place to start - http://pubs.vmware.com/view-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/view-51-architecture-planning.pdf (search for Kiosk).

The Administration Guide has the details on setting it up. http://pubs.vmware.com/view-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/view-51-administration.pdf

You can configure it so that the user logs into the virtual desktop as themselves if you want. This is an option.

Kiosk mode is commonly used in classroom setups.

Mark

[demazter]

Are you able to provide quick guidance on how to do this?

Are you saying it is possible for the Zero Client to connect to the login screen of a virtual machine within it's specified group? If so, if you could provide steps on how to do this I would be grateful.

I am at this stage, simply trying to make sure it works.  I will worry about setting it up properly and reading the deployment guide etc once I have confirmed this.

If it's not going to work, i'd rather not waste any more time on it.

[markbenson]

demazter wrote:

Are you saying it is possible for the Zero Client to connect to the login screen of a virtual machine within it's specified group?

Yes. This is quite common in a classroom situation. The user switches the client device on and the first thing they see is the virtual desktop Windows login screen. They enter their credentials and they're in.

This is controlled by a config option called "AllowSingleSignon". Search for it in the admin guide when you come to set this up.

With Kiosk mode, the real user authentication either happens at the OS login screen level (as I've described above) or by the kiosk application itself (e.g. in an airline checkin kiosk).

Mark