VMware VDI case study.

[Ravi1987]

Hi all,

may be my wuestion is little but it will be great if some one answer it. I am planning to implement 500 desktop VDi infrastructure in three to four phases.

i will use 4.0.1 for VDI. Can any one provide me the case study for any organization who are using big VMware vdi infrastrure i have some queries like.

how they are protecting/ Back up the user data .

how they are managing the growth of operating system disk .

day to day checklist for for Management fo VMware VDI .

[gunnarb]

I'm deploying 120 zero clients currently, with a goal of roughly 300 within a year or two, I'm blogging my progress.

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/gunnarb

Would be happy to answer any questions for you.

Protecting User Data:

I'd recommend waiting until 4.5 is released.

Growth of OS

Recompose, and linked clones, OS growth is not a concern of mine, max I'm going to see is 20-40GB. Delta Growth (user data) is the larger concern.

Checklist

I don't have one, I manage these the same as I manage 100 desktops which isn't saying much. I make sure AV is up to date, which my AV product reports on. Make sure Windows Updates is up to date. And any application. ALl this is done with Recomposing. So I really manage a couple images and recompose as necessary. I love recompose. Heck you can set a task to recompose every night if you want.

[EdOB]

I have a 200 vdi infrastructure in place with growth in the future.

I don't have a check list really.

Currently we are our doing linked clones and destroy on log off so I basically don't grow my desktops.

My intention in the future will be to NOT use any VMWARE solution for the userdata, but use group polices from AD to redirect the files to a file server, and roam the profile as necessary. That coupled with the use of Thinreg, will allow for userdata/profile/applications to be quite portable. The one tricky piece you will have to pay attention to is licensing and application deployment. Our current design is to have thinreg associated with an SMS package, to advertize the short cuts to the desktop.. Others have done this with a logon script (I just don't want the admin overhead, as it changes like the wind at our company) , and group membership running thinreg on applications based on that membership.

[gunnarb]

I agree with EdOB on all but Microsoft roaming profile. We use Group Policy to reroute as much as we can. I don't destory the information on every log off but definately support that concept, I destory on recomposing which happens every few weeks. For the roaming profile itself I'm using VMware solution as I have a personal hatred of Microsoft Roaming profiles.

[EdOB]

We are in heated agreement on MS roaming profiles.. I use roaming profiles sparingly as when it was combined with Redirection it has been extremely problematic in the past. (Haven't gone back for 3 years to try it again)

[Ravi1987]

Thanks for you reply.

My user want to use lotus notes and we are planning to save data on different user disk in persistant pool. how we can protect user data if my windows xp image assign to user is currpt.

[gunnarb]

If you are assigning the data to a second disk then it wouldn't matter if the OS is corrupt. IF the OS is corrupt you just recompose. Am I missing something to your question?

[majdiharoun]

We are currently implementing VMWARE View 4.01 for 500 users and plan on reaching 1000 by the end of the year. I am in the process of drafting a white paper/case study that captures lessons learnt (still learning). In the meantime, I will be more that happy to speak to you to address any questions you might have.