Vcenter to manage Servers and View desktops

[VMmikey]

We currently have a Vsphere farm (Enterprise Lic). We're going to be installing VMware view (premiere lic). Do you folks recommend keeping a single vcenter instance or should we split up the farms and run a separate vcenter for View? The premiere license does include vcenter.

thanks,

[AndreTheGiant]

View add-on (Enterprise or Premier) do not include vCenter or hosts.

If you have the complete pack you can choose to use the existing vCenter or create an independent environment.

The fist case is more simple, the second could be better for workload isolation.

Andre

[VMmikey]

in terms of workload isolation, couldn't i just create a separate cluster/datacenter for VDI, thereby isolating the workload? The only thing that i can think of is that it may present a bit more of a load on vcenter. No licensing issues that you can think of? we have the entire premiere package. 

[AndreTheGiant]

Different host clusters can isolate VM workload.

But note that vCenter has his log, data, there is also VMware Composer and so on...

So for large environment a complete isolation could be better...

[mittim12]

The best practice is to have a separate vCenter for the View environment if your going to have over 50 desktops.  

[VMmikey]

Would it make sense to install View Vcenter + Composer and the connection server in the server cluster, and only have view desktops residing in its own cluster/datacenter in the new view vcenter instance? I would like to keep the servers together, and have the view desktops together. Do you folks see any gotchas with this design?

I realize that for network performance, it may be beneificial to keep view related servers and desktops on the same vswitch.

Thanks,

[AndreTheGiant]

This is possible and I do not see any issue.

Maybe you loose something in networking, but you may benefit in OS licensing (you do not need any OS server in your View Cluster).

Andre

[eeg3]

The only downside would be is that if your server cluster goes down, your virtual desktop infrastructure goes down.