Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Advice!

[ir1shm1ike]

We started out replacing our Physical Desktops with Thin-Clients and connecting them up to Virtual Desktops. This has been working pretty perfectly so far. However, we are at about 110 and it is in my fear going to be to many to keep managing on a 1 to 1 basis. We are using RDP to connect them. Different Departments require different programs to be installed, so I am guessing that would eliminate 1 central XP Template I could use for everyone. I been and am just starting to read about VDM, not sure if this will help me though. Does anyone have any suggestions or can they explain how they go about managing so many Virtual Desktops...100+. I am just worried this is going to get to be a administration nightmare if we keep proceeding and reach 500 or more. Any suggestions I would love to hear them.

Thanks

[Troy_Clavell]

well, a broker is a good point to kind of help get your hands around what is where and how many you have. It will also help in getting things in order on your VCMS server, which will help in administration and maintenance. VMware View 3 has made some very good strides and you should take a look at it.

I can tell you that we have 2800 XP VM's spanned over 3 VCMS instances, and it is sometimes a tough thing to do to figure out where everything is. That's where you need to clearly document your enviornment.

As far as deployments off templates. We chose a generic XP Template, basically a base image with the View agent installed. You can present apps in a variety of ways, such as Citrix, ThinAPP or even pushed using Altiris.

I think for you, you may start by looking at a broker, you may be able to cut down on the amount of VM's you need to present because you could always have non-persistent pools setup.

Hope this helps a bit.

[Rodos]

As Troy said get yourself a broker.

Currently you are running "poor mans VDI" which is workable up to about 50 desktops but thats about it.

A broker, such as VMware View Manager 3 is going to help with :

1. VM Provisioning. It can create and destroy machines as required based on different types of machine pools.

2. VM allocation and session management. It can handle the mapping of VMs to users through AD groups. It can suspect machines that are not in use, saving resources, log off users and other things.

3. Experience extensions. You can get virtualised USB and multi-media support.

4. Remote access. By deploying a secure gateway you can very quickly provide remote access to desktops whilst maintaining security

5. Providing updates. View Composer can allow you to roll out updates to machines and safe on disk space.

There are just a few of the bigger ticket items. Get in contact with a partner or VMware sales in your region who can take you through a demo and explain more.

Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

Considering awarding points if this is of use