Using View to manage a lab

[DavidMcKnight]

I'm trying to pull something off and I can't seem to find the right tool or combination of tools to do it.

I'm building a computer lab with thin clients all using the same user name and password to connect to a view server they then connect to thier own virtural diskop. I think I want to clone these desktops with Composer from a clean master image. Every night at 3 AM I want all the desktops deleted and recloned from the clean master image.

Sounds simple enough, but... I can't schedule anything inside of View. If Ischedule a VM to shutdown and delete itself from inside of VirtualCenter Server it stays deleted and doesn't get recreated from View. I could set the harddrive in the master image to non-persistant state, but then I never get virus updates, microsoft updates, etc.

So is there a way to have an updatable master image that is cloned every night replacing the clones of the previous night?

Thanks

[DCasota]

Hi David

A complete workflow with all your requirements doesn't seem to be "out of the box" possible yet. If I understood you right, you need something like this:

Scheduled process A, startable as needed:

1. Start your master image as a VM

2. Do all MS and other updates needed

3. shutdown you master image

4. snapshot the master image

This process is something which can be done by scripting (CLI and inside VM with powershell/batch).

Scheduled process B, daily:

1. Read all configuration settings from the actual desktop pool (users, master image, ...)

2. Desktop creation:

- create a new persistent desktop pool with the same settings as needed (with exceptions: name of the desktop pool, ...)

- assign the same users

- assign the latest master image snapshot

3. Reassignment

- Logoff users from the old desktop pool

- reassign users to the new desktop pool

- disable the old desktop pool

For the process B I'm not sure how the desktop information lookup and creation can be accomplished completely by cmdline/scripting (search for wswc.exe). The reassignment can be easily done with the vdmadmin.exe.

Cleanup things:

Use post-scripts to cleanup things inside VMs like GUID-recreation for WSUS (if needed), reboots, ...

As I said, out-of-the-box with gui options it doesn't seem to be possible yet.

Hope this helps.

Daniel