Enable SSH on your ESXi Servers and make sure the Service is Running

Log in via PuTTy or another SSH Client

To display general driver and device information navigate to:

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -I

Within the device summary your looking to confirm next to “Device” that it is “IN_SERVICE”.

In the Virtual Machine summary you can see if any PCoIP sessions have been found and are being offloaded.

To display virtual machine and display usage information enter:

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -V

Disable card (on bus 12):

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -d 12 -x

Enable card (on bus 12):

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -d 12 -e

Enable show indicator in virtual desktop display (top left corner):

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -P “offload_indicator 1″

Disable show indicator in virtual desktop display:

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl -P “offload_indicator 0″

Red = PCoIP display is being offloaded

Blue = PCoIP not being offloaded

Display Support Resolution 

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl –get-max-resolution

Change Supported Resolution

/opt/teradici/pcoip-ctrl –set-max-resolution <Selection>

<Selection> =

1) 2560 X 1600
2) 1920 X 1200
3) 1680 X 1050
4) 1280 X 1024

HKLM\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\plugins\wsnm\TunnelService\params

The registry key you’re looking for is JvmOptions.

Okay, back to my test.  After decreasing the RAM of the virtual machine, I browsed to the registry key and success, the Java Heap Size is still set at 2GB.

The idea here is to make your View POC a little easier on the environment from a resource perspective.  Once your View POC has been considered a success, you can easily increase the size of the RAM on your View Connection Server back to 10GB.  You’ll want to make sure you properly architect your View environment which should include multiple Connection Servers, Security Servers for external access and VDI specific storage.

I’ll be performing this same procedure in our lab where I wanted the ability to be able to test performance against our View Connection Server when properly sized (10GB) but don’t need the ability to support more than 50 concurrent users during normal operations (we have anywhere from 1-5 users accessing our lab at any one time).

]]> http://voidtech.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/usar-una-virtual-applicance-de-oracle-y-migrarla-a-vmware-esxi/ Mon, 06 May 2013 14:29:22 +0000 p45l1 http://voidtech.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/usar-una-virtual-applicance-de-oracle-y-migrarla-a-vmware-esxi/ Intro

Hola, hace poco necesite montar un entono virtual con Oracle 11g, y despues de darle vueltas, se me ocurrio que la forma mas facil y fiable seria utilizar una de las maquinas virtuales que la gente de Oracle deja para descargar en su web. Estas suelen venir con un oracle instalado y configurado sobre un sistema linux RedHat ya configuado.

A continuacion dejo los pasos que he seguido para descargar dicha Virtual Appliance y dejarla configurada en uno de mis servidores eSXi.

How to

1. Primero seguí el siguiente POST para descargar y configurar en VirtualBox la maquina virtual
Using oracle developer days vm in virtualbox
2. Una vez instalada en virtualbox y comprobar que arranca, necesitaba convertir dicha maquina virtual de VirtualBox a formato OVF para importarla en el eSXI. Para ello me base en este link: converting virtualbox to vmware esxi

3. Una vez ya importada en mi eSXi, procedi a quitar la sVirtualBox Additions ya quue no las usaria. Para ello y basandome en este post utilize el comando (como root)
/opt/[VboxAddonsFolder]/uninstall.sh

This seminar will focus on how to make cost savings via ICT. We ill mainly focus on 3 areas, which are Storage Virtualisation, VDI and VoIP. For more information and registration, please visit 
http://mtmalta.eventbrite.com/

As regards the exam itself, it was a tough old boot. I sat it early January, in fact the first week back after Christmas when my brain was even more Swiss cheese than normal. Owing to Pearson Vue chopping down the number of exam centres near where I live in north west England, I had to travel across the Pennines to Leeds to sit it.

The exam itself is listed as 195 minutes. I think I came in around 10 minutes under that, but as I was so far behind time wise, I just ended up going with my gut feeling on a lot of the answers. It was physically and mentally one of the most demanding exams I’ve ever done. I wasn’t permitted to take any water into the test room, which had no natural light and was very stuffy (even in January!). I also didn’t find the exam centre staff all that welcoming, so I was glad when it was all over.

Advice? Well firstly, you need to already be a VCP-DT to sit this exam. Also, it’s not an exam you can wing. I’ve been consulting for around 3 1/2 years, and that sort of experience is priceless for this sort of exam, as there are a lot of scenario based questions you need to answer. If  you’ve done this for real with living, breathing customers, you’ve already got an advantage.

You also need to know View inside out. What it can do, what it can’t do. How it integrates with other products. Some may disagree, but I think View is pretty unique in a VMware product as it has so many dependencies with other third party products such as RSA, load balancers and anti-virus. You need to know how to weave those into the solution, and not just at a superficial level. I’d say you need around 1/2 years of experience administering View, especially in an enterprise environment. The exam covers a very broad spectrum.

One more tip is to watch the sample video on the VMware Education website on the drag and drop “Visio style” design tool. The blueprint states there are six of these in the exam, and they do take a big chunk of time. Don’t get waylaid here and keep an eye on the time.  The demo can be obtained from http://mylearn.vmware.com/register.cfm?course=149330 and I think the video is around 10 minutes long.

So finally I hammered together some study notes in a couple of days (I didn’t get chance to do any study over Christmas. Well, too pissed most of the time anyway!). The notes were constructed around the beta exam blueprint, so may not perfectly match the final release. That being said, I will publish them to the community, feel free to get in touch and let me know if you spot any errors or omissions. You may also distribute it, please just provide an acknowledgement if you re-publish any aspect of them. They’re not perfect, but hopefully they’ll aid your preparation.

I submitted a session on the VCAP-DTD for VMworld Barcelona, so if you haven’t voted yet, please do and hopefully I can put together a decent presentation on this there.

Good luck!

VCAP-DTD-Study-Notes

First, let’s look at how CPU recommendations have changed (BTW, I’m only looking at Windows 7).

A few things to notice: We know that having a quad socket server does not scale linearly from a dual socket server. We also can see that the number of users we expect to get from a core has also increased. This basically means we can pack more users onto a server. What changed? Why are we higher now than 2 years ago? Processors have gotten faster and many of the software-based hypervisor-related instructions have been incorporated into the chip. Plus, we’ve learned to properly optimize our desktops, which will help increase user density.

Do you think anything changed with RAM recommendations?

Looks the same, which is not unexpected. We are using the same operating system, the same applications, etc.

Finally, IOPS…

The original IOPS numbers for 2011 were based on Provisioning Services. Looking at the 2013 estimates, we are still in line with our recommendations from 2 years ago for Provisioning Services. Again, same OS and applications generating the same load.

All in all, with slight modifications to user density based on CPU, our original recommendations are still valid. You can find these latest recommendations in the Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook, as well as so many other good best practices.

Daniel

Daniel – Lead Architect
Follow @djfeller
Project Accelerator
Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook

Wow, I can’t believe that my week was this busy… tooo bad though I must say thank you so much to the Login VSI team for giving me the privilege to test Login VSI 4.0 Pro prior to the release… but did I have the time? Nooooo….

But it’s gonna be one of the first things I do when I get some spare time over some night/weekend in the near future!!

Below you find the press release and a bunch of pictures I got as a part of the “blogger preview” kit!

Improved ease of installation

• Minimized test image footprint
• Centralized management and updates
• Direct Desktop Launch Mode, saves on infrastructure

Improved ease of test creation

• New intuitive and workflow oriented UI
• New editor simplifies workload customization
• Benchmarking mode simplifies comparisons

Improved test realism

• More realistic user workload patterns
• More realistic dataset and data/file access
• Real-world test execution with multiple phases

Improved test insight

• New dashboard with real-time test feedback
• Enhanced VSImax accuracy
• Automated reporting of all relevant data

New Login VSI 4.0 dramatically improves ease of installation, test creation and test management, and offers unparalleled production level realism in workload patterns, datasets and test execution.

Amsterdam, May 2, 2013 – Login VSI B.V. announces version 4.0, a major new release of its flagship product Login VSI, the industry standard performance and scalability testing tool for Virtual Desktop Infrastructures and Server Based Computing environments.

The design of this new version has been driven by extensive customer feedback programs, and production testing projects executed at multiple customer and vendor sites, including the tests done for the acclaimed independent research project Virtual Reality Check. Login VSI 4.0 makes testing of VDI and SBC environments easier and more realistic than ever before.

Improved ease of installation

The test image footprint of Login VSI has been reduced by almost 90%. This makes the tool not only easier to install, but also easier to integrate and deploy. Centralization of management, updates and logging makes the use of Login VSI more efficient than ever. Direct Desktop Launch (DDL) mode enables large-scale testing with minimal infrastructure.

Improved ease of test creation

The new intuitive and workflow oriented user interface of Login VSI 4.0 offers step-by-step test creation and wizard based test configuration for all important brokers and languages. The new workload editor introduces a new meta language which makes the customization of workloads very transparent and efficient. The new benchmarking mode enforces strict testing standards, providing industry standard results that are objective, comparable and repeatable.

Improved test realism

The duration of the standard workloads has been increased from 14 to 48 minutes loops. Also the way in which segments and applications start has been improved to better reflect real world user behaviour. The datasets used in the workloads now offer 1000 different documents per type, more and larger websites, and a video library in every format, all to ensure a real world variety in data usage. The execution of the workloads is improved through the introduction of phasing, allowing for real world production user scenarios.

Improved test insight

The new dashboard offers real-time test feedback, including progress, launched and active sessions, elapsed time and time left of the test in progress. The industry standard index VSImax has been further refined, enriching scalability results (max number of users), with objective baseline performance results (independent of tested load). Automated reporting with out of the box report ready graphs for all used settings, response times, and other data enhances the level, and choice, of information generated by the Login VSI analyzer.

“Login VSI is the industry standard for SBC and VDI testing and benchmarking, as is well demonstrated by the large number of technical papers that are available based on results from our benchmarking suite” says Eric-Jan van Leeuwen, CEO of Login VSI B.V. “The ease of use, and improved realism, of this new version of Login VSI will enable both vendor and end-user organizations to build and protect well performing virtual desktop environments”. 

Login VSI 4.0 Pro is now available for all customers on active support and maintenance. Version 4.0 of the free Login VSI Express can be downloaded at www.loginvsi.com/download. More information about Login VSI and related services can be found at www.loginvsi.com. 

About Login VSI

Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) is a vendor independent benchmarking tool to objectively test and measure the performance and scalability of Virtual Desktop Infrastructures and Server Based Computing environments by simulating unique user workloads. Leading IT-analysts recognize and recommend Login VSI as the de-facto industry standard benchmarking tool for VDI and SBC. Login VSI can be used to test VMware Horizon View, Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services or any other Windows based hosted desktop solution. Login VSI is the standard tool used in all tests that are executed in the internationally acclaimed Project Virtual Reality Check. For more information visit www.loginvsi.com.

Building on the formerly named Quest vFoglight Pro virtualization management solution, Dell re-branded vFoglight to Foglight for Virtualization to make it the core platform to the Foglight family. Foglight is not sitting still either. Improvements this year move beyond monitoring support for VMware View VDI, to later support for VMware vCloud Director, OpenStack, and Citrix Xen VDI. [Disclosure: Dell Software and WMware are sponsors of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

The higher value from such ecosystem and heterogeneous management support is the ability for virtualization server and system administrators to comprehensively optimize various flavors of data-center server virtualization, as well as the major VDI types, with added capabilities to track and analyze performance from the application level all the way to the server and storage hardware level. This week’s announcements have also shown a spotlight on the recently updated Foglight for Storage Management 2.5.

“With Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition, Dell is showing its commitment to offering a  solution that encompasses all aspects of virtual infrastructure performance monitoring and management, built on a platform that can scale as the infrastructure grows,” said Steve Rosenberg, general manager for Performance Monitoring, Dell. “This new release expands Foglight’s ability not only to monitor the additional infrastructure area of VDI, but also to correlate metrics from VDI with performance for applications, the virtual layer, the network, and underlying servers and storage.”

Dell Software also last week released a series of BYOD-targeted products and services, which are related to the better VDI management capabilities. That’s because many enterprises and mid-market firms that are tasked with moving quickly to BYOD are using VDI to do it.

With the increasing adoption of VMware View in virtualized data centers (including for MSPs), VDI support is fast becoming a mainstay for today’s IT departments and managed service providers. VDI and server virtual machines (VMs) often utilize the same hardware components. Yet, both of these virtualized infrastructures serve different users and have separate requirements and resource demands, explained John Maxwell, vice president of product management for performance monitoring for virtualization, networking,storage and hardware at Dell Software.

Single-source solution

As a result, VDI and server VMs require dedicated performance monitoring systems. However, these systems must also be connected, because so many underlying resources are often shared. Agent-based Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition offers virtualization administrators a more single-source solution that not only identifies and fixes performance issues within VMware View, but continues to run all features available in vOPS Server Enterprise with no effect on overall vCenter performance.

Foglight for Storage Management 2.5 has been released as an optional “cartridge” to Foglight for Virtualization. Foglight for Storage Management now offers physical storage performance reporting in addition to virtual reporting, providing customers with complete “VM to physical LUN” visibility.

Additional enhancements in this release include LUN latency reporting, NPIV support, and the ability for customers to purchase the product either as a stand-alone cartridge, or as an optional cartridge to Foglight for Virtualization.

Additionally, Foglight is a unified performance monitoring platform that allows individual product solutions, delivered as sets of pluggable “cartridges,” to run stand-alone or to interoperate. Each individual product delivers best-of-breed functionality to the admin for that area, while simultaneously integrating with other cartridges to deliver true end-to-end monitoring from end-user experience to the underlying storage and server hardware layers, and everything in between, said Maxwell.

Foglight for Virtualization Enterprise Edition 6.8 is available now for a 45-day trial from www.quest.com. Pricing starts at $799 per socket. Foglight for Storage Management 2.5 is also available now for a 45-day trial from www.quest.com.  Pricing starts at $499 per socket.

Because Foglight is built on a common architecture to support the cartridges, it seems likely that it will move from an on-premises only offering to a SaaS-based version too, especially to support cloud- and MSP-based VDI offerings, and also to manage hybrid VDI implementations.

You may also be interested in:

• Data complexity forces need for agnostic tool chain approach for information management, says Dell Software executive
• For Dell’s Quest Software, BYOD puts users first — and with IT’s blessing
• New Levels of Automation and Precision Needed to Optimize Backup and Recovery in Virtualized Environments
• Data explosion and big data demand new strategies for data management, backup and recovery, say experts
• Ocean Observatories Initiative: Cloud and Big Data come together to give scientists unprecedented access to essential climate insights
• Case Study: Strategic Approach to Disaster Recovery and Data Lifecycle Management Pays Off for Australia’s SAI Global

4510 Tips and Tricks on building agentless Antivirus scanners for Virtual Desktops.

This tips and techniques session is best for administrators and consultants looking to implement an Antivirus solution for their VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). The goal is to minimize I/O impact to VDI. We will discuss the two most developed scanners taking advantage of VMware vShield Endpoint application programing interfaces (APIs) – Trend Micro Deep Security Antivirus and McAfee Agentless MOVE AntiVirus. Specifically, we will focus on real-world examples of VMware, Trend Micro and McAfee best practices. For example, the participants will learn whether to use their current Antivirus for VDI versus VDI agentless antivirus, why the VM Communication Interface (VMCI) driver is important, how to deploy the Security Virtual Appliances (SVAs), why you should disable VMotion for SVAs, how to test your solution using EICAR test files and how to shut down your VDI agentless antivirus VMs properly if doing maintenance. A basic understanding of VMware vSphere, VMware View and Enterprise Antivirus solutions is recommended.

I am not sure if I will be successful, but here is where your vote can help me speak at the Conference.

Please vote for my session. It should take not more than 10 minutes of your time.

I will be forever thankful!

How to Vote Instructions:

1. Please go to:

http://www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa

2. If you have a VMworld account, click link on the left.

If you do NOT have a VMworld account, click the link on the right.

3. If you clicked that you have an account, enter your account username and password.

4. If you clicked that you do NOT have an account, please fill out all information.

No privacy worries, because no name, account or email activation/verification is done.

Make sure to type the correct letters in the black box at the bottom — you will get your own letters to type.

5. Scroll down approximately 1 page. You will see my session number and name:

4510 Tips and Tricks…

Speaker(s)

Yury Magalif, CDI

6. You will see my session number and name:

4510 Tips and Tricks…

Speaker(s)

Yury Magalif, CDI

Click on the hand next to my name.

7. Click Close.

8. The hand button next to my name is now Green. That means you voted – Thanks!

9. Scroll up the page.

Vote for some other sessions, if you like, then click the Logout button.

Thank you very much for voting for me!

ps

Related:

• F5′s YouTube Channel
• F5 + Citrix: A Coalition For Virtual Desktop Change
• BIG-IP v11 Citrix XenDesktop Monitor
• In 5 Minutes or Less Series (23 videos – over 2 hours of In 5 Fun)
• Inside Look Series
• F5 Solutions for Citrix applications
• F5 Makes Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Better

Connect with Peter:	Connect with F5:

But CIOs have been considering carefully how to secure the true operational benefits of mobility. Three models have started to emerge.

First is the short-term fix. In this environment the IT department is responding to the huge uptake of mobile devices and are acknowledging that they need to include these devices in their IT framework. IT must be able to push policies, secure data, encryption and have remote wipe capabilities on the staff’s mobile devices. There are high expectations from all employees to be able to use their mobile devices to become more productive.

At the other end of the spectrum is the long-term solution where IT is providing a fully agile computing environment. In this scenario the organisation is able to accommodate different platforms, different operating systems and different applications as well as manage the safety of the corporation’s data.

This is a fully considered infrastructure approach;  an issue of architecture. It is device agnostic and provides tremendous flexibility. It holds the promise of full access, anytime on any device. Logicalis’ virtual workspace is an example of this approach.

More recently, a middle ground is emerging which is an extension of the short term, basic approach. This approach delivers an enhanced mobile experience. It provides all the elements of the short-term solution and delivers the mobile experience to the user, such as simplified device registration, push policies, secure data and providing the sets of applications staff member’s need for their work. However, it also allows users to browse internal corporate networks easily and efficiently and access files seamlessly and remotely. This means mobile users don’t have to email themselves files or pull files from the network into a personal Dropbox folder or similar, to get access to the information they need while working on their mobile devices. The IT department can set more advanced protocols, for example sensitive emails with attachments can be viewed but not forwarded.

In this environment IT departments exert more control over the user’s experience while still enabling the productivity inherent in the use of mobile devices. By providing a more structured experience IT is able to unleash the potential of these mobile devices, many of which have more compute power than the typical thin client.

Increasingly, the CIO is looking at making tablets the standard computing device. However, for this to work the tablet must be converted into a pseudo desktop by docking with a good-sized monitor and keyboard (at a minimum); when the user is in traditional desktop work mode.

Some standardisation of mobile devices has to occur for this to work at a practical level. Without this, the myriad of required connectors and docking stations would be mind-boggling and a potential support nightmare. Equally, IT can play an important role in enhancing the users’ mobile experience by recommending a suite of applications, perhaps from an “Enterprise App Store” or similar.

By adopting an xYOD model; a hybrid approach; the CIO and the IT department are acting more as “mobile brokers” developing a strong mobile experience for users whilst exerting sufficient control over the computing environment to maximise the operational benefits to the organisation.

Find out more about Logicalis’ approach and resources to implementing secure mobility or BYOD on our Logicalis Virtual Workspace page.

Reblogged from A Collection of Bromides on Infrastructure:

If you are thinking of implementing VDI at your workplace we have put together a few steps that you may want to consider.

1. Choose the Right Virtualization Approach – A company can virtualize in different ways so, a decision needs to be made between whether to virtualize the entire desktop environment on a server. Or create remote access terminals where applications are hosted on a central server.
2. Assess the Network before Development – Conduct an assessment of the network to check whether there will be adequate bandwidth to support the peak load of each virtual desktop user.
3. Evaluate the Different Thin Clients – To implement VDI you will need to decide on a ‘Thin Client Terminal Management Software System’. It is advisable for businesses to look at how each department uses different applications in order to choose the most suitable option and to test which will provide the best interface and usability for the business needs.
4. Develop a Desktop Virtualization Strategy – Servers are the heart of desktop virtualization so, check whether the current infrastructure has the sufficient capacity to deploy VDI. You will need to check whether the Critical CPU, memory, I/O resources are available to support the peak processing demands of users and make sure the datacentre SAN has enough storage to host all the virtual desktops you are planning to implement.
5. Security – It is fundamental to have strong security measures controlled by IT administrators, they should implement access control and configure each user with the right access level and policies. When deploying VDI it is also important to have endpoint security in place to secure each endpoint.
6. Choose a Data Backup solution – In order to backup your new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure a virtual or cloud backup solution will be required.  You can use products such as Veeam and Doubletake; each will offer great benefits but, you need to choose the one that is most suited to the business disaster recovery planning requirements.
7. Plan, Communicate and Deploy – The length of time it takes to deploy VDI in a corporation depends on the size of the company. But, once a plan is in place it should be communicated to the employees stating the benefits of this change, the timescales and any expected downtime that may occur. This will help eliminate confusion, doubts and gain employees buy-in.
8. Finally, Test your Backups – Always conduct backups regularly, consistently and check whether they were successful to ensure you will always have an up-to-date copy of your data in case of a disaster.

For more information on VDI and how you could benefit contact us today.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is the desktop virtualization concept where a “Virtualized copy” of the desktop is located on a server in the data center, running as a Virtual machine on a hypervisior, instead of on the local PC. This enables users to remotely access there Virtual desktops on any end-point device, such as PC, laptops or Thin client from anywhere.

To prove that, I did a XenDesktop PVS write cache volume move from one node to the other while the virtual desktops are up and running.  WriteCache volume is moved from node 1 to node 4.

For Mid-Range (these were FAS3040 controllers) rates ranged between 150- 250MB/s. For High-End ( these were FAS6070/80 controllers) rates ranged between 250-350MB/s.

After 52 minutes, the job is finished.  The used data in that volume is .82TB and the total size is 2TB. Now writecache1 volume is on node 4. All the VMs are still up and running. No operation is disrupted.

Clustered OnTap non-disruptive operation is great for upgrade, and load balance. You can   easily moving data from one cluster node to another without any down time.

There’s a perception that VDI is complicated.  I’m far from being a rocket scientist, and I’ve managed to implement many successful VDI projects over the past ten years.  I truly believe that VDI is one of those things that is only as complicated as you make it.

It’s like saying that driving is complicated.  You’d have to be crazy [or very brave] to take your first lesson in Manhattan…during rush hour.  That’s why your driving instructor starts you off on a quiet street.  You need to know your boundaries.  Being successful with VDI is the same – keep things simple to start with and slowly increase complexity at your own pace, when you’re ready for it.

This raises the question – what’s the quiet street equivalent of a beginner’s VDI architecture?  It might not be the most optimized and efficient solution, but it would be quick to implement, do the job well and wouldn’t require specialist knowledge or skills.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’d like to share my thoughts.

There’s a lot to consider, so I’m going to break this up over four different blog posts:

1. Simplified VDI Architecture – Introduction & FlexCast
2. Simplified VDI Architecture – Storage
3. Simplified VDI Architecture – Provisioning
4. Simplified VDI Architecture – Reference Architecture

Martin Zugec will be helping me out with this blog series and will be referring to his experience on actual customer projects that followed many of these recommendations.

XenDesktop or VDI in a Box?

First up, you need to make a decision on VDI in a Box or XenDesktop.  VDI in a Box is easier to setup but does have some limitations.  Check out Allen Furmanski’s excellent blog post for guidance on how to make this decision.  I’m going to concentrate on XenDesktop for this post.

FlexCast

Although each FlexCast model has its own unique advantages, each additional model included adds complexity to the overall project.  There is a great table in the Virtual Desktop Handbook (FlexCast Model Selection – Table 11) that provides guidance on the capabilities of each model.  The main thing to note is that all scenarios, apart from offline, can be accommodated using the Hosted VDI model (XenDesktop), either with or without a Personal vDisk.  It may not be the optimal selection in every instance, but it is almost always a viable solution.

There are a number of reasons why I think that XenDesktop is simpler than XenApp, including:

1. Desktop applications are developed to run on desktop operating systems such as Windows XP or Windows 7.  There aren’t many developers that test their applications on Windows Server 2003 or 2008.  Therefore, you’re far less likely to run into application issues with XenDesktop than you are with XenApp.  Even if your applications run okay on 2008 with XenApp, you’re probably going to have issues getting support from the application vendors.
2. Hosting applications on multi-user operating systems can introduce additional application compatibility challenges.  Users may share the same configuration files and registry hives, especially if the applications are not multi-user aware.  This means that one user may change a setting that affects all other users of that server.  There are a ton of tips and tricks to get these apps working correctly but we want to keep things simple and choosing XenDesktop helps us achieve this goal.
3. As multiple users are hosted on the same operating system, it is important that XenApp desktops are locked down to prevent security breaches and misconfiguration that could impact all users sharing the environment. Typically, this results in an extremely controlled and restricted user experience, hindering user satisfaction and acceptance.
4. With XenApp desktops, a single user can consume a disproportionate amount of resources, impacting the performance of other users sharing the same XenApp server.  XenDesktop, on the other hand, allows vCPU and RAM assignments to be controlled on a per-user basis.  For this reason, I strongly recommend that heavy users are hosted on XenDesktop rather than XenApp.
5. With XenDesktop, it is possible to provide users with fully personalized desktops.  This includes the ability for users to install their own applications.
6. Unlike XenApp, XenDesktop supports generic USB redirection:

I’m a huge fan of Remote PC, especially when you consider just how simple it is to deploy.  However, there are some things Remote PC just can’t do, including:

• You don’t have the flexibility to quickly provision or de-provision desktops based on business demands.

• Image management is more complicated than a virtual desktop because you can’t use MCS and PVS can be challenging with desktops outside of the data center

• You need to have a good connection between your XenDesktop Controllers and the physical desktops.  Something not always available for WAN users.

Regardless, Remote PC is a great solution in many scenarios.  Consider deploying Remote PC at the very start of your project.  It allows you to realize immediate value while you’re designing and implementing your full VDI solution.

If XenDesktop is so much simpler why do so many projects still standardize on XenApp?  It all comes down to cost – XenApp offers significantly higher levels of scalability than XenDesktop (some sources quote 300% more users).  Let’s take a look at this in more detail.

Processor

The Virtual Desktop Handbook provides us with guidelines on processor requirements for both XenApp and XenDesktop (Processor Requirements by Workload – Table 22):

If processor is the bottleneck, we can estimate the scalability of XenApp and XenDesktop for a fairly typical server configuration (2×8 cores):

As you can see, XenApp offers between 17% (heavy user) and 28% (light user) more users than XenDesktop – but nowhere near 300%!  Let’s put this into context, if you had 1,000 concurrent normal users, you would need seven physical servers for ‘XenDesktop: Windows 7’ and six physical servers for ‘XenApp: 2008 R2’.  Is one additional server per ~1,000 users enough to justify the additional complexity of XenApp?

RAM

For RAM, the Virtual Desktop Handbook table (Memory Requirements by Workload – Table 23) shows us that ‘XenDesktop: Windows 7’ requires significantly…

Continue reading here!

//Richard

When it comes to desktop virtualization, we’ve all messed up. Some of us more than others.

But the best among us tend to learn from our mistakes so we don’t repeat them.  And the really smart ones learn from others’ mistakes so they don’t have to collect the bruises themselves.

That’s the spirit behind our latest eBook for desktop virtualization project teams:

The 7 Big, Bad Pitfalls of Desktop Virtualization Deployment:

Very avoidable ways things can go wrong (and how to avoid them)

This eBook is all about helping you succeed with your Citrix desktop virtualization deployments. It distills the expertise of our top Citrix consultants into seven of the most common mistakes that project teams make.

And each pitfall has a short list of evasive actions to take to make sure you don’t fall in.  It’s a quick read and you’ll come away with some useful ways to keep your next project on track.

Go on: Download it now

BTW – The eBook is brought to you by the team behind the Citrix Project Accelerator, the all-singing, all-dancing desktop transformation project management environment. If you haven’t set up a project in it yet, you’re in for a treat.

Questions: How do you successfully design a virtual desktop solution for 1,000 users?  How about 10,000 users?  What about 50,000 users?  What are the questions you should be asking?  Most importantly, where do you start?

Answer: Hire Citrix Consulting for your next virtual desktop project!  OK, that is one right answer, but not the only way to do it.  The successful way to design a virtual desktop environment is to follow a modular approach using the 5 layers defined within the Citrix Virtual Desktop Handbook.  Breaking apart a virtual desktop project into different layers provides a modular approach that reduces risks and increase chances for your project’s success no matter how larger you’re planned deployment is.  What are the 5 layers and some examples of the decisions are defined within them?

1. User Layer:  Recommended end-points and the required user functionality.
2. Access Layer:  How the user will connect to their desktop hosted in the desktop layer.  Decisions for local vs. remote access, firewalls and SSL-VPN communications are addressed within this layer.
3. Desktop Layer:  The desktop layer contains the user’s virtual desktop and is subdivided into three components; image, applications, and personalization.  Decisions related to FlexCast model, application requirements, policy, and profile design are addressed in this layer.
4. Control Layer:  Within the control layer decisions surrounding the management and maintenance of the overall solution are addressed.  The control layer is comprised of access controllers, desktop controllers and infrastructure controllers.  Access controllers support the access layer, desktop controllers support the desktop layer, and infrastructure controllers provide the underlying support for each component within the architecture.
5. Hardware Layer:  The hardware layer contains the physical devices required to support the entire solution, and includes servers, processors, memory and storage devices.

Want to know how to get started?  Try the Citrix Project Accelerator.  Input criteria around your business requirements, technical expertise, end user requirements, applications, etc. to get started on your architecture based on the 5 layer model.

Lastly, don’t forget to come see SYN318…

Continue reading here!

//Richard

Tomorrow (18/04) Avere will host “Untangling the VDI Storage Enigma” at 13:30 – 14:30 EDT – that’s 18:30-19:30 British Summer Time.

In this session with host Bernie Behn, you will:

-Understand the storage I/O effects of VMware View VDI implementations

-Find common ground using “VDI IOPS” as a generalized unit of measure

-Benchmark real-world VDI deployment scenarios and quantifying the result

-Size your VDI storage infrastructure for optimal cost and minimal rack space

On Wednesday 24th April, Avere Systems is also hosting “Breaking All The Rules: Untethering Compute from Storage” at 13:30 p.m. – 14:30 EDT (18:30-19:30 BST).

This session will discuss:

-Challenges presented by the natural progression of global NAS sprawl

-Solutions currently available for mitigating the pain associated with this growth

-How the Avere Edge-Core architecture paves the way for solving many of these problems while delivering proven world-record performance and simplified management

-Edge-Core architectures for global rendering and transcoding workflows

REGISTER NOW for these valuable sessions.

For all XenApp admins and consultants out there Project Avalon will bring a big change as we are used to having XenApp servers running on the (what seemed to be) everlasting Citrix Independent Management Architecture and we’re heading to Citrix FlexCast Management Architecture (already included in XenDesktop at this moment) and will be included in the Citrix Excalibur Architecture.

IMA

When looking up IMA in the eDocs you’ll find:

Independent Management Architecture (IMA) is the underlying architecture used in XenApp for configuring, monitoring, and operating all XenApp functions. The IMA data store stores all XenApp configurations.

Basically IMA exists to manage the XenApp or Presentation Server farms by enabling the communications between servers. As stated it transfers information about all XenApp functions like licenses, policies, sessions and server loads. All management tooling within these versions of Citrix’s PS/XA rely on this service for information.

According to Communication ports used by Citrix Technologies IMA uses the following ports:

As we can see IMA uses 2512 (by default) to communicate with other servers and the Access Gateway Controller uses 2513 (by default) for IMA-based communication. The port IMA uses can be changed or queried via the commandline tool IMAPORT.

Brian Madden did a blogpost way back in 2007 but it’s definition of IMA is still current:

Independent Management Architecture is:

• A data store, which is a database for storing MetaFrame XP server configuration information, such as published applications, total licenses, load balancing configuration, MetaFrame XP security rights, and printer configuration.
• A protocol for transferring the ever-changing background information between MetaFrame XP servers, including server load, current users and connections, and licenses in use

FMA

With the introduction of XenDesktop we got a new architecture called Flexcast Management Architecture. This new architecture has got an agent-based setup where we can install the operating system including the basic applications that need to be installed and after that we can install an agent. This agent registers itself to a controller and is offered through StoreFront to the end user.

This will be delivered by two different types of agents, one to support Windows Server OS’s and one for Windows Desktop OS’s.

Andrew Wood did an article on Excalibur and used this diagram to explain the architecture:

Citrix FlexCast Management Architecture

• Receiver provides users with self-service access to published resources.
• StoreFront authenticates users to site(s) hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications that users access – Web Interface as a platform is essentially resting, but it will cease to be.
• Studio is a single management console that enables you to configure and manage your deployment, a dramatic reduction over the 23 consoles you could well have today. Studio provides various wizards to guide you through the process of setting up an environment, creating workloads to host applications and desktops, and assigning applications and desktops to users.
• Delivery Controller distributes applications and desktops, manages user access, and optimizes…

Continue reading here!

//Richard

Not only does VDI mean that moving forward I don’t actually need to install QGIS anymore but it means that for the lucky user,  they can use QGIS on the web (via portal access) or mobile devices such as an iPad or Smartphone. This takes ‘doing GIS’ to new leaves, in how and where we do full desktop GIS.

How VDI and the servers that ‘it’ sits on will cope with graphic intense applications like QGIS, ArcGIS, MapInfo or CadCorp (all of which we have) will remain to be seen!

Happy days(!)

Reducing the cost of VDI with Hosted Virtual Desktops. ICC Global Hosting presents a webinar to discuss Hosted Virtual Desktops as a solution to reduce the cost of virtual desktops, VDI, and provide access to a corporate desktop and data from any device including PCs, Macs, thin clients, iPads, and other tablet devices.

Utilize Desktops as a Service, DaaS, to provide all the benefits of VDI without the infrastructure, staff, or maintenance expenses.

Join us for an informative webinar to discover how you too can lower the cost of VDI.