During any VDI implementation, independent of the product you plan to utilise, some key components need to be properly and carefully designed in order to avoid pitfalls further down the track, or prepare the infrastructure for future growth.

VDI designs should also go through assessment process, just like any other deployment in the physical world, that should take care for the following:

• High Availability – Once your organisation start to solely rely on the remote desktop infrastructure high availability will become critical. Better to prepare for that when designing your solution. There should be careful assessment for the connection brokers, including load balancing and failover. The underlying infrastructure supporting your VDI solution should also provide high availability, such as clusters, live migration, resource scheduling etc. Not to mention that the hardware should also be highly redundant.

• Networking – The  network infrastructure needs special attention, specially if you network is supporting networked storage array suing NFS or iSCSI protocols. On Greenfields deployments that should not be am issue however pay attention to what and how your VMs will consume disk IO. From display perspective not much to add, unless you intend to run over WAN. Refer to your display protocol vendor guide to make sure you have the minimum requirements available in your network. Usually the recommendation for RDP is 100Mb for 100 users, but remember that these users might be spread across different hosts.

• Storage Area Network (Storage IO) – Storage IO becomes specially critic in large deployments. In order for VMs to have good performance there is a minimum number of IOPS that need to be pulled from the storage array. This number may find constraints in your storage array, having to add more spindles, or at the network level. At the network level watch for your array bandwidth capacity (NICs) and the network between your hosts and the array; make sure they all can deliver the required bandwidth. The bandwidth capacity is a big discussion but you may find a starting point at this post from Chad Sakac. http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/12/whats-what-in-vmware-view-and-vdi-land.html Choose the right array and protocol for your design!

• Guest OS Customisation – If in the physical desktop world it is important to keep the OS running clean and fast, in the VDI environment this is even more important. Every single CPU or I/O savings will direct benefit all other virtual desktops users. A well defined and streamlined deployment can greatly enhance the consolidation ratios per host, saving organisations thousands of dollars. My post about nLite is a great start and has some good links to OS customisation articles.

• Disaster recovery & Business Continuity – This very well may be the most under-looked component in VDI designs due to costs to replicate the infrastructure in a DR site. Evaluate the real requirement to have all virtual desktops replicated to the DR site. You might find that only a handful VM’s should really be replicated, while having user profiles stored on the network. In this case a secondary connection broker can be pre-configured in disabled state to re-create the VM’s should the primary site is lost. Another option would be the workload distribution across primary and DR sites, reducing the number of desktops offline during a disaster. Unfortunately, as I write this email, I am not aware of any automated off-the-shelf DR solution for VDI, however in most disaster cases organisations are prepared for few hours wait until services are restabilised.

• Security – Most VDI solutions on the market provide some type of proxy or gateway to allow external connections to the desktops. Think carefully about how this will be implemented in your network and if it should really be available to external users; or if employees need to authenticate through the VPN first. Some organisations implement different load balancers, connection brokers, pools of VMs and even different subnets for users coming from external world.

• Monitoring – Monitoring can be done at hardware, hypervisor and Guest OS levels and should be done at all of them. There is not a VDI holistic monitoring solution at the moment so utilise the same concepts applied to all other monitoring in the Datacenter.

• Hardware Requirements and Energy/Cooling Requirements – Not much to say about hardware requirements. Read the System Compatibility Guide for the products you have chosen, and remember that new processors such as the Intel Nehalem 5500 series will provide a higher consolidation ratio per core. Nonetheless, you must understand the user workload per desktop before virtualisation. Some application packages such as Stratusphere may help you to run this assessment.

• Operational Considerations – Think about groups of users, computer and  templates. The better you know your environment the better you will be able to prepare for the design. As an example, the least VM templates you have, the least operational effort will be necessary to maintain the VDI environment. It is very recommendable to think about application virtualisation as part of the solution to reduce complexity and streamline the guest OS. The last bit is related to people to support the desktops. Think about the structure in your organisation as it might have to change to accommodate the new environment. Despite no directly applied to internal VDI environments I have discussed this at “Will the Cloud steal your job?”

There are additional components that should be thoroughly analysed before designing the final solution but they are product related, such as display protocol, pool types, image cloning, integration, licensing etc.

Have Fun

Those of us old enough still remember the advertising slogan suggesting that ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’. And it was largely true. Many IT managers spent a lot of money on IBM systems as it appeared a risk free option – even if they were not always convinced it was the best solution for the business.  

The sentiment is not confined to IBM of course. More recently you could easily replace IBM with names such as Microsoft, Cisco or Dell, for example. The problem is that it is there are usually too many options available. And the same is true when it comes to virtualisation.

With a list of benefits as long as your arm, the decision to adopt a virtual desktop infrastructure in the first place seems a no brainer. But that’s where the easy decisions end. Once committed to virtualising the environment, many organisations quickly become bogged down with the sheer number of options, features and functionalities. 

So, rather than using an unbiased and well-researched approach to the platform selection process, far too many organisations are making snap judgements based on unfounded or irrelevant criteria – or simply on a name.

So who are the front runners? Unless IT managers have been living in the Himalayas for the last five years, they will certainly be aware of VMWare, Microsoft HyperV and Citrix with its XenDesktop. But there are also a number of other suppliers such as Quest and Sun with their own, lesser known offerings that should not be ruled out.

The problem often lies in the criteria organisations use to select their platforms. What they need to do is carefully detail what is required and which platform best meets those needs. After all, the main benefits of virtualisation are achieved in the long term and these will be negated if an unsuitable platform is selected in the first instance.

For example, when deliberating between Microsoft Hyper V and VMWare, it is easy to get caught up in comparisons between up-front cost and perceived compatibility with a current operational platform. HyperV may appear to be cheaper than VMWare at first glance, but this will only be the case for organisations for which it is the fit-for-purpose solution.

There are clearly many organisations where HyperV is the right choice, but elsewhere, while there may be initial savings to be made on up-front cost, these will soon be forgotten once the platform begins to come up short further down the line. Equally, choosing VMWare because of its reputation and positive press will be as costly for organisations that cannot hope to utilise its vast scope within the requirements of their environments – or for those that discover incompatibility issues later down the line when it is too late.

It is surprising how often companies get this wrong. So, before you reach for the cheque book, make sure you have looked carefully at what you are signing up for or take independent expert advice. At the very least you can then blame it on someone else. 

David Cowan, Head of Infrastructure

I have seen a lot of discussion on the subject of layering of software images to deliver virtualized client computing. There are some interesting opportunities here but also a number of serious potential issues. This is too big an area for a single blog post so I am going to look at this over a number of post in the coming weeks.

There are number of different ways the word ‘layers’ is used in client computing. Firstly, when we think of our software stack we unsurprisingly think of the layers that make up that stack. Those layers are typically operating system, applications and user environment. We then think about how we manage those layers, either as the complete unwieldy stack or individually. As  such we are thinking about layers as a handy shortcut for what we want to manage individually.

Another way that the word ‘layers’ is being used is as a way of splitting the stack into a large number of separate layers. A number of small vendors are launching early stage products to try and deliver solutions based on a layer per application with those layers being delivered selectively depending on the user. The problem here is that each of the layers then needs to be managed separately including the impact of every combination of layers. Many of the organizations I talk to have thousands of applications in use across the business, that means thousands of layers and a huge combinatorial problem.

The change between the two uses of the word ‘layers’ is dramatic: In one case we are referring to three layers that we want to manage individually in the other case attempting to manage thousands of layers in a way that may well prove to be impossible. As I think of managing all those layers I am reminded of the mess that usually results from my attempts at eating a Napoleon, also known to the French as a ‘Mille Feuille’ – thousand layers.

I own a company that provides managed services, professional services and infrastructure hosting services. I have a product offering where the only thing the client needs to operate their business is an endpoint (desktop, workstation, laptop, thin client – which I can manage and protect) and connectivity (which I can manage and optimize).

Nice, eh? Good value for the customer and it leverages economies of scale for my business. One would think that it’s a pretty nice solution, especially with the Microsoft SPLA program and Citrix Service Provider Programs.

But guess what? I cannot offer a complete solution to my clients. You know why? Because I choose to deliver my solution using virtualization technology to leverage economies of scale in computing hardware.

Example:

A client has an SBS 2003 Premium server (AD, SQL, Exchange, File/Print, etc). They also have 20 workstations running Windows XP Professional with Office 2003/2007 installed along with a Line-of-Business application that uses a SQL database on the server.

Currently, their server is older and pretty close to end-of-life and they’re looking to forklift this to new hardware. Problem is, they have an OEM install of SBS and the cost of new server hardware is not appealing..

My proposal:

Using XenServer + XenDesktop I provide them 24 VMs (1 SBS Server + 23 Virtual Desktops (w/Office + LOB App installed)) for a monthly fee based on usage. That monthly fee includes all software licenses and guarantees that they will have the computing power that they need to operate their business.

They can “pay for what they use”. They only use 20 desktops this month? They only pay for 20. They have 23 next month? They only pay for 23? It’s calculated monthly and is a nice offering.

They don’t have to buy a new server every 3-5 years. They can continue to use the workstation hardware with the Citrix Receiver installed on a minimal operating system. They don’t have to worry about paying for licenses they don’t use. The infrastructure is in a solid datacenter which means redundant power, internet connectivity and with the tools I use, a solid backup solution to my storage pool, antivirus, etc.

BUT I cannot offer them this solution as I’ve stated above. Why? Because I cannot license the desktop operating system (Windows XP, Vista or 7) through the SPLA program.

The only way this works, according to Microsoft, is if the client has licenses for each virtual desktop (which I can manage for them, but they must purchase) AND those virtual desktops MUST run on server hardware that is dedicated to them. So, I would have to dedicate a physical server or servers to that customer and no other customer’s virtual machines can be run on that hypervisor. And the customer still has to pay me + Microsoft for the “complete” solution.

What does this mean? I cannot gain maximum efficiency in server hardware utilization using virtualization technology. And that’s with ANY hypervisor, Citrix XenServer, VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, etc. This also increases the price I must charge to ensure that I’m profitable on the offering and account for hardware utilization.

So, unless the person I’m dealing with at Microsoft is wrong or I have totally misinterpreted what the SPLA program agreement and licensing is telling me, Microsoft has basically shot my offering in the foot. They’re asking me to run a marathon with one arm tied behind my back. Can I do it? Yes, I can, however, my finish time will be much slower.

This problem is contrary to where the entire IT Services industry is going.

So, Microsoft. Here’s my Holiday Wish: Fix this!

A) Allowing me to sell desktop operating systems via SPLA and
B) do not limit me on how I provide that operating system to the end-user (e.g., virtual machine delivered via some protocol – RDP/ICA)

If I’m wrong about this, I will post an update to this article and give my mea culpa accordingly, but as of right now, according to Microsoft, I’m not.

Happy Holidays!

Entisys Solutions (a Citrix Solution Partner Platinum, Microsoft Gold Partner and AppSense CSP) are hosting a desktop virtualization event at the Microsoft offices in California -  Join us and explore the technology of XenDesktop, Hyper-V and AppSense.

Discover how Citrix, Microsoft and AppSense provide a simple and reliable virtual desktop for users of Windows Server® environments. Citrix, the leader in Desktop Virtualization, AppSense, the leader in user environment management solutions and Microsoft have the most comprehensive virtualized desktop solution in the industry.  Citrix XenDesktop will deliver a full range of desktop virtualization technologies, ideal for everyone from task workers to mobile/remote employees. With the Microsoft-Citrix-AppSense partnership, there is no easier way to deploy Windows 7.

Seminar topics include:

• Reducing Desktop TCO and gaining the best performance with Citrix XenDesktop™
• Virtual Desktop Architecture – XenDesktop components with Hyper-V
• Citrix Provisioning Server – ease the deployment of your Windows 7 roll out
• Desktop deliver controller and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
• Technical deep dive for the engineer and technical savvy IT specialist

Date:
Thursday – December 17, 2009

Location:
Microsoft Corporation – Mercury Room in Building One
1065 La Avenida Street
Mountain View
CA 94041
(650) 693-4000 

Please Click Here To Register Your Place!

Look forward to seeing you there

Last week I attended the Virtualization Executive Summit, a great event attended by almost 100 Senior IT Executives (CTO’s, CIO’s, CEO’s, VP’s, Director’s etc..) from very large, international organizations. As the name suggests, the event focused on Virtualization, with a large proportion of the end user interest being in Desktop Virtualization.

I have to say, it was a very well organized and thought-out event, with each of the delegates having individual time tables based on their areas of interest. These time tables accommodated both vendor boardroom presentation sessions along with 1:1 meetings with the vendors too, so a busy two days for all involved.

As part of our sponsorship package, I was presenting in the AppSense Boardroom Session. It appeared to be very well received (with some of the attendees saying it was the best session they had been to <- queue big ego boost for me lol). There was a great mix of people in the room, some who had deployed Desktop Virtualization and some that had also done stateless / non-persistent Desktop Virtualization with a user environment management solution (like AppSense ) which was a great validation for the others in the room who are still in their planning stages.

Nearly all of the many meetings we hosted focused on the attendee’s plans for desktop virtualization in 2010, and I am glad to say, they were also asking how AppSense could help enable them to adopt the non-persistent virtual desktop model.

Thanks to all of those who helped make this a great event, and thank you also to all those who attended and are driving forward with desktop virtualization..

Looking forward to the next one

Do you need to learn XenDesktop really quickly, over a weekend? Bellow are are some VERY useful links if you need to get up to speed on XenDesktop really quickly…

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121478 (Enterprise Design Guide)

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/index.jsp?lang=en (Online Documentation Library)

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123530 (video)

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123244 (HA Architecture)

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123010 (self-paced training)

Dudley Primary Care Trust (PCT) has worked with Centralis (a key Citrix & AppSense partner) to deliver a virtual desktop environment to over 3,000 staff.

Using Citrix XenServer, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenApp and AppSense, Dudley PCT are able to provision desktops to their staff from just 16 Virtual Servers.

AppSense enables a single standardize image of the OS and Applications to be stored, managed and delivered as fully configured and personalized desktops to thousands of users at minimal operational cost.

A more detailed account of this project can be found here

Other joint Citrix and AppSense Customers can be found here

Further information on the joint Citrix & AppSense Solution can be found on the Citrix website here

Thanks

Gareth

On Wednesday 18^th November I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural meeting of the Northern VMware User Group (UK) at the Wellington pub in Leeds. There were about thirty five people in attendance, mostly administrators of VMware infrastructures, including some big ones, which was a pretty impressive turnout given the far from ideal weather conditions. A couple of VMware vExperts also attended the event.

A very informative presentation from Ross Bisby of b2net covering the details of investigating performance issues in ESX/ESXi environments kicked things off. Hats off to Ross for a top job given he was drafted in at the last minute. This was followed by informal breakout sessions covering topics such as VCP certification, iSCSI storage and VDI.  There was certainly a good deal of interest in VDI from many people there with a variety of experience from planning through testing to having, successfully, deployed it. It was encouraging too to find a number of the attendees already familiar with AppSense products.

Many thanks to the committee for organising such a successful event and to VMware and Veeam for sponsoring the bar – when in Rome …

Looking forward already to the next event!

AppSense are very pleased to announce that AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 has won another high-profile award – The TechWorld Best Desktop Software Product of the year 2009.

The Techworld Awards reward innovation for all aspects of the IT industry and are evaluated on strategy, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges consisting of highly respected individuals from the IT industry and Techworld editors.

This new award is a great achievement and comes only a short time after AppSense Environment Manager recently won Gold in the Desktop Virtualization category in the Best of VMworld 2009 Awards Program.  Combined, these awards, along with our recent record growth and ever strengthening relationships with Citrix, Microsoft and VMware confirm AppSense as the clear leader in the User Environment Management space.

Here is a copy of the AppSense Press Release to accompany this recent award:

AppSense Wins 2009 Techworld Award

AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 announced Desktop Software Product of the Year

 New York, NY – November 18, 2009 – AppSense, the leading provider of user environment management solutions for the enterprise, today announced that AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 has won the Desktop Software Product of the Year award as part of the Techworld Awards 2009. Recognizing both products and users, the Techworld Awards reward innovation for all aspects of the IT industry and are evaluated on strategy, creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Winners are selected by an independent panel of judges consisting of highly respected individuals from the IT industry and Techworld editors.

AppSense Environment Manager is the only enterprise solution that enables standardized desktop environments to be fully configured and personalized without the need for cumbersome profiles or scripts. From server-based computing environments through to virtual and physical desktops, AppSense Environment Manager ensures users always receive a consistent, predictable and personalized working experience. Full desktops can now be configured and business rules applied on-demand, enabling compliant, personalized virtual desktops to be quickly delivered to thousands of users at lowest possible cost. Additionally, AppSense technology is used in conjunction with many third party systems integrators, including CSC, HP, EDS, Dell and IBM.

“We are honored that AppSense Environment Manager has been recognized as the best solution to sit on the desktop by the Techworld editors and members of the IT community,” said Peter Rawlinson, vice president of worldwide marketing at AppSense. “AppSense’s unique approach represents a fundamental change in the way the corporate desktop is constructed and is a core solution in all desktop environments, providing a stable and consistent user environment. With the introduction of Microsoft Windows 7 and a huge uplift in VDI adoption, AppSense looks forward to continuing to provide enterprises with our award-winning solutions, allowing them to increase user productivity and dramatically decrease operational costs.” 

This award comes on the heels of the recent Gold award in the Desktop Virtualization category in the ‘Best of VMworld 2009’ awards for AppSense. For more information about the Techworld awards and to view a complete list of winners, please visit http://awards.techworld.com/2009/winners/.

About AppSense
Founded in 1999, AppSense is the leading provider of user environment management (UEM) solutions for enterprise organizations. UEM is a proven method of reducing desktop management costs by treating the user environment separate from the desktop and delivery method. This separation enables IT to standardize the corporate desktop and automate the delivery of the user’s working environment, significantly reducing operational costs. AppSense technology is used around the world by companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia, Wal-Mart, ESPN and CB Richard Ellis. AppSense has main offices in New York and Manchester, England with additional offices in Palo Alto, London, Munich, Melbourne and Amsterdam.

PR Contact:
Heather Fitzsimmons
Mindshare PR
+1 (650) 947-7400
heather@mindsharepr.com

Please click on the TechWorld Winners Logo to be taken to the TechWorld Awards page to view the winners from other catagories.

Thanks to all those who have helped make Environment Manager the leading UEM solution that it is:)

Enviroman (Oliver Sills, Product Manager for AppSense Environment Manager) was in the office the other day, pestering me about signing a petition to change the Environment Manager “colour” from green to Tangerine – something to do with some UK footy club. I told him the Budgie Smugglers don’t look any better in Tangerine, so stop sitting on my desk

Just about then the phone rings, it was a Solution Architect from a large software company. “Tell him about Personalization”, Environman whispers in my ear. I covered the phone, told him to go way, and went back to the call.

Turns out one of his clients was trying to deploy 600+ Virtual Desktops, and it had just dawned on them that Policy, Profiles and the User Personality had become a nightmare to maintain when using a Non Persistent Pooled Desktop environment.

Think about it – each user, every time they log in, has a brand new base model PC.

This Client did a Proof of Concept – easy – P To V a couple of desktops, load a client, connect in using RDP – jobs a good’un – look Mum no hands – I’m doing VDI

So then they ticked all the boxes, app compatibility – tick, ease of use – tick, centrally managed and deployed – tick, user acceptance – tick, user personalization – tick – hey, not so fast.

You CAN have a tick in that box if you are talking One to One, dedicated hosted virtual desktops for a small number of users – otherwise, you need to think again.

It’s like when I started talking to the Aussie market about AppSense back in 2004 “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 5 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Yes I hear what you say, but I’ve only got 10 servers – it’s not a problem” 6 months later “Our farm is out of control, now we have 15 Citrix servers we now understand what you guys were on about 6 months ago”

As we always say – we don’t hold a grudge – and we don’t ever say “I told you so”.  After all we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help

Virtual Desktops are starting to ramp up, and unfortunately with some clients projects, the devil will be in the detail.

Like the client we are now helping, they thought the “Profile Stuff” built into the VDI solution would be the easy bit. “There’re tools built into the base product” they say – yes there are, but those built in tools can be compared to other in-built free software like NTBackup – yes it will backup a file, but it’s not granular enough, and it just won’t cut it in an Enterprise environment – that’s why companies invest in a Third Party backup products.

AppSense is exactly the same. Built in “Profile” tools or features are o.k. for a simple small deployment where one size fits all, but the reality is most organisations will need more.  The reason for this is simple, profile management tools are there to solve profile issues such as bloat and logon times.. they are not designed to be cross platform, cross delivery mechanism personalization solutions, not to mention the need for policy action control also.

It’s just not as easy as saying “We use Roaming Profiles and redirected folders” – try reimaging every PC in your business, every morning, and see if it causes a few hassles for users.

So we keep plugging away out there – educating the market in advance, some clients “get it” up front and they’re the ones with the smooth running, no surprises VDI projects.

As for the rest of you – we’ll be here, happy to answer questions, happy to show and tell – all with passion and enthusiasm.

After all – we’re from AppSense – we’re here to help

Zwei Tage vor dem eigentlichen Datum steht die XenDesktop 4 als Eval Edition zum Download im MyCitrix Portal bereit. Auf der Seite selbst wird sogar noch der 16.11. (Montag) als Release Date genannt. Das englische/japanische ISO Image ist ca. 1.16 GB groß und enthält neben dem eigentlichen DDC (Desktop Delivery Controller den VDA (Virtual Desktop Agent), den XenDesktop Setup Wizard sowie das Online Plug-In und das Webinterface.

Bajo la nueva estrategia llamada FlexCast, Citrix ha decidido revisar sus políticas de licenciamiento, incluso un par de semanas luego de haber decidido algo distinto para su nueva plataforma XenDesktop versión 4, a ser lanzada en Noviembre 16, 2009.

FlexCast, según Citrix, permite llegar a todos los niveles de usuario final posibles:

• Terminal Server Tradicional (sesiones en ambiente TS)
• VDI (sesiones basadas en servidores virtualizados)
• Conexión a Blade PCs
• Levantar Sistema Operativo desde dispositivo (OS Streaming)
• Entrega de Aplicaciones Virtuales a clientes locales (Application Streaming)
• Entrega de Aplicaciones corriendo desde un servidor central con sistema operativo multiusuario
• Entrega de Aplicaciones corriendo en una maquina virtual con sistema operativo monousuario
• Soporte futuro a operación offline (corriendo localmente XenClient)

Lastimosamente, por razones obvias de mercado, no hacen mención a conexión hacia servidores con chipset soportando protocolo PCoIP (hace parte del portafolio de Teradici, compañía recientemente adquirida por VMware), cuyo protocolo va a permitir hacer Rendering 3-D una realidad dentro del paradigma VDI.

Entre los cambios más significativos  a nivel de licenciamiento de la oferta Citrix tenemos:

1- Citrix XenApp (plataforma tradicional de computación basada en Terminal Services, sin virtualización involucrada) será entregado como parte del producto Citrix XenDesktop y permitirá migrar usuarios existentes a esta nuevo paradigma (usando un esquema de recibir 2 usuarios XenDesktop por cada usuario XenApp previamente licenciado, esquema válido hasta final de Q2-2010). Sin embargo, los nuevos usuarios obtenidos bajo XenDesktop deberan pagar mantenimiento anual (Subscription Advantage).

Esto implica a mediano plazo, un incremento considerable para los usuarios que habian pagado hasta ahora por usuario concurrente dentro del ambiente XenApp luego de ser practicamente forzados a migrar a XenDesktop para nuevos usuarios dentro de su red.

2-Citrix XenDesktop estará disponible como licencia por dispositivo o por usuario nombrado, similar a como Terminal Services y Windows Server de Microsoft lo venian licenciando. Esto difiere de la política de licenciar por usuario concurrente o por usuario nombrado solamente.

Esto conlleva una política de alineamiento con Microsoft cada vez más fuerte, creo que al final XenServer desaparece como propuesta de mercado para hypervisor y Citrix se va a terminar viendo como un add-on paraMicrosoft HyperV (similar a lo que en su momento se hizo con Terminal Services).

3- Versión VDI de Citrix Desktop: Este tipo de versión está disponible para usuarios remotos únicamente, sin streaming local de aplicaciones ni offline desktop en el futuro (usando hypervisor de lado cliente). En este caso si permite licenciamiento por usuario concurrente. Este licencia reemplaza la versión Standard. De cierta forma, esto será visto como un “full desktop” cuando se hacia esto a nivel de Terminal Services.

El propósito de lanzar una versión VDI por debajo de US$100 no es mala idea de parte de Citrix, pues esto implicaria una masificación de la plataforma VDI a largo plazo y apoya a que otros proveedores como Quest y VMware deban revisar sus politicas a nivel de entrada (entry-level) para VDI. Y ojalá también force a Microsoft a revisar su licenciamiento de sistema operativo bajo ambientes VDI (llamada Microsoft VECD, tema de otro artículo en el futuro cercano).

4- Nueva estructura de precios en Citrix:

–Usando precios FOB Miami–

XenDesktop viene en 3 ediciones:

• XenDesktop VDI: $195 /usuario concurrente o $95 /usuario o dispositivo
• XenDesktop Enterprise: $225 /usuario o dispositivo (incluye XenApp Enterprise)
• XenDesktop Platinum: $350 /usuario o dispositivo (incluye XenApp Platinum)

XenApp se ofrece aún en 3 ediciones:

• XenApp Advanced: $350 por usuario concurrente
• XenApp Enterprise: $450 por usuario concurrente
• XenApp Platinum: $600 por usuario concurrente

NOTA FINAL: Para universidades, Citrix dice que va a homologar el tipo de tratamiento que Microsoft le da al sector educativo como acuerdos globales a nivel de campus para las universidades únicamente.

DESPEDIDA: Esperemos a ver que tipo de cambio ofrecerá VMware bajo la nueva versión View 4, también a ser lanzada pronto, antes de terminar 2009!!!

Some businesses I deal with regularly do not have any sort of virtualization technology in place. Many have a fair understanding of what virtualization is, but not necessarily how it can help the business.

What is virtualization?

There are many different perceptions of what “virtualization” means in the context of Information Technology. I will not delve into the super-technical aspects of various types of virtualization, but will attempt to break it down into key types along with how it could help your business.

Server Virtualization

In today’s context, a server can be two things.

1. A physical server, such as you might purchase from Dell, IBM or HP.
2. An operating system (OS), such as Microsoft Windows Server or Linux.

Traditionally, there is a one-to-one relationship between an OS and the physical server hardware. But with server virtualization, that relationship changes from one physical server (host) to many operating systems (guests or VMs).

Server virtualization is technology that specifically allows multiple operating systems to be run on a single physical server.

Example: Many businesses have several servers that provide something to the infrastructure. Email Services, File Storage Services, Printing Services, Authentication (Login) Services, Database Services are examples of the most common types. But installing all of these services onto a single physical server is not necessarily a good idea since these services could conflict with one another and cause problems. And having multiple physical servers for each of these services is costly, both in initial purchasing and ongoing maintenance costs, but is commonly done.

As long as the physical server hardware is capable, you can install a server virtualization technology, known as a hypervisor (such as VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V or Citrix XenServer) as the “host”, then you can create multiple virtual machines “VMs” or “guests”, each running their own operating system and publish/provide services. These VMs then share the resources (processor, memory and hard drives) of the same physical server.

Benefits:

Server Virtualization benefits a business in terms of reduction in physical server costs and ongoing maintenance costs, depending on the configurations, and would allow for very flexible management. Also, the fewer physical servers you have, the less electricity you use and the less space is required to house them.

Centralized storage (a component often included with this type of solution) that can be used by multiple physical servers can increase the cost of the solution, however, it usually balances out in regards to overall cost as you are reducing the number of physical servers initially purchased. It also vastly improves performance if designed and implemented correctly in this context.

Application Virtualization

This is not a new technology since many vendors have been doing this for decades. But in the context of microcomputing today, it means you install an application on a server and then have users connect to that server over the network to run the application. The application then uses the server’s hardware resources (processor, memory and hard drives) to function and execute rather than a user’s workstation resources.

There are many different flavors of this technology, but the most common today are Citrix’s XenApp and Microsoft Terminal Services (which XenApp utilizes). This is technology installed to allow multiple users to connect and share the operating system resources (both hardware AND software) of the XenApp server.

Example: You install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 operating system on a server along with software to allow multiple users to connect and share the operating systems resources. Then you install the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook) on that server and “publish” the applications for your users. You then install a client software on each of your 25 workstations and direct it to the server. User’s can then connect to the server, run the application and the server does 98% of the work.

Benefits:

Application Virtualization benefits a business by centralizing the installation of end-user software and thereby lowering ongoing maintenance/upgrade costs associated with those applications. User workstations (desktop PCs) may not be required. It is possible to deliver these applications to alternate endpoint devices, such as a thin client or minimally installed desktop PC, thereby removing the costs associated with maintaining a user’s PC. Additionally, since the applications are installed on server-class hardware, performance is often improved.

Desktop Virtualization

This is something that has just recently (in the last year or so) started getting a lot of attention in the IT industry. You’ve likely heard the terms “Desktop Virtualization” or “VDI” tossed around from sales folks, literature or the Internet.

Desktop virtualization is much like Server Virtualization in that it is a way to share physical hardware. It means that you install multiple workstation operating systems (such as Windows Vista or Windows 7) into virtual machine “guests” on a server that is running a hypervisor. This hypervisor allows multiple operating systems to share the physical server hardware, much the same way as Server Virtualization.

As with the other types, there are multiple Desktop Virtualization solutions out there, such as VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop.

Example:

If you have 25 Destkop PCs, then they must be installed with an operating system, maintained, updated and repaired. A typical Desktop Virtualization solution for this scenario may be two physical servers, each with a hypervisor installed, and then a virtual machine is created and installed with the desktop operating system for each user. Users then connect to their Desktop VM and can work, with the server doing 98% of the work. The VMs are now “guests” on the physical server and share the server’s processor, memory and hard drives, just like server virtualization.

Benefits:

Desktop Virtualization benefits a business by centralizing, making it easier to upgrade, patch and support a user’s working environment. Desktop VMs are likely closely located to the servers that support them, making access to those services much faster. And like Application Virtualization, desktop PCs are not necessarily required as the Desktop VM may be delivered to an alternate endpoint device, such as a ThinClient, or a minimally installed desktop PC.

Synopsis:

Virtualization is essentially technology that allows the sharing of resources, both hardware and software.

What you choose to virtualize and the product you choose to use should always be tailored to your business. There is no “one size fits all” and there are many “what if” scenarios with deploying these types of solutions. Ask questions of your IT staff, consulting team or trusted technical advisors and ask for demonstrations.

It is possible to combine one, some or all of the types listed here and there are dozens of ways each of these types of initiatives may be designed, implemented and managed. The key is to ensure this is done in a balance that best supports your business.

Last week saw the annual round of AppSense Universities taking place. A gathering of the best consultancy minds from AppSense channel partners and system integrators. The goal of this year’s University was to drive home the AppSense best practices when delivering AppSense solutions and to educate the attendee’s with an increased technical understanding of the Environment Manager product.

It is clear that User Environment Management has become a very hot topic within the technical community and so this year’s attendance was higher than ever with over 50 partners attending the 2 day event. The sessions were a mix of theory and practical work, culminating in an exam that tested both current skill levels and knowledge acquired over the 2 day.  Over 90% of the attendee’s have been working with AppSense for many years, but all that attended commented on how much additional technical content they had obtained by attending the event.

“The University and Inner Circle events give us the ability to educate our partners on areas of the products which may have changed since they attended the Certified Administrator Course and allow us to share our own wealth of knowledge regarding best practice. Partners who attend become more self-sufficient due to the education we provide regarding the inner workings of the products and troubleshooting sessions” – Simon Townsend, Director of Technical Services, AppSense

The practical sessions saw delegates solving real world challenges with ease when using an AppSense Solution.  The practical sessions provided delegates with a technical insight into Environment Manager via the Deep Dive sessions, this included how Environment Manager integrates with the logon process. While the hands on labs enabled delegates to migrate users from a current problematic Roaming Profile to an AppSense Managed Profile, there was also the chance for delegates to get a grasp of all Environment Manager Best practices as well as implement these in the lab sessions.

 The event also provided a solid platform to feedback into AppSense Product Management on features that would like to be seen and features that are already present. The University events prove to be one of the best sources of feed in for product features since the delegates are all seasoned professionals who need solutions to their own unique issue areas.

“Having been to several AppSense Technical Universities, I can genuinely say they are a valuable experience to anyone working with AppSense technology and is looking to expand their customer base in the user environment management space. There is always a great mix of theory, practical lab sessions and open discussion on personal experiences out in the field, which makes the event both educational and informative. It’s also good to see what’s next in terms of product development and refreshing to be able to offer input, which is often incorporated in to the new versions. I’d definitely recommend this event to anyone who is serious about AppSense.” – Simon Mulrain, Senior Consultant, Point to Point.

The exam was received positively with many wanting to test and prove their AppSense knowledge. On a whole the results were fantastic but a special mention must go to Esteem, ADD3, Centralis, ISC and Point to Point whose delegates on the day achieved the top grades.

Most walked away from the event feeling that the content was very relevant, and already asking the dates for the next University. We all look forward to seeing you all again next time.

Photo taken from midway back, right hand side of the room

Wyse เปิดตัว thin client รุ่น Viance ที่ได้รับการออกแบบโดยเฉพาะสำหรับ Citrix XenDesktop โดยคำนึงถึงการใช้งานสูงสุดและให้มีการจัดการน้อยที่สุด

Wyse รุ่น Viance สามารถ login เข้าระบบแม่ข่าย Citrix XenDesktop ภายในเวลาไม่กี่วินาที และด้วยความสามารถของ Wyse TCX ที่เป็น virtual software ภายในตัวเอง ทำให้ Wyse รุ่น Viance เป็น thin client เดียวที่สามารถทำงานกับ multimedia รายละเอียดสูง และ รองรับการใช้งาน USB ทุกชนิด เมื่อทำงานใน session ของ XenDesktop

ด้วยการจัดการอัตโนมัติที่ง่าย และแทบไม่ต้องมีการฝึกอบรมการใช้งาน ทำให้ Wyse รุ่น Viance เป็น desktop appliance ที่เข้ามาลดงานบริหารจัดการและการบำรุงรักษาเครื่องคอมพิวเตอร์ทั่วๆ ไป

Wyse รุ่น Viance เป็น desktop appliance ที่ปราศจากฮาร์ดดิสก์และพัดลม ประหยัดพลังงานมากโดยใช้พลังงานไฟฟ้าเพียง 13.2 วัตต์ จึงปล่อยคาร์บอนน้อยกว่าเครื่องคอมพิวเตอร์พีซีสำหรับใช้ในธุรกิจทั่วๆ ไปมาก

Oct.26 – The company will provide the virtual desktop and infrastructure solution on their cloud platform named “GIO” on next Feb. A new buzz word DaaS (desktop as a service) is used in this announcement of Citrix Service Provider Program, they signed.

IIJ will also provide XenApp and XenDesktop in GIO environment.

J <http://release.nikkei.co.jp/detail.cfm?relID=234776&lindID=1>

Wyse สร้างมาตรฐานใหม่ของ Thin Client ขนาดเล็กแต่สมรรถนะสูง

Wyse C class Thin Client

Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C-class กลายเป็นมาตรฐานใหม่ใน Thin Computing ด้วยขนาดที่เล็ก สมรรถนะที่ยอดเยี่ยม และ ช่วยลดค่าใช้จ่าย Wyse ได้บรรจุนวัตกรรมใหม่ในการประมวลผล multimedia ด้วยการใช้ hardware graphic accelerator ที่แยกออกจากหน่วยประมวลผล การประมวลผล multimedia ด้วยตัวเองนี้จะช่วยลดภาระของเครื่องเซิรฟเวอร์ส่วนกลางลงซึ่งตรงกับแนวคิดสถาปัตยกรรมประมวลผลร่วมกัน หรือ Collaborative Processing Architecture ที่ริเริ่มโดย Wyse ในการใช้งานกับ VMware View 3.1 และ Wyse TCX หรือ Citrix XenDesktop

Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C-class ยังสามารถทำงานเป็น Zero Client ร่วมกับซอฟต์แวร์ Provisioning หรือ Streaming ต่างๆ เช่น Wyse WSM

ด้วยการใช้ hardware graphic accelerator ทำให้ Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C-class สามารถเล่น multimedia ความละเอียดสูงมากๆ ถึงระดับ 1080p HD

Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C- class ยังเป็นอุปกรณ์แรกๆ ที่ได้รับผ่านการรับรองมาตรฐานการประหยัดพลังงานขั้นสูงสุด Energy Star เวอร์ชั่น 5.0 แสดงให้เห็นว่าเป็นอุปกรณ์ที่มีประสิทธิภาพในการใช้พลังงานสูงสุดในบรรดาอุปกรณ์ประเภทเดียวกัน Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C- class เป็นอุปกรณ์ที่ใช้พลังงานไฟฟ้าน้อยมากเพียง 7 วัตต์เท่านั้น และสร้างความร้อนน้อยมาก นั่นหมายถึง Wyse Thin Client รุ่น C- class มีส่วนช่วยให้ที่ทำงานเย็นลง ลดปริมาณของคาร์บอนที่ต้องปล่อยลงอย่างมาก และ ช่วยประหยัดพลังงานไฟฟ้าได้มหาศาลเมื่อเทียบกับการใช้เครื่องคอมพิวเตอร์ทั่วไป

This Hotfix resolves an issue where Virtual Machines (VMs) on Intel Nehalem systems may crash during migration and/or some operations are performed on the console.

hotfix http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX122705

Thread: Abnormal VM Client reboot when user logs off

http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=250950&start=0&tstart=0

The error occurred while administrator is trying to view server’s current online users.

Symptoms
When trying to view user sessions in the Access Management Console, you receive the following error message:
“An error occurred try performing the task again. If the problem persists, contact support."

Cause
The Presentation Servers 4.5 server is in a mixed farm with Presentation Server 4.0 or earlier servers, and the data collector(s) is not a Presentation Server 4.5 server.

Resolution
1. In the Presentation Server Console, at the properties of the farm, select Zones.

2. For each zone in the farm, ensure that the server that is set to Most Preferred is a Presentation Server 4.5 server.

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX121672

Unless your head has been burried in the sand for the last year, terms like virtualisation and cloud computing should be starting to sound as familiar as your morning alarm clock. So you’re probably thinking, “What’s new?”…well here we go…

The Virtualisation vendor battle continues, with Microsoft and Citrix releasing stats on their market share for virtualisation projects, each with differing results. These two vendors certainly have increased efforts in this area and have increased the money, time, resource and marketing budgets alike. Here at Servo we try to take an unbiased approach. We have carried out many virtualisation excercises on all three platforms (VMware, Microsoft and Citrix) and there are significant benefits to be had from all three platforms which very much depend on the customers target environment. Interestingly VMware are claiming that 89% of all virtualised applications in the world are sitting on VMware. Not a bad statistic from the market leader.

The ability to drastically reduce the number of servers in your data centre is a no brainer for most, however there seems to be a changing landscape when looking at the driving force behind virtualisation projects.

The No. 1 objective for clients today when undertaking a virtualisation exercise is to improve business continuity and disaster recovery. From a business continuity perspective, our customers are looking to eliminate downtime as much as possible, often in many cases, entirely removing downtime from the business! We now work in an age where availability provides the edge, and downtime costs money, lots of money!

One point i was recently reminded of by a customer is, Planned downtime is still downtime! Virtualisation technologies allows for hardware maintenance without the need to plan downtime or schedule work out of hours. Through the use of tools like VMware’s Vmotion and high availability, users can migrate live virtual servers from one physical host to another, which will allow for maintenance to be carried out. When you consider on average over 60% of downtime is planned, this alone can help customers dramatically.

This is all well and good, but what about the unplanned downtime? VMware’s vSphere 4 now includes enhanced tools for continuity, including the all new Fault tolerance for critical applications. Quite simple, this provides clustering like technology without the massive headache usually expereinced when trying to implement high availability clustering. By creating a mirrored copy of the virtual machine on a different host, if the primary host fails, the mirrored copy takes over, providing continual service with zero downtime. This is advised only for highly critical applications as resources are effectively doubled in the mirrored copy.

As we see more businesses adopt server virtualisation trends are becoming clear. On average, customer deployments of server virtualisation are stopping at 30% of the server estate. As with most new technologies, businesses tread carefully at first and virtualisation is no exception, if anything, the first steps into virtualisation represent a huge risk. For this reason, customers will look to virtualise the “low hanging fruit” first, services such as file and print, AD servers, and less critical business applications. More often than not we see the projects slow as larger, more demanding, and critical applications come into the fold. What will be the impact of bringing exchange onto the virtual platform, how will our database server react to running in a virtual environment?

VMware’s new CapacityIQ tool, recently released, now provides customers the ability to asses of the impact on the virtual environment, should further apps be added. It can also be used to provide intelligence on resource usage patterns so further resources requirements can be accurately planned for.

Why stop at the server? With yesterdays release of Windows 7, the desktop will surely be ear marked for virtualisation. As the majority of businesses never made the jump to Vista, they now face a full OS upgrade to get to 7. Not a simple task, certainly as the desktop count increases, the upgrade resource is likely to hit the roof. Bringing the desktops into the data centre will streamline and simplify management, reduce maintenance costs and support costs and provides an opportunity to increase security.

So what is stopping you? Well besides the initial financial outlay, the time and the human resource to carry out such a significant project, the end user experience is key.

There is little benefit to be had if the end user experience is not as good, or better. Support calls will increase as user find themselves with an unfamiliar desktops and lost personal settings. The bigger the deployment, the bigger the challenge. We have been working with vendors in this area to provide end users with the look and feel of a personalised desktop, whilst still only maintaining a standard desktop image.

But what about my storage costs? The cost of disk space in a fat client is cheaper than ever, with some sources claiming as low as £0.2o per GB as the cost of storage. Bringing the desktop into the data centre means users data will now reside on enterprise class storage at a far higher cost. The good news is, technologies such as de-duplication and storage optimisation can reduce this impact.

I’m out of the office, now what? How do you provide a desktop to your users when they have no connectivity out of the office? A very valid concern! New technologies from the virtualisation vendors allow for offline desktop mode. A user can download a copy of his/her desktop to the client, fully encrypted and work on this desktop copy whilst out of the office. When they next connect to the network, the changes are copied back.

Both desktop and server virtualisation present a real opportunity for businesses to reduce costs on a huge scale. Coupled with the opportunity to reduce management time and support costs, these solutions surely cannot be ignored.

Servo has helped many clients take this a step further with our mature private cloud offering. Having invested over £1million in state of the art technology, our private cloud boasts best of breed storage, servers, software and networking. This tried and tested platform has been used to deploy applications as a service for many clients. With little start up investment required, our customers can deploy new applications out of our Tier 3 datacentre with ease.

For more information on Servo’s cloud offering or  to discuss how we can assist with virtualisation projects visit www.servo.co.uk

I had the pleasure of attending a recent VMware vForum. It was rather good all around. The speakers were knowledgeable, though a little dry at times and there is always someone who knows a little more than me that I can sit and throw questions at.

I had the opportunity to talk to one of VMware’s lead View engineers. Great guy. Energetic and full of information.

During his talk he specifically said that View deployments right now are taking 18 months if the customer does it themselves and 6 months if the customer uses a partner.

This is a great advertisement for VMware partners and consultants.

And this isn’t a big surprise to me. See my previous post for why:  http://rx4it.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/virtualization-is-sexy/

What is a surprise is that he admitted it in front of all those potential customers (150+ attendees in that break-out session). He is just being honest, which is awesome. And it will also apply to XenDesktop.

I cringed a bit. Here’s why: He is talking about XP deployments. (At least I have to assume he is. Even preferred Microsoft customers haven’t had Windows7 for 18 months).

If you start a full desktop refresh (thick clients) of a major enterprise from XP to Windows7,  it would take a lot of testing, torture testing, time and more testing.  There are so many things to think about.  Time is not on your side.

I know a few hospital systems that took a full 18 months to migrate to XP from 2000.  One I can think of isn’t even done yet.

Now, let’s assume you are going to do VDI. Everything is different. Now that Windows7 is official (as of today), would you start a new VDI (View4 or XD4) implementation and put all that time into making XP work?  Some will. But what an opportunity you’ve lost.

Windows7 will be the Virtual Desktop of the future. Sooner rather than later. And it makes sense. I’ve been playing with the Release Candidate for months and I just installed the production version on my daily use machine. It’s great.

But back to the point: So now, an enterprise must take all the time to test Windows7 on a large scale and then add a minimum of 6 months to 18 months to test and deploy VDI? *cringe*

Or the alternative… implement VDI with XP. It’s safer and will save some application compatibility testing but it will waste time in the long run.

Healthcare IT (HIT) departments, currently already at a feverish pace to push out eHR, eRx and anything else that is going to get them to meaningful use, don’t have that kind of time right now.

2012 is coming fast.