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Windows 7 Registry Optimizations for Virtual Desktops

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:17:20 -0700

In another blog, I discussed Windows 7 services that you might wish to disable when going down the path of desktop virtualization. In this article, I'm now focusing on registry modification you will want to make to optimize Windows 7 for virtual desktops. I've broken it down into Recommended configurations, Standard Mode configurations (for Provisioning services), and Optional configurations.

As I learn more from upcoming Windows 7 implementations, I'll be updating the following tables, so it might be worthwhile to stay updated with RSS or subscribe via Email. Now, for the good stuff...

Recommended Configurations

The following registry changes are recommended for all deployment scenarios and would almost always be desirable in a Windows 7 hosted VM-based VDI desktop implementation:

Configuration	Optimizer	Registry Modification (in REG format)
Disable Last Access Timestamp	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem] "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate"=dword:00000001
Disable Large Send Offload	No	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BNNS\Parameters] "EnableOffload"=dword:00000000
Disable TCP/IP Offload	No	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "DisableTaskOffload"=dword:00000001
Increase Service Startup Timeout	No	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control] "ServicesPipeTimeout"=dword:0002bf20
Hide Hard Error Messages	No	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows] "ErrorMode"=dword:00000002
Disable CIFS Change Notifications	No	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] "NoRemoteRecursiveEvents"=dword:00000001
Disable Logon Screensaver	No	[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] "ScreenSaveActive"="0"

Note: The Optimizer column indicates whether this registry change is included in the XenConvert Optimizer tool that is installed with the Provisioning Services target device software.

Standard Mode Recommended Configurations

The next set of registry changes are recommended for images deployed using standard mode vDisk images with Citrix Provisioning services. Standard mode images are unique in that they are restored to the original state at each reboot, deleting any newly written or modified data. In this scenario, certain processes are no longer efficient. These configurations may also apply when deploying persistent images and in many cases should be implemented in addition to the changes recommended in the preceding section.

Configuration	Optimizer	Registry Modification (in REG format)
Disable Clear Page File at Shutdown	Yes	HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management] "ClearPageFileAtShutdown"=dword:00000000
Disable Offline Files	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache] "Enabled"=dword:00000000
Disable Background Defragmentation	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction] "Enable"="N"
Disable Background Layout Service	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout] "EnableAutoLayout"=dword:00000000
Disable Bug Check Memory Dump	Yes	[HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl] "CrashDumpEnabled"=dword:00000000 "LogEvent"=dword:00000000" SendAlert"=dword:00000000
Disable System Restore	Yes	[Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\SystemRestore] "DisableSR"=dword:00000001
Disable Hibernation	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Power] "Heuristics"=hex:05,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,3f,42,0f,00
Disable Memory Dumps	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl] "CrashDumpEnabled"=dword:00000000 "LogEvent"=dword:00000000 "SendAlert"=dword:00000000
Disable Mach. Acct. Password Changes	Yes	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters] "DisablePasswordChange"=dword:00000001
Redirect Event Logs	No	Set appropriate path based on environment.HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application] "File"="D:\EventLogs\Application.evtx" [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Security] "File"="D:\EventLogs\Security.evtx" [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\System] "File"="D:\EventLogs\System.evtx"
Reduce Event Log Size to 64K	Yes	HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Application] "MaxSize"=dword:00010000 [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\Security] "MaxSize"=dword:00010000 [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Eventlog\System] "MaxSize"=dword:00010000

Optional Configurations

This last set of machine-based registry changes is optional regardless of whether the image is deployed as a persistent or standard image. In many cases, the following configurations should be implemented; however, these configurations should be analyzed for suitability to each unique environment.

Configuration	Justification	Registry Modification (in REG format)
Disable Move to Recycle Bin	Although the recycle bin will be deleted on subsequent reboots, disabling this service altogether might pose a risk in that users will not be able to recover files during their session. Although this setting is part of the optimizer, it might be advantageous to not disable the Recycle Bin.	[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucket] "UseGlobalSettings"=dword:00000001 "NukeOnDelete"=dword:00000001

Note: These are only recommendations. You should implement these at your own risk

Remember, you can stay current with this and other Windows 7 virtual desktop recommendations via the Virtualize My Desktop - Windows 7 site.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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Cache is King

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:58:13 -0700

Speed. More speed. And to get more speed with desktop virtualization, we hear more and more about how important IOPS are to being able to support the virtual desktop. Not enough IOPS means slowness. No speed. I've had a few blogs about it and plan to have a few more. What I wanted to talk about was an interesting discussion I recently had with 3 Senior Architects within Citrix Consulting(Doug Demskis, Dan Allen and Nick Rintalan). There are 3 smart guys who I talk to fairly regularly and the discussions get quite interesting.

This particular discussion was no different. We were talking about the importance of IOPS, RAID configs, spindle speeds with regards to an enterprise's SAN infrastructure. (Deciding if you are going to use a SAN for your virtual desktops is a completely different discussion that I've had before and Brian Madden had more recently). But for the sake of this article, let's say you've decided "Yes, I will use my SAN." If your organization already has an enterprise SAN solution, chances are that the solution has controllers with plenty of cache. Does this make the IOPS discussion a moot point? If we simply use an IOPS calculator (at least the ones I've seen) and do not take into account the caching capabilities of the SAN controllers, won't we over-provision our virtual desktop environment and end up wasting more money/resources?

Many of us who are familiar with XenDesktop knows that changes made to the golden disk image, when delivered via Provisioning services, is stored in a PVS Write Cache. From numerous tests and implementations, we know that 80-90% of the IO activity from a virtual desktop will be writes. If we configure the SAN Controllers to be 75% write (assuming we have battery-backed write cache controllers), we allow the controllers to allocate more cache for write operations, thus helping to offload the write IO to the disk, which raises the number of effective IOPS the storage infrastructure can support. Think of the controller's caching capabilities as a large buffer for our disks. If our disks can only support so many write operations, the controller cache stores the writes until the disk is able to write it to the platter. This cache allows the infrastructure to keep moving forward with new operations even though the previous operations were not written to the disk yet. They are all buffered. Just remember, we aren't reducing the total number of IO operations, we are just buffering them with the controller cache.

Think about it another way. If we encounter a storm where each user will require 10MB of write operations and the storage controller has a 4GB cache, that one controller can support 400+ simultaneous users for this particular storm, and we haven't even talked about the disk IOPS yet!!! With this scenario, wouldn't a single disk spindle be able to support this particular storm because the controller is buffering everything? And what's also interesting is those write operations are being flushed to disk continuously so the number of users the controller will be able to support would be much, much higher.

So if we have cache on our controllers, which most SAN controllers I've seen lately have, are we over designing the storage infrastructure by only focusing on IOPS? (this is assuming you are using SAN and not local disks on your hypervisor which I talk about a lot as well). Just remember that those write operations must eventually get written to disk. So if we know what our controller cache is capable of, and we know the amount of storage required for a particular storm (logon, boot, logoff, etc), can't we support more users (and I mean a lot more users) on the SAN?

What do you think?

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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With VDI, Local Disk Is A Thing Of The Past

(author unknown) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:21:25 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Great analysis and discussion of the CapEx of using a SAN vs using local disks.

Last week I read a few interesting articles about storage in desktop virtualization, VDI in particular. The consensus is that this storage belongs on local disk, not the SAN. One industry expert even says you can use SSDs locally and ...
All DABCC Virtualization & Cloud... - http://www.dabcc.com/allarticles.aspx

Cache Matters

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:00:09 -0700

It almost sounds like I'm talking about personal finances. You better plan your cache appropriately or you will run out. I'm not talking about money; I'm talking about system memory (although if you plan poorly we will quickly be talking about money).

It comes down to this... system cache is a powerful feature allowing a server to service requests extremely fast because instead of accessing disks, blocks of data are retrieved from RAM. Provisioning services relies on fast access to the blocks within the disk image (vDisk) to stream to the target devices. The faster the requests are serviced, the faster the target will receive. Allocating the largest possible size for the system cache should allow Provisioning services to store more of the vDisk into RAM as opposed to going to the physical disk.

Not planning system cache appropriately is the 8th mistake made when deploying virtual desktops

10. Not calculating user bandwidth requirements

9. Not considering the user profile

8. Lack of Application Virtualization Strategy

7. Improper Resource Allocation

6. Protection from Anti-Virus

5. Managing the incoming storm

4. Not Optimizing the Desktop Image

Unfortunately, many environments are not configured optimally. Simply adding RAM to a Provisioning services server is not enough; the system must be configured appropriately.

Parameter	Description
Operating System	The operating system plays a large role in how large the system cache can become. * Windows Server 2003/2008 x32: 960 MB * Windows Server 2003/2008/2008 R2 x64: 1 TB Because the 64 bit operating system can have a larger system cache, a larger portion of the vDisk can be stored in RAM, which is recommended. Windows 2008 is recommended over 2003 because of the improvements in the memory manager subsystem, which has shown some improvements.
RAM	8-32GB of RAM The more RAM allocated for the server, the larger the system cache can become. The larger the cache means vDisks reads will be faster. If you have more vDisks, you will need more RAM. A quick estimate is to plan for 2GB of RAM/Cache for each vDisk you will host. If you want more details, then I recommend the great article: Advanced Memory and Storage Considerations for Provisioning Servicescreated by Dan Allen (Sr. Architect at Citrix). It goes into the details of how Windows deals with cache.
vDisk Storage	The vDisk can be stored on just about any type of storage (iSCSI, Fiber, local, NFS, CIFS, etc). However, there are a few instances where the storage selected will have an impact on how the Provisioning services server's operating system caches the vDisk blocks. 1. Network Drive: If the Provisioning services server sees the vDisk drive as a network drive via a UNC path, the server will not cache the file. 2. CIFS Share: If the storage infrastructure is a network CIFS share, Provisioning services will not cache the vDisk in memory.
Optimizations	In Windows Server 2003, large system cache must be enabled by configuring the server's performance options, which is shown in the figure to the right. In Windows Server 2008, this setting is not required due to the enhancements in the memory allocation system. Windows 2008 utilizes a dynamic kernel memory assignment that reallocates portions of memory on-the-fly, while previous versions had these values hard set during startup. As Windows 2008 requires more system cache, the operating system will dynamically allocate.

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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20,000 User Reference Design Webinar Q-A

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 07:30:50 -0700

For those of you who missed the June 18th TechTalk on the design for a 20,000 user environment, missed out. Well, not really. Luckily, we recorded the presentation so you can watch it whenever you desire. As you know, the webinar was based on a reference design for a 70,000 user school district. Links to the materials are as follows:

In addition to the materials, we also had some really great questions during the webinar, which I've answered below:

Yes
No
Maybe
No Way
Of Course
Possibly
You are Crazy!!!
E-MC2

Just kidding, the questions you are probably more interested in are as follows:

Q: Can you go over a little more on the RAM requirements that you need for the virtual desktops?
A: Sure. Scalability tests conducted were able to run Windows 7 with 768MB of RAM. However, in an actual real-world implementation, you will most likely need more than that. First, you need to break your users down into different categories (Light, Normal and Power). As you move through these, the users will require more RAM. Based on the student population, high school users will use more apps than middle school or elementary. Thus we need to allocate more RAM for those groups of users.

Q: Great Webinar - Did you experience latency problems using Streaming Applications
A: If you mean in the launching of applications, yes. Streamed applications will take longer to start than installed applications. What we did to help shorten the time (still not the same) was to move the RadeCache for the streamed applications to the virtual desktop's D Drive, which is persistent across reboots. That means the application cache stays put and is reused for subsequent launches. Of course it still isn't as fast as installed because streamed applications also validate the application cache is correct.

Q: how did you design HA for PXE services
A: You will need redundancy in your DHCP environment. Unfortunately, DHCP can only give you 1 address for the TFTP server. If we integrate NetScaler VPX into the environment, we can perform load balancing for the TFTP server. So with 1 IP address we automatically balance across X number of TFTP servers. And NetScaler is smart enough to know when TFTP is down and it will not forward requests onto i

Q: Virtualization of PVS. How many workloads is the cutover between PVS virtual and PVS physical. I guess 2000 desktops = physical PVS , @40 XenApp servers = Virtual PVS is ok? Can you comment ..ta
A: No good answer, unfortunately. Can you virtualize PVS... Yes. Do we recommend it? Not for large, enterprise deployments. Most people agree that server virtualization makes sense for workloads that do not fully consume a system resources. PVS does not fit as it will utilize your NIC to the fullest. Putting PVS on the hypervisor offers little benefit. However, for small deployments, 200 virtual desktops, you won't fully utilize the NIC and might be able to consolidate some servers

Q: How can you figure out network overhead on your environment using PVS streaming to XenDesktop host
A: Testing
PVS is bursty. You only get traffic when you need more of the vDisk. When you do your pilot, you can look to see how much network traffic PVS is generating for a XenDesktop virtual desktop. Some guidelines are as follows: 1 Gbps NIC should be able to support 500 virtual desktop streams. Booting Windows 7 requires roughly 200-230 MB of data across the wire. As you use Office, 300 more MB is transferred (assuming you are using PowerPoint, Word and Excel). Once that data has been transferred, utilization drops until you need more of the vDisk. Although it is bursty, you need to have enough capacity (bandwidth) to support your storms (boot, logon, logoff)

Q: what was the plan for fault tolerance on the virtual desktops if using local storage?
A: Users log onto another virtual desktop. If we assume the desktops are throw away machines, then there should be nothing relevant for the user. Their files, data, and personalization should be on a network share and not on the virtual desktop. If the server fails, a user just connects to a new virtual desktop

Q: What kind of impact do techs like WAAS and Riverbed have on this type of network traffic?
A: Not certain. The challenge technologies will have is HDX is encrypted. In order for these devices to do caching/compression, they must be able to decrypt the traffic. Once the optimization solution can read the HDX packets, it can then compress not only within a single session, but across perform cross-session compression for users within the same office or school. But then before the packets are placed on the WAN, the traffic must be re-encrypted to protect the data.

Q: You actually assumed no dial-up?!? Nice neighborhood.
A: There will be dial-up, but just not from the schools. Students can dial into their ISPs or connect via DSL or cable modem and get access to the environment remotely. This means we will want to optimize the HDX protocol for low-bandwidth situations, like those dial-up users

Q: What RAID type for the Virtual Desktop servers?
A: RAID 10 (1+0). We have 8 spindles on each hypervisor that will support the virtual desktops. This allows us to not require the use of a SAN because 8 spindles should allow for enough IOPS to support the expected virtual desktop load. RAID 10 gives us fault tolerance, but without the huge write penalties we would get with RAID 5.

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Remember to optimize the desktop image

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:17:40 -0700

Building a virtual desktop is simply a matter of installing the Windows operating system. Right? Slow down... although this will work, it won't give you the best performance and scalability. One of the items that many people mistakenly forget to accomplish is to optimize the base operating system. This is the 7th mistake out of the top 10 mistakes made with virtual desktops:

10. Not calculating user bandwidth requirements

9. Not considering the user profile

8. Lack of Application Virtualization Strategy

7. Improper Resource Allocation

6. Protection from Anti-Virus

5. Managing the incoming storm

Most people spend time creating a customized standard operating environment for their desktop operating systems. This often involves specific location settings, default application settings, and desktop descriptions. However, when delivering an operating system into a virtual desktop, many organizations do not go far enough to optimize the desktop for the virtualized environment. Whether the desktop is a hosted VM-based VDI desktop, a local streamed desktop or a hosted shared desktop, certain optimizations allow the hardware to focus on user-related tasks as opposed to extraneous system-related tasks. The following are examples of virtual desktop optimizations:

Disable Last Access Timestamp: Each time a file is accessed within an operating system, a time stamp is updated to identify when that file was last accessed. Booting up an operating system accesses hundreds and thousands of files, all of which must be updated. Each action requires disk and CPU time that would be better used for user-related tasks. Also, if Provisioning services is used to deliver the desktop image, those changes are removed when the desktop is rebooted.
Disable Screen Saver: Utilizing a graphical screen saver consumes precious memory and CPU cycles when the user is not even using the desktop. Those processes should be freed and used by other users. If screen savers are required for security purposes, then simply blanking the screen should be invoked as this does not impact the memory and CPU consumption.
Disable Unneeded Features: Windows 7 contains many valuable components like Media Center, Windows DVD Maker, Tablet PC Components, and Games. These applications are memory, CPU and graphics intensive and are often not required in most organizations. If these components are made available to users, they will be used. It is advisable to remove unneeded services before deploying the first images.

These are only a few recommendations, but it is obvious that optimizations have a major impact on the virtual desktop environment. I've started building a list of optimizations for virtual Windows 7 desktops, which can be found in the [Windows 7 â€] section of the Virtualize My Desktop site. If you are looking to optimize Windows XP, then you can find that in the Windows XP Optimizationdocument.

Stay tuned for more.

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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Introducing the New XenDesktop Design Handbook

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:37:34 -0700

All I want is a list of documents that will help me design my XenDesktop environment. Who else wants the same thing? I bet many of you are saying "Yes, Me too!!" That's great and everything but how do you know when a new white paper is released that relates to XenDesktop design? Do you keep your own personal library of white papers for XenDesktop design? And even more, how do you keep informed when updates are made to previously released white papers?

I've got a special treat for you, the NEW XenDesktop Design Handbook. Instead of trying to create a 1,000 page document that discusses all of the different design options and best practices, we are creating a kit for XenDesktop architects. In the kit you will find some goodies:

Reference Architectures
Reference Designs
Implementation Guides
Planning Guides

This is just the start. If you subscribe to the kit, you will be able to receive notifications when updates are made to the Design Handbook. We are in the process of developing many new best practice documents focused on different design areas that you won't want to miss. Interested yet? Then how about I give you the link to the NEW XenDesktop Design Handbook (you must log on to MyCitrix).

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Twitter: @djfeller
Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions? Email Ask The Architect

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Antivirus Protection - Good and Bad

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:18:24 -0700

Someone save me from antivirus. Did you read that correctly? I said save me from antivirus.

Odd isn't it? Anti-virus is there to protect us, but we also need to be protected from antivirus. Antivirus solutions are critical, even in a virtual desktop environment. Many people believe that because a hosted VM-based virtual desktop image is created from a real-only image that they are immune from virus. That is only partially true. When you reboot, the virus goes away because the changes to the base image are destroyed (including the virus), but what about that time period between getting infected and the next reboot? Those few hours are dangerous and it is why antivirus is takes up the number 6 spot in the Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid with Desktop Virtualization:

10. Not calculating user bandwidth requirements

9. Not considering the user profile

8. Lack of Application Virtualization Strategy

7. Improper Resource Allocation

If using hosted shared desktops or hosted VM-based VDI desktops, those virtual desktops are located within the data center with other critical systems. If a virus made it into the data center, the entire infrastructure is at serious risk. However, simply adding an antivirus solution to the virtual desktop can protect the environment. So what's the big deal? Just do it right? Well, nothing is as simple as one expects it to be. Antivirus can have a major impact on the virtualization infrastructure, and even cause users to experience poor virtual desktop performance, if done improperly.

If the virtual desktops are streamed with Provisioning services, and those desktops start a full system scan at roughly the same time. Provisioning services only streams the portions of the disk image that are required. However, if a full system scan is done, those virtual desktops will eventually request the entire vDisk image. This not only overwhelms the network and Provisioning services, but also impacts the storage infrastructure as the write cache is utilized and explodes in size. Overcoming these issues is a fairly easy matter and is based on the following recommendations:

The desktop image must be free from viruses. It is recommended to do a full system scan in private image (read/write) mode. This guarantees the image is clean.
When the desktop image is in standard mode (read-only), the antivirus should be configured as follows:
1. Only scan create/modify activities of files
2. Scan on write events only
3. Scan local drives only
4. Exclusions
  1. Pagefile
  2. Print Spooler directory
  3. Write cache file
  4. EdgeSight database
  5. ICA client's bitmap cache directory
5. Remove the antivirus configurations from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows
  \Current Version\Run registry key
Reconfigure antivirus so that the virus definitions file is stored on a persistent diskso antivirus doens't have to download the entire definition file on each startup.

These will help overcome antivirus headaches.

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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BriForum 2010 Lessons Learned

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:08:18 -0700

For those of you who didn't know, last week was BriForum and I was able to attend as a speaker and as an attendee. I think it was a great event, and I believe it was the largest one ever, so congratulations to Brian, Gabe and the TechTarget team.
What did I learn last week? I learned 10 things, which ironically fits nicely into this blog. Without wasting more of your time, here are the Top 10 Things I Learned At BriForum all for your enjoyment

10.Lou Malnati's is great pizza and only 2 blocks from the hotel. Is there anything better than Chicago Deep Dish pizza?

9. During the keynote, many people plan to go down the Windows 7 route, but hardly anyone has done it yet. Nothing really Earth-shattering but just proves the point that Windows 7 will be a major force by 2012. For now, your best bet is to start planning and get ready for your migration because it will take time.

8. The Citrix employees have a good sense of humor. One session joked about the number of consoles XenDesktop has. It was even stated that maybe Citrix needs a console to manage consoles or that secretly Citrix collects consoles. Every Citrix employee in the room, including myself, was laughing pretty hard.

7. There is more to HDX/ICA than the protocol. Citrix spent 15+ years optimizing the protocol. I knew many of these items already but I still learned a few more things like how scrolling is optimized. For example, if you scroll in Excel vertical, horizontal or diagonal, the data new screen data isn't sent again, the endpoint is simply told to shift position. Cool.

6. Anyone that does Windows 7 64bit migration better have a Plan B when apps fail to function. Most common option for organizations, according to Shawn Bass, is to leverage XenApp.

5. Cloudbursting your XenApp environment into the cloud is possible as demonstrated by Rick Dehlinger and Jim Moyle, but no cloud provider was able to meet their 7 requirements for enterprise deployment. Only SoftLayer performed the best by reaching 6.

4. Profiles were a major focus (big surprise). A talk focused on the differences between profile streaming and profile segmentation as ways to optimize the user profile. In essence, profile segmentation requires application knowledge, profile streaming does not. However, profile segmentation also allows one to migrate their settings to Windows 7. And it seemed to me that although profile segmentation required more work, the value was greater.

3. Profile redirection is oftentimes a good thing until we focus on the AppData folder. If we redirect the folder, we optimize logon but might make apps slower. So do you start with the fastest logon and take the hit in the application performance or vice versa. Seems like taking a logon hit is better as it only happens once, whereas having application performance issues might make the application unusable. Best option is to pick one approach, then use profile solution to optimize further.

2. If users get something great, they will oftentimes accept missing functionality. The perfect example is the iPad and multitasking. The same can be said for virtual desktops. If the experience is better than their traditional desktop, users might accept missing functionality. Maybe it isn't experience, maybe it is availability, functionality, speed, etc? What can you give your users?

1. Most desktops are not mission critical. They do not require expensive storage. Steve Greenberg even asked why when we do desktop virtualization do people all of the sudden believe the desktop is critical when the traditional desktop is simply garbage and disposable? No idea and a great question. That is why Paul Wilson and I have been speaking about using local storage instead of SAN storage for your virtual desktops. It is also why we typically don't see people implementing live migration for their virtual desktops.

There are plenty of other interesting points from BriForum and many interesting sessions. I know I'll be spending more time watching the recordings from the sessions I couldn't attend and re-watching a few of the sessions I could attend. But overall, it was a great week and nice to hear other perspectives.

See you in 2011

Daniel - Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect

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In the future, will datacenter-hosted VDI desktops be two-thirds of all use cases?

(author unknown) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:30:23 -0700

Shared by Daniel
I don't think 2/3 will happen by 2016. too many user requirements will dictate the need for different types of virtual desktops. Also, the discussion about Moore's Law is interesting but not likely to happen as Apps and OSes consume more and more resources, which counterbalance the improved speed of the chips.

At BriForum 2010 last week, I was lucky enough to co-present a breakout session with Chetan Venkatesh called " Deconstructing Brian's Paradox: VDI is here, like it or not ." As you can probably guess, I'm the "Brian" in "Brian's Paradox," so it was a really fun session to present! The idea for this session was based on the culmination of five separate articles I wrote over the past year: Introducing “Madden’s Paradox”: the gotcha of...

Windows 7 Migration at BriForum

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:16:55 -0700

What would you say if I were to tell you that migrating to a virtual desktop was no different than if you were going to migrate to Windows 7? I'm being serious. Migrating a user to a virtual desktop has many similarities to migrating a user to Windows 7 on a traditional desktop. With a Windows 7 migration, we are concerned with hardware, operating system, applications, personalization, and more. With a virtual desktop migration, we are focused on hardware, operating system, applications, personalization and more. Same focus areas. Interesting
Of course there are some differences. For example, regardless of the path you are taking, most organizations will create their "Corporate Desktop Image". At its core, the standard desktop image would have similar configurations like removing games, disabling Media Center, adding anti-virus software, etc. This would be done if Windows 7 were on a traditional desktop or on a virtual desktop. But on the virtual desktop we will likely do more. We will likely do things like:

Disable unused Windows services
Modify the behavior of the De-fragmentation subsystem
Disable the Background Layout Service after it has executed once
Clean and optimize the image before deployment

Not only that, but with a virtualized Windows 7 environment we will also modify certain aspects to provide greater responsiveness for the user. These are important in certain FlexCast instances where the user is not sitting in front of the Windows 7 desktop. What optimizations am I talking about? How about the shadow of your mouse? Did you even know your mouse had a shadow. Honestly, I didn't. But simply disabling this little feature can provide greater responsiveness for the user.

These are the things I've been gathering from our Windows 7 deployments. These lessons learned will help you on your way to Windows 7. These are the things I am excited to be discussing during my BriForum session next week in Chicago. I hope to see you there. If you can't make it, then we will have to continue the Windows 7 migration on this community site or on the Virtualize My Desktop site where I'll have a Windows 7 Migration Resource Center that will cover lessons learned, tips/tricks, and best practices.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
Facebook Fan Page: Ask The Architect

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How Many Resources Do My Users Require

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:00:42 -0700

If you were asked what desktop resources your needed how would you answer? If you ask me what type of desktop I need, I'm going to say, 2+ cores with at least 4+ GB of RAM, 500+GB hard drive, etc. If you look at what I really need, you will see 1 core and maybe 2-3 GB of RAM. In fact, when I look at my resource consumption, I get close to 2.5 GB of RAM by the end of the day due to the number of applications I have running, memory leaks in some of my applications, and applications not freeing up memory when closed.

Like me, many users only consume a fraction of their total potential desktop computing power, which makes desktop virtualization extremely attractive. By sharing the resources between all users, the overall amount of required resources is reduced. However, there is a fine line between maximizing the number of users a single server can support and providing the user with a good virtual desktop computing experience.
Improperly allocating resources to the virtual desktops is the 7th most common mistake make. Other mistakes, discussed previously, include:

10. Not calculating user bandwidth requirements

9. Not considering the user profile

8. Lack of Application Virtualization Strategy

One of the lessons we learned from virtual desktop implementations is trying to push the hypervisor, any hypervisor, too hard results in a poor user experience. The following recommendations help optimizing the environment by focusing on the hypervisor:

Parameter	Hypervisor	Description
CPU Allocation	Citrix XenServer Microsoft Hyper-V VMware vSphere	Users should start with a single vCPU and be granted a second if needed due to the following: Most user-based applications are only single-threaded and will not benefit from a multiple CPU configuration. Many user applications do not require significant amounts of processing, which negates the need for more CPU power. By allocating multiple vCPUs for each virtual desktop, extra resources are required to switch requests across the different cores.
Command Tuning	Citrix XenServer Microsoft Hyper-V VMware vSphere	The XenDesktop controller sends low-level commands to the hypervisor layer to perform tasks on the virtual machines (start, stop, reboot, etc). If too many tasks are sent out simultaneously, the connection to the hypervisor layer can become sporadic. These tasks often have a large impact on the server resources, which impacts the users. It is advisable to throttle the number of commands sent
Transparent Page Sharing	VMware vSphere	Transparent Page Sharing allows the vSphere hypervisor to share portions of memory that are identical between virtual machines. This has the potential to improve the virtual desktop performance by having a positive impact on memory consumption.This feature will typically only provide value in older operating systems, like Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, which have 4KB memory pages. Newer operation systems, like Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, have large memory pages (2MB) by default. The larger memory pages makes the likelihood of finding exact duplicates of memory very difficult.
Memory Ballooning Memory Overcommit	VMware vSphere *Note*: XenServer and Hyper-V support for dynamic memory is new. It is assumed the results will be similar, but testing is required.	Memory ballooning or memory overcommit shifts RAM dynamically from idle virtual machines to active workloads. Memory ballooning artificially induces memory pressure within idle virtual machines, forcing them give back memory so other virtual machines can consume it (each hypervisor does it differently but the overall concepts are similar). In practical applications, this has shown to be an impediment to positive user experiences. Forcing virtual desktops to free up memory is only a temporary solution. If a large group of idle or low-usage virtual desktops become active (after lunch, for example), they will require more memory. But if many of the virtual desktops on the same hypervisor are experiencing increased loads, where will the extra memory come from? With no free memory, the hypervisor is forced to page to disk, which is slow. A desktop is not a server. A desktop is running desktop applications which often have more memory leaks and poor cleanup processes when compared to server applications. Most desktops consume more memory as the day progresses due to these leaks, which will put strain on any overcommit feature. It is advisable to disable this feature.

What other suggestions do you have for optimizing the hypervisor in a desktop virtualization world? I expect to hear quite a few comments, especially around memory overcommit and ballooning portion.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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Tough Choices on the Virtual Desktop Horizon

(author unknown) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:31:51 -0700

Shared by Daniel
There are a lot of big questions with virtual desktops, but you have to look at virtual desktops as not a single option, but a multitude of options. In essence, you need to determine if it is better to have the user and the virtual desktop separate by great distances or located together. These are two of the main virtual desktop options. Once you answer that question, you can further drill down based on user requirements.

I believe it all comes down to options. Simply thinking that desktop virtualization means desktops in the data center and users wherever is limited thinking. There are so many more options.

Is this really the right time to deploy a virtual desktop architecture? That seems to be the question of the year as enterprises struggle with the twin goals of reducing IT overhead while increasing data capacity and processing capability.

What is your application virtualization strategy?

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 05:38:31 -0700

Your organization is full of apps and you are probably not even aware of 50% of them. How does this relate to desktop virtualization? Well, many people fail in their desktop virtualization endeavors because they do not consider application virtualization, which is the 8th common mistake made when deploying virtual desktops followed by:
10. Not calculating user bandwidth requirements

9. Not considering the user profile

Desktop virtualization can be successful without an application virtualization strategy, but only in certain situations, and typically only in smaller, less complex environments. One of the primary goals of desktop virtualization is to simplify the management of the desktop environment. One way of accomplishing this goal is to reduce the number of images. By removing the applications from the desktop image, we need fewer images. Easy

However, the primary factor that often dictates the need for additional desktop images are application sets.

Organizations typically deal with this challenge in one of three ways:

Installing every application into a standard desktop image
Creating multiple images with different application sets based on different user groups
Removing the applications from the desktop image and delivering via application virtualization

All three of these options are valid and work in different scenarios. However, applying one of these options to the wrong environment will result in major challenges as the following examples demonstrate.

One organization installed all of their business applications within a single desktop image. After the image was created and tested, it worked fairly well until certain applications required updates. Those updates sometimes caused issues with the other applications that did not appear until the image was fully deployed. Users also started to express confusion why they could see all of the applications but were unsure what they were supposed to do with them. The user experience could have been improved by removing the non-standard applications from the desktop image and delivering via application virtualization.

In another example, an organization tried to over design a virtual desktop solution by doing the following:

A small organization consisting of 200 users implemented a virtual desktop solution. Following the complete virtualization guidelines, the organization virtualized all of the applications via hosting and streaming technologies. Although the solution functioned for the users and integrated seamlessly, trying to maintain the different components became a struggle. As the organization only had 4 different application sets, it would have been easier to implement 4 desktop images instead of a complete application virtualization solution.

A proper application virtualization strategy must determine

If the number of desktop images is too great to manage effectively. As the number of images increase, the environment becomes more difficult to maintain. By virtualizing the applications, the number of images can be reduced significantly. If, on the other hand, only a few images are required, the time and effort to support an application virtualization solution outweighs the benefit.
If traditional (non-virtualized) desktops are still required within the organization. If the applications are virtualized, the traditional desktop management is simplified as these devices can utilize the virtualized applications.
If hosted applications are required or if all applications can be streamed to the desktop. By removing the hosted application component, the application virtualization aspect of the environment is simplified as fewer resources are required.

In many implementations, application virtualization is a necessity. Integrating those applications into the virtual desktop must also be done correctly. As a general recommendation, applications should be integrated into a virtual desktop as follows:

	Base	Anomalous	Resource Intensive	Technically Challenging
Description	Core applications required by all users	Unique custom-built Uncertified Terminal Services support	Heavy system resource consumption	Large, complex with many moving parts and dependencies Frequent updates
Examples	Office, Acrobat		CAD/CAM, data processing	Epic, Cerner, SAP
Suggested Approach	Installed in desktop image	Streamed to desktop image	Streamed to desktop image	Hosted on a XenApp server

You have options. But with any option, you need to make sure you are choosing a certain option for the correct reasons.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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This school is designed for Hyper-V and XenDesktop

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:01:47 -0700

To cluster or not to cluster, that was the question for the ABC School District. For those of you that read through the ABC School District reference design noticed that the environment was based on Microsoft Hyper-V. And not only that, it consisted of two distinct groupings:

Virtual Desktops
Infrastructure

Why the two groupings? Because we require different levels of availability for the virtual machines. From the school district's perspective, a desktop is not a server, it is a desktop. That means desktops do not require the same level of high-availability as server workloads. The Infrastructure group is clustered, meaning that the virtual servers are critical and can be live migrated to another Hyper-V server if needed. The Virtual Desktops group is not clustered. By splitting the components up into two different Hyper-V groupings, we can better align the technical functionality with the business requirements.

So besides the high-availability options, what else is different? The hardware

Component	Virtual Desktops	Infrastructure
Type	Rack mountable (2U)	Rack mountable (1U)
CPU	(2) Quad-Core Intel Xeon X5550 Processors	(2) Quad-Core Intel Xeon X5550 Processors
Memory	96 GB RAM	64 GB RAM
Disk	(8) 72GB 15,000RPM drivesRAID 1+0	(2) 72GB 15,000RPM drivesRAID 1
Disk Controller	Hardware-based with battery-backed write cache	Hardware-based with battery-backed write cache
Network	Embedded dual-port gigabitDual-port gigabit NIC 1, Port 0: Host/Guest traffic NIC 1, Port 1: Parent traffic NIC 2, Port 0: Host/Guest Traffic NIC 2, Port 1: Parent traffic	Embedded dual-port gigabitQuad-port gigabit NIC 1, Port 0: Host/Guest traffic NIC 1, Port 1: Storage traffic NIC 2, Port 0: Host/Guest Traffic NIC 2, Port 1: Storage traffic NIC 2, Port 2: Parent Traffic NIC 2, Port 3: Parent traffic

What you notice is that the virtual desktops have more disks configured, which is why the server is slightly larger (2U vs 1U). The additional drives are because the school district plans to use local drives for the Provisioning services write cache storage instead of more expensive SAN storage (money is tight in the school district). Based on the capacity estimates, 8 spindles should provide enough IOPS for the virtual desktops.

What else is different? The NICs. The Infrastructure servers have two additional ports that are used for storage traffic. Because the Infrastructure group is clustered, they require shared storage in order to support live migration. You should also notice that the two ports for the Host/Guest traffic and the two ports for the Storage traffic are on two different physical NICs. That also provides a level of fault tolerance. If one NIC fails, the virtual servers remain available.

These were just a few of the design areas for the ABC School District. If you want more, then I encourage you to look over the reference design as well as the other blogs on the ABC School District:

Also, if you want more details on Hyper-V design decisions, then take a look at Paul Wilson's white paper Hyper-V Design Guide.

If you want to hear more, then attend the TechTalk on June 18th

Would you have done it differently?Let me know

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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The Virtual School Is In Session, Please Take your Seats

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 06:50:09 -0700

Once upon a time, there was a little school (70,000 users) with a little problem (desktops over 5 years old) with a little idea. The school was trying to find a way to do more with the tax subsidies. The desktop environment was becoming ancient. The newest desktops were 5 years old with many more approaching 10 years. And because the district consisted of many different schools, there was little similarity. There were different endpoints, different applications and even different quality of service. With so many students having home PCs, the school was also interested in allowing these students to work with their applications while not at school.

The school decided to try something new... desktop virtualization.

But if you had to create a desktop virtualization design for a school or your organization, how would you begin? What would you focus on? What do you think are the most important design components? That is what we will focus on during a Ask the Architect TechTalk on June 18th at 1PM Eastern time. Not only will we focus on the hypervisor, which is Microsoft Hyper-V, we will also focus on the three Citrix FlexCast models used, the image delivery solution, applications integration and how the XenDesktop farm is designed.

There will be many interesting points throughout the TechTalk including this one: To help save money, local Hyper-V disk drives will be used for the virtual desktops instead of more extensive SAN storage. I've spoken about this in a previous blog and this design puts it into effect.

Still aren't convinced that you should tune in? Then how about looking at these tidbits for the environment.

Hyper-V Servers for desktops: 300
Hyper-V servers for infrastructure components: 8
Provisioning Services servers: 8
Blade PCs: 500
Shared Storage: 300-700 GB
Number of desktop images: 5

Still not convinced? Then how about taking a look at the ABC School District design document. You can also read about some of the design considerations for this organization in these blogs:

Don't forget to register and I hope to see you there and hear some great questions.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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My Profile Matters

Thu, 27 May 2010 06:31:58 -0700

"When angry count to four. When very angry, swear". The wonderful words of Mark Twain. Based on this quote, I know of many users who are very angry because of all of the swearing. It is crazy how one failure in the environment can cause so much distress. How forgetting one design decision can cause so much negativity towards IT.Not only that, forgetting to create a profile strategy can bring a virtual desktop project to its knees. Take the following, real world scenario, as an example:

An organization had a profile strategy in place. Users started working in the new system. One day, a user had a profile corruption issue. To solve the issue, the profile was deleted. This meant the user had to recreate their entire personalized environment. After the profile was deleted, the user quickly noticed all of their documents were deleted. Upon closer inspection, the user stored their documents in the "My Documents" folder. When the profile was deleted, the My Documents folder was also deleted. Can you say Bye Bye data? Bye Bye 3 weeks worth of work.

Not convinced that profiles are important, then let me give you another example (You can't make this stuff up):

An organization was running a hosted VDI desktop solution for a few months and decided the profile solution required modifications. Upon the updates, every user lost all of their personalization configurations. NOOOOO

The user's profile is one of the major ways the pooled virtual desktop becomes personalized. Forgot about virtual desktops for a moment. The user profile is important for traditional desktops. If users are going to accept a new desktop strategy, they must have the ability to personalize their desktop environment. Personalization enhances the computing experience and oftentimes makes users more efficient. When organizations do not properly plan the profile strategy, one or more of the following will likely happen (as can be seen in the previous examples):

Slow logon/logoff performance
Inconsistent results
Lost settings

These challenges will result in a negative perspective of the entire solution.

To overcome these potential challenges, a profile strategy must be put into place that includes items like:

Folder Redirection: Have portions of the profile stored on a network drive outside of the roaming profile. This allows the profile to load faster and protects these items from profile deletion.
Group Policies: Utilize group policies to configure the user's virtual desktop profile. These policies should only be used when the user logs onto a virtual desktop.
Persistence: Utilize a profile solution that allows for the extraction and storage of the personalized components of a user's environment outside of the profile. I've seen many organizations have great success with Citrix Profile Management as well as AppSense Environment Manager. I'm not going to go into details of these as you can simply click on the links to find out more.

The point is that it takes users a long time to get their environment configured in just the right way. Loosing those settings is basically like telling the user they don't matter. If this happens to many times, you'll end up with user riots. I've seen many users get really angry when talking about their profile and the issues they have. I'm glad I wasn't responsible for the mess.

What other profile strategies have you seen that works as well? Any specific settings you recommend? Any tools?

Don't make this dreaded profile mistake or horrible bandwidth mistake, which i spoke about previously.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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Apple's End Run for the Enterprise

(author unknown) — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:33:40 -0700

Shared by Daniel
For a long time you never saw Apple products in the enterprise. Why? Because they couldn't run the apps most organizations require. So what changed? You still don't see businesses deploying Apple-type applications. What changed is other technology. We now have the ability to deliver Windows-based applications and desktops to Apple devices. This simply means the end point does not matter. You can bring in any device into an organization, and use any application. Pretty cool if you ask me.

For those of you who have been wondering about Apple's plans for the enterprise over the past few years, it seems that a definitive answer is finally here. As painful as this may be to the IT community, which is accustomed to being the center of the

Provisioning Services Desktop Images - How One School Decided

Tue, 25 May 2010 05:48:16 -0700

One of the main goals with desktop virtualization is to reduce the number of required desktop images. The fewer number of images, the easier it is to support and maintain the desktop environment, which makes desktop virtualization so promising when compared to the traditional desktop approach. The goal is a single image, but oftentimes, other factors play a role in slightly increasing that number. Take, for instance, the ABC School District Reference Design.

The design called for 5 different desktop images, as shown in the figure.

If you look at the specifications, many of the configuration details are identical. So why create different images for different user groups? It really came down to future plans. The ABC School District decided that it would be easier to design the environment with unique images for the different areas:

Middle School
High School
High School Blade PCs
Teachers & School Administrators
Support Staff

Ideally, we probably could have reduced the number of images, with the aid of application virtualization. But the school district wanted to make sure unique images were available if certain applications were later identified to be incompatible with the different forms of application virtualization (application streaming and application hosting). Also, it would have been possible to integrate the High School and High School Blade PCs images into a single image, but because the Blade PCs are delivered without a hypervisor, there would be variations in the device drivers (something Provisioning services can easily handle). To make the management of the images easier, it was determined to separate these images as well.

So we are left with 5 images. Not bad for an environment with 20,000 end points.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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How Much Bandwidth Do I Need for My Virtual Desktop

Thu, 20 May 2010 05:28:37 -0700

Do you ever wonder how much bandwidth you need to do a desktop virtualization implementation? Regardless of the flavor of virtual desktop being implemented (hosted shared, hosted VM-based VDI, local streamed, etc), the network plays a critical role. That should not be surprising (if it is, we need to have an even bigger discussion). If you don't plan your network bandwidth appropriately, you will have unhappy users, who will make you unhappy.

As we would expect, the user experience degrades as the latency increases and the bandwidth decreases. Proper network planning must be based on the type of work users are performing and the overall network topology. Back in the XenApp-only days, many people used 20 kbps as an estimate for network bandwidth requirements. Can we use that for virtual desktops? NO (although I could configure XenDesktop to only use 20 kbps).

Virtual desktops require more bandwidth because:

In default configuration, virtual desktops provide a greater and richer experience than the default XenApp configuration.
Virtual desktop users are idle less often than hosted application users. For example, if a user is sitting in front of a workstation and is accessing a hosted application on XenApp, the desktop and XenApp applications both appear as active. However, when the user is not working with the XenApp application, they are identified as idle by XenApp even though they might be active on their desktop. Due to this difference, the desktop will have less idle time than XenApp hosted applications.
Desktops access and consume more multimedia and graphical mediums than most applications. A user's desktop session also includes internet activity, which often includes more graphics, video and sounds. When using a XenApp hosted application, these multimedia activities are only utilized if the application allows.

Estimating network impact is not a trivial matter because the ICA/HDX protocol tunes itself based on the amount of bandwidth available. The less bandwidth available means more compression is applied. Also, any estimate must include percentages for different user activities: typing, graphics, Internet, video (Flash, WMV, etc), and printing. With this information, the following table can be used to create an ESTIMATE (and I do mean this is an estimate):

By calculating the percentage of time a user is expected to be doing certain activities, a rough estimate can be determined for HDX bandwidth requirements. If multiple users are expected to be accessing the same type of content (videos, web pages, documents, etc), integrating the Branch Repeater into the architecture can drastically reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed. However, the amount of benefit is based on the level of repetition between users.

Note: Additional details on the bandwidth estimates can be gathered by referring to the following Citrix white paper: CTX124457 - Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for Delivering XenDesktop to Branch Offices.

So what does this mean? It means using a single number as your bandwidth estimate is not good enough. You need to understand what users are doing and what percentages you expect them to be doing different activities. After that, you will get a good idea of how much bandwidth is required for a virtual desktop implementation.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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Here are 15 reasons desktop virtualization fails

(author unknown) — Wed, 19 May 2010 06:02:56 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good list to keep in mind when doing desktop virtualization

At Citrix Synergy this week, Brian Madden and Gabe Knuth will talk about 15 reasons desktop virtualization projects go down the tubes. Don't let this happen to you.

Is VDI Really Worth It?

(author unknown) — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:21:29 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Last year it did sound like VDI was about to take over. So what happened? Nothing. There is still a lot of talk, but now what is happening is that people are understanding (finally) that there is more to virtual desktops than VDI. Many people I'm talking to are looking at other desktop virtualization alternatives to VDI (hosted shared desktops, local streamed desktops, VDI desktops, local VM desktops). Each one of these options has pros/cons. In fact, most organizations will likely only utilize a few of the options (those that meets their needs while keeping costs lowest). This was what my previous blog explained for a particular school district (http://virtualfeller.com/2010/05/18/i-choo-choo-choose-you/)

As for hosting virtual desktops in the cloud. That is a completely different story. And people saying keeping the data internal are failing to explain that challenge with data transmissions between the cloud and internal. Plus, with licensing challenges of the Windows desktop OS, that makes it much more difficult to do a hosting cloud model for desktop virtualization.

Is it just me, or is VDI becoming the IT equivalent of the swine flu? It's all over the news for a while and everyone is talking about it, then it disappears for a while only to come back next year. Last fall, it seemed like VDI was about to take over

I Choo, Choo, Choose You

Tue, 18 May 2010 07:01:16 -0700

From the words of Ralph Wiggum, I Choo, Choo, Choose You [to be my FlexCast model].

Choosing the correct FlexCast model always leaves people wondering if they made the right decision. The answer to this question requires us to look closer into the user requirements. For example, the ABC School District Reference Design was recently published, and as can be expected from the title, it is based on a large school district (70,000 total users, 20,000 concurrent). How did we decide which FlexCast model was most appropriate?

It came down to simply meeting the needs of the school and the students. This particular example used three FlexCast models:

Hosted Virtualized Applications: The elementary school children typically required a single application for their current class. When that particular class ended for the day, there was no need for the children to get back into the application from a different location. Providing a single hosted virtualized application provided the easiest user experience for the elementary schools.
Hosted VM-Based VDI Desktops: Middle and High School students utilized many more applications, many of which were launched simultaneously. The students were familiar with a desktop interface and it was determine providing them with this experience would provide the best environment from which to work. The decision between hosted shared and hosted VM-based came down to a question of security. The school district felt it would be safer to create VMs for each desktop as opposed to the shared model. The shared model could allow a student to cause mischief on the server, thus impacting other students. Many of the students are extremely smart and computer experts, so it was a matter of time before they breached the system.
Hosted Blade PCs: A small group of high school students took part in the CAD classes. The CAD application used, and the projects students had to complete, required specialized hardware. The school district decided it was easier to centralize a group of Blade PCs and allow students to connect as needed. This allowed for centralization and helped reduce the over number of powerful desktops required as they Blade PCs could be shared between schools.

As we know, there are more than three FlexCast models, but the School District did not have a need for them all. In fact, as other organizations start to assess and design their virtual desktop environments, they too will see that certain FlexCast models do not fit in with the overall goals.

How does one determine the best approach? By understanding the user requirements, the limitations of each model and selecting the most appropriate model that gets the job done at the lowest cost.

Which models have you seen the most of so far?

Want to learn more about the ABC School District, then join the live webinar on June 18th

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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How VDI can make your desktop security worse

(author unknown) — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:02:47 -0700

Shared by Daniel
I've seen too many people believe that virtual desktops don't require the same level of security. That is just asking for trouble. Brian offers some good points on what to do. The major item is no admin rights and to keep the virtual desktops on different networks than your sensitive data. You must have security setup.

Although a virtual desktop infrastructure supposedly tightens security, it can in fact let unpredictable users harm your data center.

Looking ahead to Citrix Synergy 2010

(author unknown) — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:59:37 -0700

Shared by Daniel
I, like Brian, remember being at Thinergy way back in 1998. I have to say this years has the most excitement. I suggest if you are interested in virtual desktops that you come to the XenDesktop Enterprise Design Super session on Thursday.

Brian Madden has attended Citrix's annual user conference since it began in 1998. In this week's column, he previews the sessions at the 2010 show.

The Truth About XenDesktop Scalability

Wed, 05 May 2010 08:02:45 -0700

We've heard about it, we've seen it and we've read about it from Citrix, from VMware, from Microsoft and from just about everyone else. We see one report showing one technology is better than the other but then we see another report showing the exact opposite. Doesn't this leave you wondering what you should do next. You might be wondering what in the world am I talking about?

I'm talking about SCALABILITY!

Scalability is such a touchy subject that to discuss it is opening yourself up to blogs, tweets and messages saying you are totally crazy or you are spot on. But you might be thinking that because I work for Citrix, so I only care about XenServer. You couldn't be more wrong.

As part of the Citrix Consulting organization, we have to create enterprise designs for XenDesktop. And because XenDesktop supports XenServer, Hyper-V and ESX, we have to deal with each hypervisor. We have customers who are running XenDesktop with one of the three hypervisors and one area of focus we have to deal with is scalability. So let's talk about it. But this discussion is not focused on claiming that I'm better than you, but instead it will focus on how you should design your environment for scale.

If you want to hear about the scalability design recommendations for a XenDesktop environment across any hypervisor, you should plan to attend this GeekSpeak session on May 13 from 1:25-2PM in the Solutions Expo Hall Lounge.

I might even show you how to get insane scalability numbers, but it might be dangerous to your health. You'll have to attend Citrix Synergy to find out how.

And remember to please leave the vendor bashing at the door.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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This School House Rocks with Virtual Desktops

Tue, 04 May 2010 05:38:03 -0700

Imagine an environment where:

The endpoints are over 5 years old
Users' personal computers are state of the art
Applications have not been patched in over one year
Each office has different configurations, although they should be identical

These are some of the challenges with one particular environment: the ABC School District.

This particular school district consists of 50 school campuses that supports 70,000 users. Due to limited funding, the technology infrastructure is aging quickly. Thanks to a voter approved tax levy, the ABC School District is receiving an infusion of money to upgrade their computing infrastructure. Instead of going down the same path of distributed computing, the ABC School District has decided to implement desktop virtualization based on the following architecture:

The designed solution includes the following high-level items:

Almost all of the components will be virtualized with Microsoft Hyper-V. The environment is divided into two distinct parts: Infrastructure Module and Desktop Modules
Two types of Windows 7 FlexCast virtual desktops are used and spread across four XenDesktop farms: Hosted VM-Based VDI desktops and Blade PC desktops.
Applications are delivered either as installed applications, hosted applications or streamed applications from centralized XenApp servers, which is part of XenDesktop 4.
Each school's network bandwidth is optimized by leveraging HDX WAN Optimization with the Citrix Branch Repeater. As students in each class will perform similar activities, the Branch Repeater will provide WAN optimization, helping to offset costly WAN upgrades.

This is just an overview of the ABC School District design. To learn more, you can:

Download the ABC School District Reference Design
Join the discussion on Twitter @djfeller
Learn more about the environment by reading and commenting the upcoming posts on the Virtualize My Desktop site

Once implemented, this School House will Rock.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
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My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
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Danger, Danger My Server Crashed

Tue, 04 May 2010 05:26:11 -0700

We all know the impact a server failure can have on a group of users, but what if that server was a core component of a desktop virtualization solution? That's a lot of unhappy users. Before desktop virtualization, nobody gave a second thought about desktop availability. If a desktop failed, it only impacted a single user and chances are you wouldn't hear much. However, if a certain server fails in a desktop virtualization environment, that one server could impact 50, 100 or 1,000 users. I can guarantee one thing, you will hear that many users.

Availability for any desktop virtualization solution means more than VM live migration. In fact, everyone component must be made highly available. Do you know how to do it for XenDesktop? I know of two people who do: myself and Stefan Drege. And guess what, we are going to tell you and it won't take much time.

All you have to do is attend our Citrix Synergy session "SYN222 - Guaranteeing availability and scale for XenApp and XenDesktop deployments", which will be delivered twice

May 12, 4:30 PM @ Moscone West Convention Center - Moscone 2014
May 14, 2:00 PM @ Moscone West Convention Center - Moscone 2014

Find out more at Citrix Synergy.

Daniel
Lead Architect - Worldwide Consulting Solutions
Follow Me on twitter: @djfeller
My Blog: Virtualize My Desktop
Questions, then email Ask The Architect
Facebook Fan Page: Ask The Architect

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Client Hosted Virtual Desktops Part II; Back to Basics « Amrit ...

(author unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 04:41:40 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Nice description of the different options. CHVD is really going to give organizations other options with desktop virtualization. The key for any solution is going to be in giving organizations the options and then allowing them to pick and choose which option(s) are the best.

Performance as well as the overhead of a second operating system still require IT management; Server Hosted Virtual Desktops (SHVD) Also referred to as VDI or desktop virtualization: Desktop virtualization as personified by VMWare's ...

Understanding cloud computing, virtual desktops and DaaS

(author unknown) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:28:39 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good overview and the challenges with DaaS. The power user, i believe, is one of the greatest challenges to DaaS. Not only in resource consumption, but also in terms of user-installed applications, personalization, and mobility. If I am disconnected, my DaaS solution will not meet my needs.

The convergence of virtual desktop infrastructures and cloud computing is leading the market to desktop as a service.

Three Steps to a PXE-Free XenDesktop on Hyper-V

(author unknown) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:05:32 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good description of a utility that most people are unaware of. This is a great way to do network boot without changing your DHCP/PXE environment.

I ran into an interesting situation last week while working with Tony Sanchez from our Global Microsoft Team. He was setting up XenDesktop 4 on Hyper-V 2008 R2. However, the lab he was at used a Windows Deployment Server (WDS) for image management and it relies extensively on PXE. Rather than modify the WDS to support the Provisioning Services PXE boot file, we decided the best solution was to make a boot ISO that will load the OS directly from the Provisioning Services host and then boot the guests from that ISO.

Background

Since not all my readers are familiar with using the Boot Device Manager, I will set the stage. When configuring a virtual machine to boot off of a CD-ROM image for PVS, you need to do three things:

Add a Legacy network card on the host since the Synthetic network adapter is not created until the Operating System loads.
Configure the BIOS boot order so that CD-ROM is first in the list.
Assign a bootable ISO image to the CD-ROM/DVD drive.

Take Note
The PXE boot option is required in order for the NIC Option ROM to stay resident in memory during the pre-boot process. This way, UNDI will be available to the boot device to properly initialize the NIC. Otherwise, the "API not found" message would be displayed by the boot device.

In deployments of XenDesktop where you have more than about 15 machines, the XenDesktop Setup Wizard (XDSW) is normally used to create and link the XenDesktops with Hyper-V. Unfortunately, the XDSW does not support all the possible VM configuration options when duplicating the source virtual machine. One of the properties that is not transferred to the new virtual machine is the ISO in the DVD drive. Normally, this behavior is the preferred because Hyper-V needs a special configuration to support sharing an ISO across multiple guests simultaneously (See this Technet article), which if not configured correctly can cause startup issues.

If you do not want to configure ISO sharing, you can use the VMM server and VMM library to copy the boot ISO to each virtual machine's folder. If the ISO was large, I would say spend time setting up the sharing configuration; however, in this case the file itself is only 300K and copying it will eliminate the possibility of file sharing/locking issues.

Now you understand some of the challenges, I can tell you the three steps to a PXE-free Hyper-V deployment.:

Create a PVS Boot ISO using the Boot Device Manager
Import that PVS Boot ISO into the VMM Library
Execute a PowerShell script

Step 1: Create a PVS Boot ISO

The Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager is a three-dialog wizard that lets you pre-configure the boot environment just like a PXE server would, except you can then write that to a drive or CD-ROM media. The Boot Device Manager is found on the Start menu of any provisioning server at All Programs >> Citrix >> Provisioning Services >> Provisioning Services Boot Device Manager.

I do not want to spend a lot of time discussing the various options or provide a tutorial on this utility; however, I will provide a few pointers. First, be sure to enable the "Citrix PVS Two-Stage Boot Service" and set it to start automatically on any servers you will use as the targets for the ISO image. Second, if you are using Windows 7, be sure to enable the PAE Mode on the second page of the wizard, like this:

Third, be sure to select Citrix ISO Recorder as the boot device (shown below) before burning the ISO image, lest you accidentally wipe out your local hard disk. For a complete guide on using the Boot Disk Manager, see this Citrix Support Article CTX121331.

Step 2: Import the ISO into the SCVMM Library

Take the ISO you created in Step 1 and save it to the folder where the SCVMM library stores are located. I created a new folder called ISOs at the same level as VHDs and placed the ISO in that folder. Next start the SCVMM Administrative Console and go to the Library tab. Select the MSSCVMMLibrary node and click Refresh on the context-menu to add the ISOs to the library as shown here:

Step 3: Execute the PowerShell Script

Next, you can copy the contents of the PowerShell script below and save it to a file called AttachISO.PS1. I realize that I am not yet a PowerShell guru, so I am aware that several optimizations and error checks could be made to this script. Feel free to modify it for your own use. My goal was provide a working example to help with this issue. The PowerShell script below does the following:

Sets the boot order to CD, PXE (Legacy NIC), IDE, Floppy
Copies the ISO image from the library to the VM's folder
Creates a DVD drive object at the IDE bus 1:0 if no DVD drive is found
Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified on the command-line
For larger environments, it lets you know how many VMs it has left to process

AttachISO PowerShell Script

# Purpose: Attach ISO image from VMM Server Library to Guest Virtual Machine
# Date Written: 12 April 2010
# Author: Paul Wilson (no implied or expressed warranties)
# Usage: AttachISO [UNC Path to ISO in Library] [VM Name to Match Criteria] # Check for the two required arguments and offer command-line assistance if not found if ($args -eq $null -or $args.Count -lt 2)
{ write-output "Usage: AttachISO.ps1 UNC_fileName_ISO_File VMNameMatches" write-output "Example: .\AttachISO.ps1 ""\\SCVMM\MSSCVMMLibrary\ISOs\pvbt.iso"" ""Desktop"" " exit 1
} # Grab the arguments and store them for later use $ISOPath = $args[0]
$VMNameMatches = $args[1] # Get the name of the SCVMM server we are running this on.
# The VMM server could be passed as a parameter as well. $VMMServer = Get-VMMServer -Computername "localhost" # Get the ISO image reference object using the ISO path provided earlier. # Using the full path guarantees the right object is found. $ISOImage = Get-ISO -VMMServer $VMMServer | where { $_.SharePath -eq "$ISOPath" } if ($ISOImage -eq $null)
{ write-output "Unable to find ISO: $ISOPath" exit 1
} # Get the collection of VMs that match the name parameters supplied and output that information $VMs = Get-VM | where { $_.Name -match "$VMNameMatches" }
if ($VMs -eq $null)
{ write-output "No VMs match the pattern: $VMNameMatches" exit 1
}
else
{ $LeftToGo = $VMs.Count if ($LeftToGo -eq $null) { $matchString = "Only one VM matched the pattern: {0}" -f $VMNameMatches $LeftToGo = 1 } else { $matchString = "{0} VMs match the pattern: {1}" -f $VMs.Count, $VMNameMatches } write-output $matchString
} # This loop goes through each VM found and does the following:
# 1. Sets the boot order to CD, PXE Nic, IDE, Floppy.
# 2. Gets the DVD/CD drive object.
# 3. The script will copy the ISO image from the library to the VM's folder.
# The copy is part of the Set-VirtualDVDDrive and New-VirtualDVDDrive cmdlets.
# 4. Creates the DVD drive object if none found and sets it to the ISO.
# 5. Removes any existing ISO and sets the ISO image to the one specified.
# 6. Outputs the number of VMs remaining to process. Added for large deployments. foreach ($VM in $VMS)
{ $LeftToGo = $LeftToGo - 1 Set-VM -VM $VM -BootOrder CD,PXEBoot,IDEHardDrive,Floppy $current_dvd = get-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM if ($current_dvd -eq $null -or $current_dvd.count -eq 0) { $newDVD = New-VirtualDVDDrive -VM $VM -Bus 1 -LUN 0 -ISO $ISOImage $DVDResultMessage = "Created DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo } else { if ($current_dvd.Connection -ne "None") { set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -noMedia set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage $DVDResultMessage = "Replaced existing media in DVD Drive on {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo } else { set-VirtualDVDDrive -VirtualDVDDrive $current_dvd -ISO $ISOImage $DVDResultMessage = "Successfully attached ISO to the DVD Drive of {0}. {1} VMs left to go." -f $VM.Name, $LeftToGo } } write-output $DVDResultMessage
}

Feel free to add a comment below if you have questions or optimizations that others could benefit from. If you found this information useful and would like to be notified of future blog posts, please follow me on Twitter @pwilson98 or visit my XenDesktop on Microsoft website.

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Deploying XenDesktop without a SAN

(author unknown) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:14:05 -0700

Shared by Daniel
These are great results. REquiring the use of a SAN significantly increases desktop virtualization costs. adding 15k local drives to our servers makes the need for a SAN not as important.

The Question

Can XenDesktop be deployed without a SAN? A commonly asked question by customers in the small and medium business (SMB) arena which I recently decided to investigate.

Dan Feller, one of my colleagues has previously discussed the topic when he spoke of deciding on local or shared storage for virtualization. If you have not read his blog, you might want to give it a quick read so some of the things I discuss here will make more sense.

For those of my readers not familiar with Provisioning Services or XenDesktop, I will tell you it is possible using these technologies to stream a virtual disk image to a virtual machine. When this virtual disk is in read-only mode, the writes need to go somewhere, and we call that location the write-cache. Since the write-cache is primarily used for "writing", SAN storage that supports high write IOPS (Input-Output Operations per Second) is recommended.

For small and medium businesses that want to reap the benefits of XenDesktop, but that don't have significant capital to invest in a high-end SAN, the use of local storage to host the write-cache drive would remove a significant implementation barrier. In most situations, the IOPS supported by the local storage system is the primary constraint limiting the number of virtual machines that could run on a single host. For a small or medium business that does not require high density, local drive caching would be a viable alternative.

The Premise

A local storage array of eight 15K disks will supply 1200 to 1500 raw IOPS. Adjusting that for a RAID 10 configuration (which incurs a 2 IOPS write-penalty) and the VDI workload which is typically 90% writes and 10% reads you end up with a functional throughput of between 660 and 825 IOPS. In his blog, Dan provides a convincing set of numbers for specific operations that vary from 4 IOPS (normal working load) to 26 IOPS (Bootup).

Generally, the OS boot up sequence for a desktop can be controlled by bringing up the machines during an off-peak time. The second most intensive workload on the disk is generally considered to be the logon or logoff event with an IOPS requirement of around 15 IOPS. Since logons and logoffs occur more frequently within an environment, planning for that load is more realistic and cost effective.

If using 15 IOPS as the target workload per desktop and using the 8-disk RAID 10 array as described above, the number of desktops supported would be between 44 and 55. Of course, theory is one thing, practice is another. Therefore, the next logical step was to build the environment and test the theory.

The Test

My first stop was to borrow a server that would have enough drive bays in it. My old scalability team at the Citrix eLabs loaned me an HP DL380 G6, which supported a maximum of eight local drives. The DL380 had dual Intel Xeon E5520 quad-core processors, 72 GB RAM and 8-72GB 15K drives. To maximize the IOPS available to the write-cache drives, the hypervisor would need to share spindles with the drives hosting the desktops. As long as the hypervisor overhead on the drives was evenly distributed and fairly low, the impact should be acceptable.

Since I only had the server for a short amount of time while it was not in use, I did not have time to run a complete battery of tests against this server. However, during the time I had it, I was able to run two scenarios that provided sufficient data to test my premise. I chose Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V for the hypervisor and Windows 7 with XenDesktop 4 for the virtual desktop. For the workload simulator I used Login Consultant's LoginVSI medium workload.

The Results

Since Windows 7 recommends 1 GB of RAM in the workstation, my HP DL380 Server with 72 GB RAM was limited to a maximum of 68 desktops allowing 4 GB for the hypervisor. I ran two tests, one with 64 virtual desktops and one with 68 virtual desktops. On both test runs all the sessions started successfully. The chart below shows the optimal session counts I received back from the LoginVSI tool.

As you can see from the results, in both test runs the LoginVSI optimal session count showed over 50 sessions performing within the 2-second response time parameter. Unfortunately, I did not have time to try out all the scenarios I would have liked to test, but the results are pretty encouraging as they matched my expectations.

Conclusions

The original premise was that eight 15K drives in a RAID 10 configuration would support 44-55 desktops. After running through the test scenario, this theory appears to be confirmed with the number of desktops successfully completing the LoginVSI medium workload ranging from 52-55. We can also conclude that the IOPS formula used (90% writes/10% reads) and the logon load (15 IOPS) appear to be on mark for midrange workloads.

Keep in mind the test I performed was basic and more like a feasibility study. I used the test bed to determine if local storage was a viable option for a small to medium-sized deployment. After running the tests, I am highly confident that Windows 7 XenDesktops hosted on Hyper-V 2008 R2 with local storage would be an ideal solution for the SMB market.

If you found this information useful and would like to be notified of future blog posts, please follow me on Twitter @pwilson98 or visit my XenDesktop on Microsoft website.

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Testing high-availability software options from vendors

(author unknown) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:58:49 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good overview of what to test to see what your hypervisor can do. But that is only the start. If you have HA for your hypervisor, what about the rest of the environment? Any type of GSLB, redundancy, HA options. Especially important with virtual desktops.

Evaluate failover capabilities, service-level requirements and shared storage before choosing high-availability software to create a high-availability architecture.

Keeping IT turf wars at bay with VDI

(author unknown) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 05:20:53 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good article. Many people forget about the politics that virtual desktops will bring. I recently talked about politics and dog food in the following blog: http://virtualfeller.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/desktop-virtualization-t he-right-way-politics-and-puppy-chow/

Desktop virtualization projects require changes in job functions and collaboration between teams. Frankly, that just freaks out some people.

Revving Up Desktop Virtualization

(author unknown) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:59:24 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Good discussion on one challenge of desktop virtualization.

Amid all the hype over desktop virtualization, there is one simple fact that tends to be overlooked: Virtualizing a desktop is a lot more complicated than virtualizing a server. In the server farm, a single device gets virtualized and, for the most

Enterprise desktop virtualization design and testing best practices

(author unknown) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:58:06 -0700

Shared by Daniel
Excellent post. Many of the things identified are crucial towards doing desktop virtualization the right way. I've been discussing many of the same topics in the blog.

Getting the design and user-testing stage right is critical to developing an enterprise desktop virtualization strategy.

the sleeping giant awakes - more on Microsoft's desktop virtualization announcement

(author unknown) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:41:37 -0700

Shared by Daniel
These are some major news items which helps offset the costs of VDI, which is holding many people back.

Yesterday's other big news was that Microsoft’s investment in Calista is finally paying off. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 will see the introduction of Calista technologies. Now renamed RemoteFX, Microsoft has taken Calista and remade it as both a new graphics engine to power RDP and a major incentive for customers to look to Hyper-V for as the foundation for any future desktop virtualization project.

The key to understanding RemoteFX is to know that it is being implemented as a graphical extension to RDP that provides host based rendering of 2D/3D graphics and not a complete new rip and replace protocol. The RemoteFX codec will be delivered in three different implementations; a software only engine, a GPU/CPU-based encoder that can share off-the-shelf GPUs between multiple VMs, and a custom hardware encoder (much like that employed by Teradici) that can be implemented either on a plug-in mezzanine board or placed direct on the server motherboard. This was very much in-line with expectations, what caught quite a few people by surprise was the announcement that RemoteFX would only be available on a Hyper-V based virtualization stack. By burying RemoteFX within Hyper-V Microsoft have shutout VMware but at the same time have left the door open to all Hyper-V ready desktop virtualization vendors making a very effective double-edged sword to use against VMware. Also of note is that Microsoft and Citrix are reaffirming their partnership by announcing an agreement to work together to integrate RemoteFX with HDX in Citrix XenDesktop (and I presume XenApp as well). This will extend the capabilities of the Microsoft RemoteFX platform out to the broader range of endpoints that Citrix supports. A RemoteFX ready XenDesktop release is expected to be released to production within six months of the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. What was missing here was any kind of announcement about integrating RemoteFX with XenServer. This leaves me wondering was this a marketing decision not to share this until Synergy in May, or part of a bigger decision by either Microsoft (possible) or Citrix (unlikely) not to head down that road.

Update

One point that was not clear to me to start with is the role that Quest continue to play here. While Quest was not mentioned during Thursday's webinar, Quest continues to work closely with Microsoft and is likely to release a RemoteFX ready version of it's own RDP implementation shortly after Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is released. Given both Quest's track record of support for Hyper-V and greater agility afforded by a smaller number of client platforms (and possibly a simpler integration path, although I admin I don't know the details here) Quest could well have a RemoteFX ready version of vWorkspace out in advance of Citrix.

The other big step forwards is that Windows 7 XP mode and MED-V no longer require hardware virtualization technology. This is clearly big news from a technical perspective but I’m not sure that it will make a huge difference to adoption. I can’t say that I’ve had many people tell me they are looking at MED-V and XP mode is nearer to being a last desperate grasp than it is to being a tactical solution so I can’t see many people willing to invest the time and effort of implementation unless they are in deep trouble. Having said that though, I've been in enough tight spots to know that this kind of change can be a lifeline for some people.

Finally Citrix and Microsoft have joined together to respond to VMware’s New Year marketing initiative that offered potential customers the opportunity to exchange XenApp licenses for View, by announcing a counter offer to “rescue” failed View implementations. Whether you consider this a desperate act to gain attention, as some would have it, or an aggressive move to gain market share depends very much on how you view VMware's current market dominance. Personally, I welcome the move as it reduces the cost of implementing desktop virtualization while driving innovation at all levels.

How To: Setup a streamed virtual desktop image

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:59:27 -0700

	How To: Setup a streamed virtual desktop image Dave asks how to setup XenDesktop to deliver local streamed desktops instead of hosted VM-based VDI desktops.	Views:656
	Length:04:50

The Next Gen Desktops Cloudy Future

(author unknown) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:28:31 -0800

Shared by Daniel
Application delivery is critical for any type of desktop solution. I've discussed this numerous times (http://danielfeller.ulitzer.com/node/1264947) as many people believe that desktop virtualization means application virtualization isn't a requirement. But, if you want to do it effectively, you have to get control of the nightmarish application portfolio.

Over the past few years, I have talked with several dozen Burton Group clients who are struggling with defining their next generation desktop and application delivery architecture. They often like the idea of the server-hosted virtual desktop, but not the cost. In addition, many of our clients are increasingly looking at cloud-based application delivery frameworks such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS). For example, several of our clients use the Salesforce.com customer relationship manager (CRM) SaaS-based application. The result- users get a rich application assessable from anywhere with a web browser, and IT sees a low total cost of ownership (TCO) for the CRM application. Other Burton Group clients have evaluated Microsoft Exchange via SaaS services, while others are keeping an eye on PaaS offerings such as Microsoft Azure.

Besides SaaS and PaaS, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is increasingly growing in popularity. One of the most common ways to deliver IaaS is by leveraging hardware-infrastructure-as-a-service (HIaaS) platforms (e.g., VMware vCloud, Amazon EC2, or Citrix Cloud Center). For the majority of our clients, their initial entry into HIaaS has started by building private clouds to host applications in virtual machines. HIaaS as a backend for desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) is on the radar of many of our clients. For several, 2010 plans include virtual desktop pilot projects, and small deployments by the fall. Note that while I’m being relatively light on the definitions, you can read Burton Group’s detailed perspective on cloud in the following free report “Cloud Computing: Transforming IT.”

If you’re wondering “What’s the point?” here it is. Application delivery does not have to begin and end at the virtual desktop, and in many cases will not. SaaS and PaaS services will increasingly play a role in delivering applications to end users. Presentation virtualization technologies such as Citrix’s XenApp will do so as well. XenApp as the delivery mechanism for internal SaaS, combined with the Citrix Receiver, for example, provides the framework to publish Windows applications to a variety of endpoints (e.g., notebook, netbook, iPhone, iPad, thin or zero client, and thick client). So in the end we’re winding up with several layers of application services that need to be seamlessly delivered to the end user. This means that security policy enforcement and identity management, for example, will need to traverse each service layer. For most organizations today, leveraging SaaS applications requires users to maintain a separate login for each provider. Identity federation in support of single sign-on access to cloud services will be a key enabler in the delivery of converged cloud services. Others (e.g., Microsoft and Novell) have tried and failed in the past, but this time the stakes are different. Strong interest in cloud services provides the use case waiting for a solution.

If we take the delivery of converged cloud services to the client endpoint, we get to what should be a divide between two user experience domains: personal space and work space. The endpoint device may include a client hypervisor to securely separate both personal space and work space, as shown below.

Granted, what I’m talking about here isn’t revolutionary. Many vendor examples relating to a bring-your-own-device delivery model highlight the need to separate personal space and work space, but they fall short in their inclusion of other relevant cloud application delivery services. In fact, I blogged about this approach a year ago. Independent analyst Brian Madden went a step further and predicted that 90% of virtual desktops will run on client endpoints.

To summarize, we need to keep the focus of application delivery on the application. If a call center’s application delivery requirements is best suited by a low-end device that uses a web browser to present applications to users via SaaS, then so be be it. If the application delivery requirements warrant a server-hosted virtual desktop, then that’s OK too. Still, in my opinion, IT’s future is about managing each user’s work space, and we should be looking at technologies that simplify delivery and presentation of converged cloud services. The winning vendor, and the one that drives a user’s work and/or personal space, is the one that nails the presentation of converged cloud delivery. I’m not sure who the winner will be, but I know that the winner won’t be the vendor going after this problem with a narrow view of the typical enterprise’s application delivery requirements. What do you think? We will be talking about these topics at Catalyst Europe in Prague next month, and I hope to see you there.

How to: Estimate IOPS for a Virtual Desktop

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:37:16 -0800

	How to: Estimate IOPS for a Virtual Desktop Doug asks how to estimate IOPS requirements for a virtual desktop user. Is 30 the right number or is it too high/too low?	Views:1294 0 out of 5 rating
	Length:05:04

How to: Determine appropriate RAID for Virtual Desktops

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:11:39 -0800

	How to: Determine appropriate RAID for Virtual Desktops Steve asks about best practices with regards to RAID configuration and Provisioning services. Which is the best RAID configuration to use and why.	Views:636 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:05:48

How to: Determine the Scalability of Your XenDesktop Farm

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:27:45 -0800

	How to: Determine the Scalability of Your XenDesktop Farm Cole asks what criteria should be monitored to determine when the different XenDesktop components reached their threshold.	Views:343 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:04:39

How to: Integrate App-V with XenDesktop

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:32:36 -0800

	How to: Integrate App-V with XenDesktop I recently received a question regarding the integration of Microsoft App-V with a hosted-VM based VDI desktop within a XenDesktop infrastructure. App-V, just like XenApp Streaming, creates an application profile where portions of the profile are delivered to the endpoint as needed. The challenge is with this particular set of applications, they undergo frequent updates (daily). Integrating the application layer requires: 1. A configuration that keeps the cache intact across reboots (as this will speed up the application delivery aspect) 2. A configuration that allows for seamless updates without requiring reboots or virtual desktop image updates Because the virtual desktop is delivered from a single Provisioning services image, a persistent disk should be allocated for each VM as explained in the following Ask the Architecture Q & A video.	Views:1385 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:03:46

The Do's and Don'ts of SSD Implementation

(author unknown) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:17:00 -0800

Shared by Daniel
I know many people are asking about SSD in regards to desktop virtualization. When talking 1,000-10,000+ users, there is a need for greater IOPS so many are looking at SSDs as the answer. And because many of the writes are small in size, the fit makes sense. But because of the cost and the newer technology, most are reluctant to move forward in massive amounts.

Advances in enterprise-class solid-state disk technology are coming so fast that the question of whether to deploy SSDs in the data center is quickly being replaced by when to deploy, and how. While the storage industry at large continues to generate

The main issue with VDI? Windows. @ WTSLabs CEO's Corner

(author unknown) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:41:45 -0800

Shared by Daniel
Interesting read. I don’t think VDI-only is the way to go. I’ve stated this many times. I don’t think XA is the only way to go either. There are niches for every user and use case. Some of us require the mobile device, while others need a completely locked down device because they are the task worker/data entry person who just does things over and over again. The question you have to figure out is if a desktop virtualization solution is going to buy you anything? Will it be easier to manager, update, patch, support, etc? If your analysis is no, then time to move on and figure out another way to fix the nightmare that is the desktop environment.

As the VDI debate continues, now heated up thanks to the iPad (piece of crap IMHO, subject to another post), I decided to write this post that has been sitting here, waiting for me for at least 6 weeks. It goes to the heart of VDI: ...

How To: Allocate Virtual Desktops to Specific Hypervisors

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:03:24 -0800

	How To: Allocate Virtual Desktops to Specific Hypervisors Gregg asks how he can have a certain group of virtual desktops always startup on a certain set of hypervisors and another set to always startup on another set.	Views:361 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:04:15

How To: Design a Distributed Provisioning Service environment

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:20:10 -0800

	How To: Design a Distributed Provisioning Service environment Paul asks how he can design a Provisioning Services environment across 1600 sites that must be available in the event of a WAN failure.	Views:560 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:05:56

How to: Design XenDesktop for the Small Business

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:33:25 -0800

	How to: Design XenDesktop for the Small Business Jamie D. asks how he can use XenDesktop for two small branch office consisting of 5 users each. Find out in this edition of Ask the Architect	Views:2901 0 out of 5 rating
	Length:06:29

How to: Align a XenDesktop POD with Domains

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:34:01 -0800

	How to: Align a XenDesktop POD with Domains Based on a previous AtA response, Ruud B asks how he should align the domain/forest structure with the POD concept.	Views:170 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:06:48

How to: Integrated apps into virtual desktop

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:32:39 -0700

	How to: Integrated apps into virtual desktop Cole M asks for an idea on how to determine where applications should be executed and delivered into a virtual desktop. This Ask the Architect video answers this question by focusing on the application in question.	Views:795 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:07:37

How to: Use XenDesktop in multi-tenancy models

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:56:24 -0700

	How to: Use XenDesktop in multi-tenancy models In this Ask the Architect video, the question is multi tenancy. Is it possible? Yes. How? It depends on what level of multi tenancy you desire.	Views:345 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:04:51

How to: Use virtual desktops for acquisitions

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:42:04 -0700

	How to: Use virtual desktops for acquisitions In the next Ask the Architect, Max asked how best to setup XenDesktop with regards to a recent acquisition. He needs to get the acquired company using their software without requiring an extensive rebuild of the companies desktops.	Views:217 4 out of 5 rating
	Length:04:33

How to: Simplify the XenDesktop design

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:00:00 -0700

	How to: Simplify the XenDesktop design This Ask the Architect episode focuses on simplifying the design for XenDesktop deployments with Pods. Each Pod is self-contained and can be bolted together to create a scalable architecture into the 10s of thousands of users.	Views:1385 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:04:18

How to: Integrate Anti-Virus into virtual desktop

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:00:00 -0700

	How to: Integrate Anti-Virus into virtual desktop Using anti-virus with a standard vDisk image often brings about questions regarding maintaining the definition file. This video explains the recommended approach towards anti-virus integration.	Views:723 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:03:30

How to: Storage allocation options

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:00:00 -0700

	How to: Storage allocation options Question focused on why and how a large storage solution should be carved up into multiple LUNs.	Views:475 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:03:32

How to: Provision Desktops to Remote Offices

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:00:00 -0700

	How to: Provision Desktops to Remote Offices Question focuses on whether a remote Provisioning Services server is required for high-speed WANs.	Views:664 5 out of 5 rating
	Length:03:20

Ask the Architect - River of News

Windows 7 Registry Optimizations for Virtual Desktops

Recommended Configurations

Standard Mode Recommended Configurations

Optional Configurations

Cache is King

With *VDI*, Local Disk Is A Thing Of The Past

Cache Matters

20,000 User Reference Design Webinar Q-A

Remember to optimize the desktop image

Introducing the New XenDesktop Design Handbook

Antivirus Protection - Good and Bad

BriForum 2010 Lessons Learned

In the future, will datacenter-hosted VDI desktops be two-thirds of all use cases?

Windows 7 Migration at BriForum

How Many Resources Do My Users Require

Tough Choices on the Virtual Desktop Horizon

What is your application virtualization strategy?

This school is designed for Hyper-V and XenDesktop

The Virtual School Is In Session, Please Take your Seats

My Profile Matters

Apple's End Run for the Enterprise

Provisioning Services Desktop Images - How One School Decided

How Much Bandwidth Do I Need for My Virtual Desktop

Here are 15 reasons desktop virtualization fails

Is VDI Really Worth It?

I Choo, Choo, Choose You

How VDI can make your desktop security worse

Looking ahead to Citrix Synergy 2010

The Truth About XenDesktop Scalability

This School House Rocks with Virtual Desktops

Danger, Danger My Server Crashed

Client Hosted Virtual Desktops Part II; Back to Basics « Amrit *...*

Understanding cloud computing, virtual desktops and DaaS

Three Steps to a PXE-Free XenDesktop on Hyper-V

Background

Step 1: Create a PVS Boot ISO

Step 2: Import the ISO into the SCVMM Library

Step 3: Execute the PowerShell Script

Deploying XenDesktop without a SAN

The Question

The Premise

The Test

The Results

Conclusions

Testing high-availability software options from vendors

Keeping IT turf wars at bay with VDI

Revving Up Desktop Virtualization

Enterprise desktop virtualization design and testing best practices

the sleeping giant awakes - more on Microsoft's desktop virtualization announcement

How To: Setup a streamed virtual desktop image

The Next Gen Desktops Cloudy Future

How to: Estimate IOPS for a Virtual Desktop

How to: Determine appropriate RAID for Virtual Desktops

How to: Determine the Scalability of Your XenDesktop Farm

How to: Integrate App-V with XenDesktop

The Do's and Don'ts of SSD Implementation

The main issue with *VDI*? Windows. @ WTSLabs CEO's Corner

How To: Allocate Virtual Desktops to Specific Hypervisors

How To: Design a Distributed Provisioning Service environment

How to: Design XenDesktop for the Small Business

How to: Align a XenDesktop POD with Domains

How to: Integrated apps into virtual desktop

How to: Use XenDesktop in multi-tenancy models

How to: Use virtual desktops for acquisitions

How to: Simplify the XenDesktop design

How to: Integrate Anti-Virus into virtual desktop

How to: Storage allocation options

How to: Provision Desktops to Remote Offices

With VDI, Local Disk Is A Thing Of The Past

Client Hosted Virtual Desktops Part II; Back to Basics « Amrit ...

The main issue with VDI? Windows. @ WTSLabs CEO's Corner