Slides from Ron Oglesby's presentation at BriForum Chicago 2011.

1. Server Virtualization: SuccessVDI: not so much…Why?.Ron Oglesby @ronoglesby NOT A UNIDESK COMMERCIAL

2. What are we going to talk about Why is Desktop Virtualization on hold? What are the key issues? Common misconceptions about desktop virtualization How to get past these issues Where is all of this going anyway?

3. VDI Has Awesome Potential Increase operational efficiency Simple provisioning, patching, repair for IT Improve business continuity & agility Workers access desktopsfrom any office,BYOPC, home PC, or mobile device Increase security Data stays inside the data center Go green Thin clients use less power than PCs(5W vs. 60W) and last 3-6 years longer

4. So why was server virtualization so successful?

5. Server virtualization rocked!

6. Server Virtualization was easy! CAPEX savings was EASY to show Savings were HUGE! Already in the datacenter – It’s a form factor change! Standardization was a GOOD THING! OPEX was simply a nice by product Let’s face it, a P2V was a simple migration process

7. So why is VDI on ‘hold’ in so many organizations?

8. So what about VDI? Not easy? Host Servers Storage Brokers Image Management Protocols? Disk IO issues Personalization Loss of Control

9. VDI: More complex than it should be? Copyright © 2010 Unidesk Corporation. All Rights Reserved. www.unidesk.com Profile Mgmt App Mgmt Storage Footprint Client Mgmt Image/OS Mgmt

10. Desktop Virtualization is not as easy CAPEX is almost impossible to show OPEX is pretty much the only savings available Desktops have to be “moved” Users don’t “like” standardization Let’s face it, there isn’t an “easy” migration process to virtual desktops A number of “secondary” products are needed

11. So what are the key issues in these desktop projects?

12. Pick 2 (or sometimes 1!) VDI SuccessTriangle

13. Key Issues Single image management comes w/ a price Personalization means loss of single image management Personalized desktops increase storage costs (foot print) VDI itself has higher IO requirements than servers! All of this on top of user acceptance issues No good offline tools today Brokers don’t always scale to the thousands very well

14. Do you have a desktop Virtualization strategy?

15. Start with your current Desktop Strategy

16. Make sure your VDI project FITS!!! VDI – (Kudos to VMware) Tied Virtual Desktops to VDI. VDI is another tool… Terminal Services… App Virtualization… Client side virtualization?

17. Personalization: What do you and the users see? What you see: What users see:

18. So what makes up a virtual desktop? Profile Typical view of desktop This does not match reality OS and up are hopelessly merged Applications Operating System Hypervisor Hardware

19. How we want to manage the desktop Profile User customization often includes application installation, application add-ins and ties to the machine Applications Applications can tie to SIDs, UUIDs, and GUIDs on the machine – Machine specific settings Operating System Hypervisor All of this makes it tough to extract and maintain a “user environment” through changes to gold images Hardware

20. Disk IO… the common problem. Footprint can be reduced via numerous technologies IO… not so much Server IO loads? What is/was typical Desktop IO load What is all this RAID penalty stuff?

21. Disk IO Solutions? Man in the middle solutions? Atlantis type solutions? Hybrid Arrays? Dell/EQL XVS – EMC FAST? Homemade!?! ZFS  Local Disk? SSD or even distributed rotating media

22. Management and personalization Generally there are numerous trade-offs Single image mgmt and you lose “persistent” desktops Use persistent desktops – you lose single image mgmt and move right back to traditional desktop mgmt Single image mgmt reduces storage footprint (linked clones, provisioning server) but at the cost of personalization. Do existing Mgmt tools fit the VDI world or your use case? Possibly.

23. Management Solutions? Block based provisioning alone NOT the solution Layering technology is one option The Unidesk and Moka5’s of the world Multiple tools Stack provisioning tools w/ a profile/User environment manager Apps – App virt not the key to everything.

24. So what should I be on the look out for?

25. Common Mistakes in VDI Designing the hardware first To many variables to choose hardware out of the gate; Just duplicating Server Virt hardware Believing everything the vendors say… Buying software because the “vendor said” it would do what I needed The vendor said I could get 120 Desktops on this system Not configuring the Disk subsystem properly Forgetting about “personalization” of the desktop

26. Key “Check Boxes” for your design Define what you are delivering and to who Ensure your design covers the following: Base OS delivery and updating Application delivery and updating Personalization and profile mgmt Broker configuration and requirements Pool Vs Persistent desktop decisions Storage configuration (foot print and IO load) WAN and LAN use cases

27. Hardware Recommendations Smaller servers w/ more cores Good storage controllers More memory Local disk, SSD, centralized disk, centralized SSD Build redundancy through quantity Think back to the old “MetaFrame Days”

28. So what about Windows 7

29. Win 7 Will change the memory and CPU footprint Face it XP Pro is like a decade old Vendors UNDER SPEC their VMs in scale testing! Storage foot print? WinXP SP3 w/ hot fixes is about 2.8 GB Base Win7…. 10-13GB Lots of talk. Expect ramp ups during PC replacement cycle. Good time to change the environment

30. Q&AOpen Discussion Ron Oglesby www.unidesk.com Twitter: @ronoglesby