Virtual Desktops: From Pilot to Enterprise Deployment

Transcription

1 Virtual Desktops: From Pilot to Enterprise Deployment Paul Deering Associate Professor/Computer Specialist Tom Wilhelm Applications Integration Specialist

2 Demand for Space Increase Demand Residential Housing, Research Space, Classroom and Computer Labs. No Computer Lab Cost too High $$$ 2

3 Virtual Desktop Team Title Name VDI Responsibility Senior Systems Administrator (OIT) Storage Supervisor (OIT) Virtual Desktop Support (Engineering) Computer and Technology Systems Manager (Engineering) App Integration Specialist (OIT) IT Design Analyst (OIT) Desktop Support (OIT) Steve Romine David Belville Paul Deering Bryan Jordan Tom Wilhelm Hugh Woods Randy Nogrady Systems/Storage Administration Image Management Pool Administration (Engineering) Image Management Pool Administration (Non-Engineering) 3

4 Virtual Desktop Team Team meets monthly started spring 2010 OIT will maintain infrastructure Servers, disk, network and system software Provide colleges with optimized base golden image and deployment guide lines Colleges will install application software on golden images deploy persistent and linked clone pool 4

5 Initial Design Goals Computer Labs Accessible From Anywhere Available 24 x 7 x 365 Reduce dependency on physical lab space Efficient OS/ App patching Access to Network Storage and Network Printers No Boot Storm for 40+ User Access Virtual Machines - WinXP Ohio University - Avionics Engineering Center 5

6 Field Trip Spring 2011 May 2011 visited University of Toledo UT 900+ seat deployment (Academic & Clinical) User experience and performance issues Suggested deployment strategies Start with a small, scalable pilot environment Pilot each new potential VDI deployment separately Avoid deploying more then one pilot at time Ensure good end user experience 6

7 New Disk Array Purchase - Summer 2011 EMC VNX-5300 Disk Array Drives consisted of SSD and SAS Over 10 TB of storage Cost $90,000 7

8 ESXi IBM Servers - Summer IBM Server cluster Each Server had 48 GB RAM 2 dual quad core 8 cores total 8 $7,500 each 8

9 Initial Pilot Deployment Fall 2011 Pool of 40 Engineering Desktops Engineering Software 9

10 Feedback Pilot Group Fall 2011 Positive Speed of new system is acceptable. No boot storm complains Negatives Login and logoff times too slow Profile created from scratch every logon File storage was complicated files saved to Desktop or MyDocs lost on logout Inadequate performance to USB storage 10

11 Pilot Deployment 2012 Total of 3 Pools of Virtual Desktops 11

12 Fall 2012 Improvements VDI server farm memory capacity doubled from 384 to 768 GB VMware Persona profile management implemented Saves User Profile between VDI sessions Student Home drive implemented Provided a standard storage location for user data and profile storage Improved VDI website with FAQ, Best Practices 12

13 Fall 2013 Feedback Positive Persona decreased login time significantly Standardized Home drive Simplified user data management Provides 30 day Previous version restore points 13

14 2014 Improvements VMware View 6.0 HTML Access to VDI desktops Demo Next Slide Migrated to new ESXi server farm Upgraded to 32 Server cluster 256 CPU cores 3TB Memory 14

15 Demo VDI Environment 15

16 Correlation of Resources to User Base Concurrent Users Image Size VDI server farm Memory CPU cores

17 Next Steps Deploy GPU-enabled servers Application Management Reduce Image size Reduce number of unique masters Reduce Image Management Time No Single App Management methodology can successfully deploy all applications 17

18 Best Practices Master Image Optimization Small optimizations add up VMware s Optimization Tool Next Slide 18

19 Best Practices Master Optimization 19

20 Best Practices Patching and Anti-Virus Scanning For non-persistent desktops: Disable Windows Updates Disable Application updates Disable Scheduled Anti-Virus scans Disable Anti-Virus On Access scanning of File Read File Rename 20

21 Off Campus Performance Dependency Network Latency Browsing or streaming video network traffic is composed of small requests with larger data chunks returned. VDI network traffic consists of many keystroke and mouse movement messages which require a timely screen update message from VDI Host. 21

22 Off Campus Performance Dependency Network Latency Speedtest latency Speedtest Download UI Response - Frustra=on Level Download and latency rates from 22

23 VMware Application Management Vmware Horizon License Standard $ Advanced $$ Enterprise $$$ App Management Tool Evaluation ThinApps Agentless Integrated well with View Works well with simple, small footprint apps Doesn t always work with complex apps Maintenance time for ThinApps proved to be too much given the limited set of working applications RemoteApps Delivers virtual applications via Terminal Services / RDS Windows Client OS independent (Blast) Secure access to RDS services from View infrastructure Apps run directly on the RemoteApps server AppVolumes Available to Virtual Desktops only App Volumes Agent installed on Client AppStack volumes can be assigned to AD user accts, groups or OUs, in real-time Writable Volumes used for User Apps, Licensing, config 23

24 Application Management VMWare Horizon Enterprise Solutions App Volumes 24

25 Application Management - Unidesk Separate vmdk layers for OS, Apps, Profile $$$$ 25

26 Wrap up Always Proof of Concept and Pilot before full deployment At Ohio University, Better Application Management tools are needed to expand the VDI presence 26

27 Update at next years OHECC Thank you for Attending