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Archive for the ‘vdi’ Category

Citrix CTO Simon Crosby was our very special guest for VIRTUMANIA Episode 23! The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 23 – The Citrix Virtualization Safari. Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com with guests and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com and Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen). This week’s special guest is Citrix CTO Simon Crosby (@simoncrosby / Citrix Blogs). This episode’s conversation covers almost everything going on at Citrix for virtualization. From Citrix Receiver on the iPad, HDX with VDI, development of the Citrix XenClient, XenServer strategy, partnership with Microsoft, to Citrix in the Cloud, Crosby offers inside thoughts and experiences.  VIRTUMANIA is a Infosmack Production.

Before, between, and after the important stuff we also have some fun with Rick’s picture of the wrong end of a giraffe and Dell’s rumored acquisition of 3PAR

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

Episode 15 of VIRTUMANIA features another conversation about VDI! As usual, Rick Vanover joins us as our show regular. Greg Knieriemen substitutes for Marc Farley as the co-host, and all three of us are honored to have Ron Oglesby as our special guest. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 15 – Fishing For Virtual Desktops. Hosted by Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC and Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) with guests and Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) of RickVanover.com and Ron Oglesby (@ronoglesby) Chief Solution Architect at Unidesk. Unlike our previous VDI Plumber Crack episode where we looked at server infrastructure, this time the focus is on the end user side of virtual desktops. Just like in fishing there is a “tackle box” of choices for provisioning, managing and supporting user images and applications, and virtualization admins have to be careful not to snag their VDI project in the weeds of end point connection devices. Virtumania is a Infosmack Production.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 15:

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VMware announced the U2 (update 2) release of ESX 4.0, and unfortunately early adopters quickly discovered VMware View virtual desktop connections using the PCoIP protocol were failing. This post provides some quick info on both the new release and the new VDI problem it creates.

UPdate 2 Info

VMware ESX 4 Update 2 is available for download here. The following is a cut and paste of What’s New from the Release Notes:

• Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel Xeon 56xx Series processors.
• Enablement of Fault Tolerance Functionality for Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors without Fault Tolerance. vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables Fault Tolerance functionality for the Intel i3/i5 Clarkdale Series and Intel Xeon 34xx Clarkdale Series processors.
• Enablement of IOMMU Functionality for AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors— vSphere 4.0 Update 1 supports the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors without input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). vSphere 4.0 Update 2 enables IOMMU functionality for the AMD Opteron 61xx and 41xx Series processors.
• Enhancement of the esxtop/resxtop utility— vSphere 4.0 Update 2 includes an enhancement of the performance monitoring utilities, esxtop and resxtop. The esxtop/resxtop utilities now provide visibility into the performance of NFS datastores in that they display the following statistics for NFS datastores: Reads/s, writes/s, MBreads/s, MBwrtn/s, cmds/s, GAVG/s(guest latency).
• Additional Guest Operating System Support— ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 2 adds support for Ubuntu 10.04. For a complete list of supported guest operating systems with this release, see the VMware Compatibility Guide.
• Resolved Issues – In addition, this release delivers a number of bug fixes that have been documented in the Resolved Issues section.

PCoIP Connections Issue

The following cut and paste is from the VMware KB Article Upgrading VMware Tools in a virtual desktop causes PCoIP connections to fail: Read the rest of this entry »

In contrast to their previously expected bare metal client hypervisor, is VMware now focused on enhancing the VMware View Client Local Mode? I’m basing this assumption on the blog post VMware View: Real BYOC and View Client which was published apparently in response to Citrix’s announcement of the XenClient availability earlier this week at the Synergy 2010 conference.

As I understand Local Mode, VMware View will be able to coordinate the offload of intensive desktops operations such as graphics to the hardware of a user’s notebook, thin client, or PC. Since the VMware View Client is installed as an application on the operating system of the end user’s system, this seems to be a better technical fit with VMware’s expertise in type 2 hypervisor products, or hosted virtualization, such as VMware Workstation, Server, Player, and Fusion. This focus in development also seems more aligned with the Teradici partnership enabling the software based PCoIP protocol.

Combined with the promise of offline synchronization, where changes to the local copy of the VM will be replicated to the master copy in the data center, VMware View Local Mode would definitely make VMware View instantly compatible with the widest selection of hardware possible. This in turn creates the least path of resistance for the VMware VDI solution to provide remote and mobile access to a corporate virtual machine even when users are abroad.

Developing a bare metal client hypervisor has obviously been a bigger than expected challenge for both Citrix and VMware judging by the delays in release experienced by both companies so far. As more and more corporations consider the concept of BYOC (allowing employees to bring your own computer), VMware now seems to be backing out of the hardware platform support arena and falling back to what they do best. Although I believe a smart decision has been made here, there will no doubt be some public “crow to eat” in Palo Alto.

Be sure to read the entire VMware View Blog post linked above, but the rest of this post is the VMware Desktop Team’s own words about View Client Local Mode:

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This week at the Citrix Synergy 2010 Conference in San Francisco, CA ,Citrix announced their new client hypervisor and established itself as the first to provide what some desktop virtualization experts believe is a critical missing piece in the VDI remote worker mobility puzzle. The bare metal XenClient was previewed introduced during the conference’s opening keynote session on stage in front of thousands of attendees.

Citrix describes the XenClient hypervisor as “a high-performance, bare-metal hypervisor that enables users to run multiple instances of an operating system simultaneously, side by side, and in complete isolation.” A key feature necessary for running virtual corporate desktops provided by a centralized IT department is the Citrix Synchronizer. According to Citrix, Synchronizer will “add centralized control, deployment, and backup of local virtual machines to your XenClient environment.”

Since I was not in attendance at the Keynote, it is unclear to me whether the version of XenClient available for download today is in fact a production ready release. It is available as open source and free to download for those that want to try it out.

There is only a short list of hardware supported, however.

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Just a quick post to explain how to use Synaptic Package Manager to install the the VMware View Open Client on Ubuntu. I’m using 64 bit Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR)for the example in this post. I would expect that as desktop virtual infrastructure gains momentum more and more users will find themselves connecting to corporate desktop images from a personal device – possibly running Linux! Ubuntu Netbook Remix is one example of a number of Linux operating systems that could be used to do this!

VMware View Install Steps Overview:

1. Open Synaptic, update the packages, and then search for “vmware”. Synaptic can be found on UNR in the System group under administration.
2. Mark the vmware-open-view-client package for installation.
3. Note the dependencies. The VMware View client uses an RDP connection to the vDesktop. The rdesktop package is needed.  The project’s page on Google Code points this out as an important dependency too.
4. After completing the download and installs I found the icon in the Internet Menu Group of Ubuntu Netbook.

Here’s some screen shots of the process, but unfortunately I could not figure out how to get them in the correct order in this album. :/

View Full Album

updated 050110 – corrected the previously incomplete thought about the dependency on rdesktop in step 3

VIRTUMANIA  Episode 7 features a VDI discussion with J. Tyler Rohrer. Greg substitutes for Marc as my co host again, and the Prince of Pella, Sean Clark, returns for more of the mayhem. The following is the podcast summary:

VIRTUMANIA Podcast Episode 7 – VDI Plumber Crack. Hosted by Rich Brambley (@rbrambley) of VMETC. Greg Knieriemen (@knieriemen) of Chi Corporation replaces Marc Farley (@3parfarley) of 3Par and StorageRap.com as this week’s episode Co Host. Our “other regular” guest Sean Clark (@vseanclark) of www.vmunderground.com is back to talk VDI with special guest Tyler Rohrer (@t_rex_vdi), COO of Liquidware Labs. The focus of this epsiode is virtual desktop assessment, design, planning, implementation, and migration. The topics range from Liquidware Labs’ Stratusphere tool, generic thoughts on what is VDI, ideas about factors impacting mass adoption, discussion about Microsoft’s recent licensing changes, to details about I/O performance based on types of disks and storage protocols. We even throw in some talk about the iPad just to be trendy! Thanks to Greg Knieriemen for this Infosmack Production.

Join us for some great laughs while discussing the serious topic of virtual desktop infrastructure.

Disclaimer: All references to plumbers, plumbing, hot dogs, fanny packs, and Budweiser are virtual.

Listen to the podcast with the embedded player or subscribe to get a weekly copy so you can listen when convenient.

Check out the VM /ETC VIRTUMANIA Page to listen to past episodes as well as episodes of Infosmack.

The following links offer more information on some of the VDI topics mentioned in VIRTUMANIA Episode 7:

Read the rest of this entry »