DV02 – Implementing VDI using VDM2, tips and tricks

DV02 – Implementing VDI using VDM2, tips and tricks

(Puneet Chawla)

 

VDI is catching on with more and more companies. Personally I’ve not had the question yet to implement it, but I do get questions from my customers about what VDI is and if its suited for them. So, this was a must see session for me.

 

An important aspect of VDI is the sizing. Everyone would like to know how many desktops they can run on an ESX host. According to Puneet you should be able to get 6-12 VMs per core, depending on the workload, with an industry average of 8 desktops per core. I was a bit disappointed by this, because surely in this stage, VDI will compete with Citrix WhatEverWeAreCallingItThisYear 4.5 (sorry Mike Laverick for my brutal copy of your joke) at first and I think 8 desktops per core is much less then what I hoped for.

Puneet continued to give some tips when building your VDI client:

–          The virtual LSI Logic SCSI controller is recommend for your VM

–          Make sure your network labels are consistent over all hosts (dhuh).

–          Set Windows screensaver to the blank screensaver

–          Enable 24bit color for RDP

–          Enable Remote Desktop users through a domain group

–          Install VDM Agent for USB pass-through and single sign on

–          Ofcourse, install the VMware Tools

–          In the VMware Tools you can also find a special option for Wyse Multi Media support, use it if you use Wyse terminals

–          Defrag and compress your template

 

 I would like to add to this list, my own tip: use nLite to make your desktop as small as possible. See my article at:  http://www.gabesvirtualworld.com/?p=39.

 

Using VDM2 you can make sure there is always a number of VDI desktops waiting for the next client that wants to connect. Per template VDI desktop you can set the minimum and maximum number of copies that should be created. For this pool of desktops, you can also set the number that should be online or immediately available when a client connects. For example:

–          Minimum number of desktops = 50

–          Maximum number of desktops = 100

–          Number of online desktops = 20

 

When this new desktop has been staged, VDM will automatically create 50 copies. From those 50, 20 will be started and running, waiting for a customer. At a given point, there will never be more then 100 copies of this desktop running. A thing that I couldn’t find out yet, is what will happen when 10 users are connected. My guess (but again, I’m not sure) is that you will then have 30 running VMs (10 with users, 20 without).

 

As a last note Puneet pointed out that there is a special ADM template to use for GPO settings for VDI and that the RDC v6.0 client is recommended.