State of VDI

the_Grinch

As is the norm, it looks like we're going to be moving 75% of the company to various different cubes. This is the part of my job I hate the most! Anyhow, I was discussing VDI with my boss (we've discussed it before) and how if we implemented it (we won't make it this time, but if future plans pan out it would be important to have later) we'd save ourselves a lot of the pains of moving things. Obviously, there are a few departments we won't be able to do it for, but I'd say about 90% of our company would be able to be fully VDI without issue. All that being said, what is the current state of VDI? Has anyone done it? If so what did you use, how many users, and what type of infrastructure were you running on?

I can see where it will save us not just on moves, but also in a lot of the work we tend to deal with (printer installs, software installs, slow machines, malware, etc). Thanks!

dave330i

VMware's been seriously pushing their View. Price wise it's cheaper than Xendesktop. The biggest drawback to View is they don't support Lync 2010 video conferencing (2013 is supported). Supposedly, Lync 2010 video isn't supported on Xen as well, but somehow the Citrix guys at work have made it work.

NinjaBoy

We're currently running VDI-in-a-box (running on top of Hyper-V), 60 machines that can be used by 1200+ users (we're currently got 2 computer suites on VDI) and we're investigating the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 implementation of VDI (that supports RemoteFX) and the latest thin clients that support RemoteFX (eg Wyse D10d). The rest of our PC's/laptop's are normal, full fat clients.

We are running the VIAB with old Wyse terminals (the Wyse S10), while they are ok for word processing - any graphics works is painfully slow (however this improves with newer Wyse terminals or the newer 10zig boxes).

xenodamus

VDI technologies have come a long way in the past few years. We're using Citrix XenDesktop to deliver 600 virtual desktops running on XenServer. Within those desktops we deliver applications using XenApp whenever we can.

With a new VDI implementation you should go for the low hanging fruit first. We started out using a single, read-only, streamed image from Provisioning Services to support large groups of workers who all performed the same functions. We have since expanded our deliver methods to include customizable VDIs for power users. Those account for less than 10% of our desktops, though.

For my organization the motivating factor wasn't cost savings, but administrative savings. We started out with 2000 thick client PCs and a desktop support staff of 4 to refresh them on schedule (while working break/fix tickets).

elTorito

We're currently administrating a VDI environment based on VMware View, for 600 end users. So far, it's been really stable. Most problems we've had have been attributable to the guest OS (= Windows 7) and desktop applications rather than VMware itself.

The biggest advantage of VDI/View is the ease of software provisioning and update management (any and all software installations need only be done on the master image) and the ability to provision desktop pools at the touch of a button. Obviously, the need to move around hardware has also been lessened by a great deal. Finally, providing remote access to home users and third parties using View is extremely simple and can be secured easily.

The biggest challenge with View is sizing the underlying storage system to support the virtual desktops. Put simply, do NOT base your sizing on the guidelines provided by VMware; these are way too generic and optimistic, IMHO.

If you have any more questions about the View product, feel free to inquire.

the_Grinch

Sweet thanks for the info guys! We're definitely not looking at cost savings, but as you put it administration savings. For the most part just about all our users are only using the internet and Office Suite. About 90% of what they do is done via a web app of some kind. We have about 10 Mac users who use Creative Suite so we'd leave them alone. Also, we'd leave the travelling sales people on their current setups as well. With those numbers, it still gives us about 50 to 60 users who should be able to survive on the VDI. Definitely will start looking into View.

brentw722

I work for a university and we have just launched vdi's. We have zero terminals in the labs on campus. I have taken lead on this new project, and in my experience it works wonderful. View Admin is a nice tool to use such as attaching and detaching a persistent disk if need for a user. We actually have it setup where the vdi's will refresh after log off, meaning it will just go back to its original state. This works great for us and we plan to move forward with more zero terminals and vdi's.

gabypr

Im planning to implement in my organization a VDI solution and the information provided in this thread has been of great value to me. Thanks to all.

dave330i

Look into Nutanix & Tintri. They're purpose built VDI servers.

xenodamus

Put some thought into how Microsoft Office will fit into the mix. Unless you assign a VM per user (where changes are persistent), you'll have to consider Office activation. When you use a single, non-persistent image for multiple machines, Office will want to reactivate when it sees the hardware has changed on login. Most people address this with a KMS.

JBrown

I am looking to move to VDI about 800 workstations, its a mix of student labs with generic software and some administrative end users that use same generic stuff at their stations. I am looking to setup a building block for 50 users and add the same block each time i need to expand.
How does your building block looks like, when you need to expand to accommodate additional 50/100/150 users ? Such as Array vendor, number of arrays, drives in each one, connection type, hosts, RAM, CPU ?

DevilWAH

All I will say is that you need the VDI to be as good a physical. Best example of it I have ever worked with was as the user while working in a big financial bank. Went home on a friday leaving a desktop, came back in Monday and it was a VDI think client, still had both my monitors and same desktop and programs installed!!

In and VDI project, while in the long run admin can be so much less, the deployment phase if you get it wrong is a huge nightmare for desktop support. seen a lot of companies ending up with a lot more issues than they original had because the don't put enough time in to design/testing and deployment.

Its all there, quite a few decent vendors now, and if pulled off has be proven to improvement management. But don't be fooled by the people selling "plug and Play" solutions, deployment is still a technical project.

dave330i

JBrown wrote: »

I am looking to move to VDI about 800 workstations, its a mix of student labs with generic software and some administrative end users that use same generic stuff at their stations. I am looking to setup a building block for 50 users and add the same block each time i need to expand.
How does your building block looks like, when you need to expand to accommodate additional 50/100/150 users ? Such as Array vendor, number of arrays, drives in each one, connection type, hosts, RAM, CPU ?

See Post #9.