Dec 10
Three Things You Should Know About VDI (Part 3)
Jason Cooper
I’ve been a C/D/H consultant for five years. I have the dual distinction of being both C/D/H’s first Southeast Michigan consultant AND our first VMware Certified Professional. Specializing in desktop management and virtualization, projects involving MetaFrame or ZENworks or VMware expose me to almost every corner of the enterprise, from messaging to networking to collaboration.
Technology is what I work at. Family and music are what I work for. In my copious spare time I enjoy gardening, camping, and cycling. I play guitar and a little harmonica, sometimes simultaneously. It occurs to me that I could duct tape a tambourine to my knee, but that would just be too weird.
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Articles by Jason Cooper
This is installment number three in my VDI “myth-buster” series. These are based on real conversations and exposure to VMware environments where I’ve worked. There isn’t anything magical about virtualization or VDI. It is cool technology, but as I’ve already covered, it won’t solve your server management headaches. It also won’t solve your desktop deployment problems.
If you haven’t deployed a standard operating environment (SOE) workstation image across multiple desktops, you’re going to have trouble getting your head around VDI. No, it isn’t magic, but the devil is in the details. VMware has published a “Windows XP Deployment Guide” for VDI (see http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/XP_guide_vdi.pdf) that barely scratches the surface.
If you can’t accomplish a task with physical boxes, virtualization won’t make it easier. If your physical workstation deployment takes four hours, you won’t save much time with VDI. A zero-touch, image-based, SOE workstation deployment is no less complicated with VDI.
I’ve had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of some VERY talented VMware Certified Professionals that knew the nuts and bolts of VDI inside and out. But your average VCP probably doesn’t have a lot of real world experience deploying desktops. With a poorly designed image, users can be repetitively faced with unnecessary prompts for licensing, registration, or updates. Intimate knowledge of the habits and preferences of your users will streamline any desktop deployment.
In the past 18 years, members of the C/D/H team have designed and deployed universal imaging solutions for enterprises with hundreds of locations, thousands of workstations, and dozens of hardware models. The concept of a zero-touch deployment requires in-depth knowledge of the processes that occur after a newly deployed virtual workstation boots, establishes a unique identity, and prepares for user login. The Default User profile still needs to be tweaked, the user interface needs to be standardized, unneeded features still need to be disabled, best practices need to be applied. If you don’t know how to deploy physical workstations in this manner, your VDI deployment WILL fail.
The most important tool in any mass workstation deployment is SYSPREP and VMware doesn’t eliminate it (although it is simplified greatly). There is no tool that is better at customizing and uniquely identifying a machine, virtual or physical. There is almost no way around SYSPREP. VMware has integrated SYSPREP into VirtualCenter. It is a core component of the VDI deployment methodology and YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS TOOL if you plan to use VDI.
The Guest Customization Wizard in Virtual Center (SYSPREP by any other name…)
The biggest shortfall in any failed desktop deployment is planning. An effective project for replacing desktop computers might take months, or years. The more time spent planning, the less impact there will be on the end user. Take heart though, a well-managed, flexible desktop deployment strategy returns value on the initial investment for years to come.
In the late 90’s, I worked on a project replacing 8,000 OS2 workstations with Windows NT 4.0. After 20 months of planning, a team of 20 took 7 months to do the work in production. That same organization deployed Windows 2000 using the same framework in less than 6 weeks. The Windows XP deployment took less than a month. All this, I’m told, with an average down time per user of less than an hour.
So what next? If you have VI3 deployed, you can download a demo of VDI. Don’t get carried away, though. You’ll want an entirely separate farm of ESX servers to host VDI. Get to know the Virtual Desktop Manager, make sure VirtualCenter is setup to use SYSPREP, work on getting that zero-touch image deployment done right. If you hit a snag, call C/D/H. No one in the business can surpass the hard-won experience we have deploying both physical and virtual workstations.
Part 1 was published on November 14 (http://www.cdhtalkstech.com/2008/11/14/three-things-you-should-know-about-vdi-part-1/)
Part 2 was published on December 1 (http://www.cdhtalkstech.com/2008/12/01/three-things-you-should-know-about-vdi-part-2/)