Global Delivery of Large Scale VDI with Quest

Global Delivery of Large Scale VDI with Quest and Microsoft Daniel Bolton Information Services Kingston University Mission Statement: To provide a University without walls

About Kingston University n 23, 000 Students – 1500 distance learning. n 2500 Staff (excluding temporary staff and guests). n 4 Campuses and multiple satellite offices. n 7000 Desktops (Windows, OS X, Linux). n EST 1000+ Mobile devices (Smart phones, Laptops, Tablets). n Courses run all over the world, China, India, Russia, Greece, etc. n Multiple affiliate institutions.

Business Drivers Original Business Drivers: n To provide “managed” services to mobile and “non-managed” users. n Service delivery for long distance learning students. n Reduce the complexity of the traditional desktop model. n Windows 7 Migration.

Business Drivers Evolved Business Drivers: n Lower the total cost of ownership (where feasible). n Improve service continuity.

Technical Requirements n Location aware – Ability to assign “resources” based on location. n Support for, Windows, Mac and Linux clients. n User environment management. n Integration with Remote Desktop Services (terminal services). n Application Integration – MSI installs, Application Virtualization, etc. n Granular administration – Helpdesk roles, etc. n Connectivity over high latency connections.

Obstacles n User acceptance (at all levels). n Novell lingering on! n IP address allocation. n Applications. n User installed applications. n Identifying the different user types.

User Identification User Type VDI Knowledge Worker √ √ √ Power User Advanced User VDI with Remote. FX √ √ RDS √ √ √ Seamless Apps Local Desktop √ √

Our Choice n Quest v. Workspace n Microsoft Hyper-V n Microsoft App-V

Phase 1 – Initial Infrastructure n Designed to support 300 Windows 7 Desktops and 200 RDS sessions. n Utilize existing SAN infrastructure. n Virtual Desktops and RDS servers hosted on Hyper-V (managed by SCVMM). n No Desktop replacements – value added only

Infrastructure

What we are Achieving n Desktops as a Service (Daa. S). n Centralised desktop management. n Dynamically assembled desktops.

Dynamically Assembled Desktops User Data User Profile Applications OS

Decisions For Moving Forward n Persistent desktop or non-persistent desktop? n Virtual machine storage, SAN or local disk? n User profiles – folder redirection? Registry capturing? Etc? n Virtualize RDS servers? n Use App-V’s shared cache feature?

Phase 2 – Goals By the end of March 2011 we will (“should”) have the following; n Support for additional 2500 - 3000 virtual Windows 7 desktops. n Support for additional 1500 - 2000 Remote Desktop Services connections. n 300 - 600 Windows 7 Remote. FX “ready” virtual desktops. n Applications streamed using App-V (with shared cache). n Started the next phase of our client hypervisor pilot with v. Workspace integration.

Phase 2 - Infrastructure n 2 Additional v. Workspace connection brokers. n 2 Additional v. Workspace web portals. n An additional v. Workspace user profile server for redundancy. n An additional MS SQL server for fault tolerance v. Workspace DB. n Utilize existing “intelligent” load balancing appliance for web portal connectivity and use to replace the SSL gateway.

Phase 2 - Infrastructure n 50 Additional Hyper-v hosts each with, n n n 12 CPU Cores 120 GB Memory 10 146 GB 15 k SAS drives 4 Network ports 1 GB GFX card This gives us (per server), n n n At least 40 Windows 7 virtual machines with 2 GB RAM 60 virtual machines was achievable with acceptable performance 4 – 12 Remote. FX enabled virtual machines 20 RDS sessions 35 sessions with acceptable performance

Infrastructure

Advice n DO NOT RUSH INTO ANYTHING. n ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. n IDENTIFY USER REQUIREMENTS. n VIRTUAL DESKTOPS ARE NOT VIRTUAL SERVERS! n YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE THIN CLIENTS!

Quest and Microsoft n Working with Quest. n Working with Microsoft.

Q & maybe some A