Planet vSphere-land

Approximately 10 days ago I launched the new revamped VDI calculator, now using Java Framework, and I am now introducing the Release 2.0 with full support to XenDesktop calculations for VDI environments running on atop VMware vSphere hypervizor. Why? Because most Citrix XenDesktop deployments run atop of the VMware hypervizor platform. I would like to acknowledge the help of a number of communit...

A little while back I have published blog posts and videos describing what a Desktop-as-a-Service architecture should look like. I was wrong! Well, let me put this way – there are multiple truths to the matter.   In a previous article I said that DaaS solutions should oblige the following guidelines: Build upon the foundation of private/public cloud Secure Multi-Tenancy Elastic Resources...

A customer of mine, who was already running a vSphere environment on Cisco UCS blades, asked to expand his environment with a number of ESXi hosts that could run a VMware View environment. To be able to run as much View desktops on each host as possible, we offered them Cisco UCS Blades equipped with a Fusion IO card, the UCS 785GB MLC Fusion-io ioDrive2 to be exact. For this customer I had alre...

At first glance the Dell PowerEdge VRTX looks like a small blade chassis. Look deeper and you will see a ton of potential in this software-defined world.Related Posts:A Look at the Dell Active System 800Dell’s Intention: Acquire 3Par. Is this a Stack Play?Dell Storage Forum 2012: Converged Infrastructure FutureDell Planning New Storage Tech for 2013Citrix and Dell team up to deliver VDI-in...

The wait is over… and you can now get access to my new VDI calculator clicking on the link below. The new calculator is built on Java framework instead of Flash, and run on Windows and Mac computers. There will also be a version specifically built for Android devices that uses native device capabilities. The Android version is coming a bit later. The new calculator has all the features ava...

On the 5/30 Virtualization Security Podcast, Shaun Donaldson, Director of Alliances at Bitdefender Enterprise, joined us to discuss end user computing (EUC) security and how their new Gravity Zone product ties their enterprise products together under one scalable management umbrella. This was a very interesting conversation on the subject of EUC security, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) security, ...

Horizon View Connection Server authenticates users through Windows Active Directory and directs the request to the appropriate virtual machine, physical or blade PC, or Windows Terminal Services server. You can use Microsoft Terminal Servers to provide Terminal Services sessions as desktops to View clients. Horizon View manages Terminal Services sessions in the same way that it manages other Vie...

Following up on the announcement for Microsoft Lync 2013 with Horizon View support I have been asked to cover a little bit more on how to stand up and troubleshoot the solution. If you are not yet familiar with the solution make sure you read my article How It Works – Microsoft Lync 2013 with View Integration. For all non-media related functionality, such as presence, instant messaging and r...

In my previous article I wrote about a VDI optimization script from Microsoft for Windows 8 and Windows 7. This article focuses on the features and services you could disable or adjust to increase the performance of your VDI desktops. There are a lot of changes that can be made and you might want to [...] Leave A Commentposted in How To by Sander Martijn

Early May I provided a sneak peek of my new Horizon View VDI Calculator. As mentioned in the previous post, many consulting professionals and architects asked for a portable – offline – version of the calculator. I also have been numerous times asked for a mobile version. The new calculator is built on Java framework instead of Flash, and will run on Windows and Mac computers. There will a...

In the summer of 2010 Erik wrote an article about “How to: Optimize guests for VMware View” in which he describes all sorts of changes he makes for a Windows XP or Windows 7 virtual desktop in a VDI environment. The changes that are suggested in the article are still valid, but after reading them [...] Leave A Commentposted in How To by Sander Martijn

UPDATED May 26 – New links included Mike Brennan’s latest blog going into the testing and details of the CVD - http://blogs.cisco.com/?p=114587 Scaling CVD for XenDesktop and EMC on Cisco <—-NEWEST Version of the paper!!!! Back a few months ago I shared about the joint reference architecture that was able to boot and login 5000 users in 30 minutes. Using the Cisco UCS runn...

My VMware colleague Tristan Tod (@tristantodd) put together an excellent presentation about VDI and related storage technologies. One of my favorite parts of his presentation deck was the “A Brief History of Desktop Storage Architecture”, wich in my personal opinion is extremely valuable for VDI architects and administrators. I have added some personal comments and links but mos...

I have recently been invited to present in a VMware User Group (VMUG), which I quickly answered with a big and resounding Yes! I really love to present and touch base with customers as that helps me to keep it real, instead of being a lab rat type of engineer/architect. Mostly I look forward to present and talk about new VMware endeavors in the EUC space, things such as MDM, MAM, the new HTML5 c...

After publishing What’s New in VMware Horizon View 5.2 (Beyond Marketing) I received the same question multiple times from different customers and colleagues in regards to the following excerpt from my article.   A new Print Redirection codebase has been introduced that supports Windows 8, and also fixes a number of outstanding issues.   In the following table you can see what ...

The recent rumors of Microsoft working on a hosted virtual desktop (DaaS) solution to add to their cloud services offering may actually end up being one of the most viable options for organizations who already rely heavily on Microsoft infrastructure to run their business. Having all of your core services being delivered from a single location and provider could ease the operational concerns ...

If you are wondering why my blog posting frequency has slowed down in the last couple weeks – worry not! Many consulting professionals and architects asked for a portable – offline – version of my  well-known VDI Calculator. I’m happy to say that the new tool finally coming and I’ve been busy trying to reach code complete. This new version is built on Java ...

Not so long ago, VMware product releases were staggered.  Major versions of vSphere would launch at or shortly after VMworld in the fall, and all other products such as SRM, View, vCloud Director, etc. would rev on some other random schedule.  This was extremely frustrating for a vEvangelist because we wanted to be on the latest and greatest platform but lack of compatibility with the remainin...

Those who manage VMware View currently or have used it in the past may be familiar with desktop customization which is required to provide a unique identity on the network for each View Composer VDI session in a pool.  If you’ve got a pretty good Microsoft background, you’re probably already familiar with Sysprep – Microsoft’s tool for customizing Windows server and desk...

USB 3.0 is capable of transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps (gigabits per second); that’s a little over 10 times faster than USB 2.0′s 480Mbps. In practice, it won’t always be this much faster — mileage may vary depending on hardware configuration — but it will always be much faster than USB 2.0 (USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0)   USB 3.0 devices are not supported in Horizon View 5.2 or e...

It’s that joyous time of year again! VMworld is fast approaching and Public Voting is NOW OPEN.  This year I’ve submitted three different Ask the Expert sessions with focus on different topics, so there should be an Ask the Expert session for you! I’ve also submitted a great session on integrating two great technologies, vSphere Metro Cluster and VMware Horizon View, you shoul...

Data Protection and patch management of virtual desktops, while not a sexy topic, is one that should happen on a regular basis within any organization implementing or working to implement virtual desktops. Recently, we have been testing virtual desktop software and there is a huge difference between patching and protecting data in a small number of instances and 1000s of instances. There are s...

  If you are in the San Francisco Bay Are make sure you attend the Silicon Valley VMUG User Conference. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 1st 2013 in the Santa Clara Convention Center. This event is almost a mini VMworld with many attendees and exhibitors expected. I am honored host a session entitled “Getting Storage Right for your VDI Environment“. As you can imagine the...

Yesterday I published a blog post entitled “Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8” comparing different versions of Windows during IDLE and Login process. One of my readers (John Hardman) suggested that I also should measure disk IO commands issued from multiple Windows OS during boot time. What I found in the additional test is another pretty compelling reason to move VDI envir...

I believe I may have found a pretty compelling reason to migrate your VDI deployment to Windows 8. While running some experiments I collected some statistics for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 2K8 Server running as virtual desktops. At this point we should all be familiar with the challenges associated with the number and latency of IOs in VDI environments, therefore I am not getting getting...