VMware

VMware App Volumes Storage Group Improvements with 2.10

~ vDelboy ~ 23 Comments

Several months ago I wrote a blog post on how VMware App Volumes can be deployed in a multi-site deployment. You can find the blog here.

With the release of App Volumes 2.10, for more information on the release see the information here, there has been a great improvement of the way App Volumes handles Storage replication. In this Blog I will explain how the new storage replication works and how to configure your storage groups to take advantage of this improved feature.

The main change that has happened when when looking at configuring storage groups and datastore’s is the ability to make datastore’s non-attaching. What does this mean, well basically a non-attaching datastore would be a place to create AppStacks but those AppStacks would never be attached to a desktop from this datastore.

The non-attached datastore would then be a member of a storage group or a number of storage groups. These storage groups would then replicate the AppStacks from the non-attached storage to all the other datastore’s with in the storage group.

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Now how will this look when deploying App Volumes to multiple sites here is a high level architecture of how this could be deployed. As you can see from this diagram at least 1 vCenter from each site will need access to the non-attached datastore.

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How to create the New Storage Group

First create the non attachable storage

With in the App Volumes Manager click on Infrastructure, Storage then select the storage to be non-attachable then click Make As Non Attachable.

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Now create a Storage group

With in the App Volumes Manager click on Infrastructure, Storage Groups then click Create Storage Group

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Give the storage Group a Name. Then select the required options. When choosing the datastore’s make sure to include the datastore’s that will be used to attach the AppStacks from as well as the non-attachable datastore. Click Create.

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As you can see from the image below I have created 2 Storage Groups one for each site and the Non-Attached storage, NFS2, is included in each Storage Group.

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Now all you need to do is create AppStacks on the non-attachable storage and they will automatically be copied to all the other datastores in the storage groups.

VMware Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture Dedicated Desktops

~ vDelboy ~ 10 Comments

Earlier this week I posted a blog about using Home Sites with in VMware Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture. You can find the blog here. In this blog I want to talk about the effects of using dedicated pools with in Cloud Pod Architecture and how that will affect desktop assignments as this is also something I get asked about on a regular basis.

Just as when creating desktop pools with in Horizon View when you create a Global Pool using Cloud Pod Architecture you have the option to create a Floating or dedicated pool assignment. It should be noted that if the Global Pool is dedicated then on local pools with dedicated assignments can join that Global Pool, this is just the same if the Global Pool has floating assignments then only local pools with floating assignments can be part of that pool.

Now let’s look at how dedicated pools will affect the user in the following scenario’s.

The first time a user logs in to a global pool the user is assigned a desktop. In the picture below on the left as the user first logs in from Site A they are assigned a desktop with in Site A. Even when the user logs in from Site B they still get the same desktop from Site A as you can see from the picture on the right.

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Now let’s see what happens if Site A goes off line. As Site A is off line the user no longer has a dedicated desktop and so the connection broker on Site B thinks this is the first time the user has logged in. At this time the user is assigned a new dedicated desktop as you can see from the picture below.

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Now what happens when Site A come back on Line. As you can see from the picture below the connection broker has an issue as the user now has 2 desktops assigned to the one user with in a single Global Pool.

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Instead of getting a desktop the user will see the following message

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In order to fix this issue, an administrator must log in to the Horizon Console and remove the user entitlement from one of the desktops with in the Global Pool.

I hope this helps explain how dedicated desktops will affect users and your designs when using Cloud Pod Architecture.

 

 

VMware Horizon Cloud Pod Architecture Home Sites

~ vDelboy ~ 2 Comments

As VMware Horizon View deployments start to get much larger in numbers more and more people are starting to look at using Cloud Pod Architecture as a way to deploy their environments. Over the last few weeks this has lead to me getting a number of questions around how do Home Sites work.

The first thing you should know about Home Sites is they can not be assigned through the UI of the connection broker and currently must be done using the lmvutil command via a command prompt. For more information on assigning Home Sites you can see the commands here.

OK so what do Home Sites mean to our users. Lets first look at what happens when a user is NOT assigned a Home Site.

In the diagram below on the left the user connect from Site B so is directed to the connection server on Site B as there is capacity for the user in Site B the user is then assigned a desktop.

In the diagram on the right Site B is Off Line so the user is directed to the connection server on Site A and then assigned a desktop from the Global Pool on Site A

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Now let’s look at what will happen if the user has a Home Site assigned to them.

As you can see in the diagram below on the left the user has been assigned to a Home Site on Site B. When the user connect the user is directed to the connection server on Site B and then assigned a desktop from the Global Pool on Site B.

Now in the diagram on the right the user is connecting from Site A and although they connect through the connection server on Site A they are still assigned a desktop from Site B (their Home Site)

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Now let’s look at what happens when the users Home Site is down or off line.

As you can see from the diagram below if the users Home Site is down or off line the user is NOT assigned a desktop.

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As you can see assigning a user a Home Site can have consequences if the Home Site goes down or off line, this is defiantly something you should keep in mind when using Cloud Pod Architecture.

 

User Environment Manager 8.7 Working with Horizon 6.2

~ vDelboy ~ 1 Comment

With the release of VMware User Environment Manager 8.7 VMware added a number of new feature, all of which you will find in the VMware User Environment Manager Release Notes.

However, in this blog, I would like to call out two new features that help when deploying User Environment Manager alongside VMware Horizon 6.2. VMware’s EUC teams did a great job in my opinion getting these two great features added or enhanced to work with Horizon 6.2 in the latest releases.

You can read the rest of my post and find out what I will be doing on VMware.com. Click Here

2016 vExpert Program Now Open for Enrollment

~ vDelboy ~ Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2015-08-24 at 2.40.03 PM

Open enrollment is now open for the 2016 vExpert program.

If you feel that you should be a vExpert and are willing to give back to the VMware community then I would encourage you to apply and join this great community of people.

To apply today click on the following link to the vExpert Blog. You can also recommend a colleague who you think should be joining the program.

https://blogs.vmware.com/vmtn/2015/11/vexpert-2016-applications-are-now-open.html.

How to Enable Touch ID in VMware Horizon 6.2

~ vDelboy ~ 5 Comments

One of the great new features in VMware Horizon 6.2 is the ability to log in to your virtual desktops and applications using the figure print ID or Touch ID on your iPhones and iPads.

In this blog I will document how to configure Horizon to enable Touch ID. Before you configure this setting you should be aware that this is a global setting and as such once enabled it will be enabled for all users in all desktop and application pools.

Follow these steps to enable Touch ID

  1. Upgrade all Connections Servers to Horizon 6.2
    1. Note that signed Certificates are required
  2. Start the ADSI Edit utility on the View Connection Server host.2015-09-07_10-17-37
  3. In the Connection Settings dialog box, select or connect to DC=vdi,DC=vmware,DC=int
  4. In the Computer pane, select or type localhost:3892015-09-07_10-26-55
  5. Double click on the object CN=Common, OU=Global, OU=Properties2015-09-07_10-29-59
  6. Edit the pae-ClientConfig attribute
  7. Add the value BioMetricsTimeout=-1
  8. Click Add and OK2015-09-07_10-34-25
  9. The new setting takes effect immediately. You do not need to restart the View Connection Server service or the client device

For more information please see the documentation here

VMware User Environment Manager Demo

~ vDelboy ~ 1 Comment

At VMworld this week I co-presented on the “Managing Users: A Deep Dive Into VMware User Environment Manager – EUC4630” session. As part of the session I showed a quick 7 min demo of User Environment Manager.

This Demo included showing the User Environment Manager configurations and a couple of cool things you can do with User Environment Manager. After the session a couple of people asked me to share the video for further reference. Below you will find the Video Demo, I hope you find it useful.

Also make sure you check on my White Paper of configuring User Environment Manager in 60 minutes or Less Here.

VMware Horizon 6.2 Top New Features for Hosted Applications

~ vDelboy ~ Leave a comment

This week at VMworld VMware announced the latest version of Horizon, 6.2, with this release comes a number of new features. Here are 3 new features that were added I feel will make a big difference when deploying hosted applications.

View Composer for RDSH Servers

The View Composer has been around for a number of years now with great effect when deploying linked clone desktops. Well now this technology is  available for RDS hosts. Using the composer to deploy your RDS host will give you the following benefits

  • Automated built out of RDS server farms
  • Faster deployment of RDS Hosts using the View Composer technology
  • Storage savings due to the sharing of the base OS disk by the RDSH clones in a farm

Load Balancing RDSH Pools based on Usage

New load balancing enhancements have been added to make sure the users are being assigned to the best available RDS Hosts in the application farm. The load balancing can be configured to utilize either CPU utilization or Memory utilization. Horizon View administrators will able to configure the Application Farms to utilize either the CPU or Memory option depending on the applications in the Farm.

Cloud Pod Architecture support for RDS Applications

Hosted applications are now supported using Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA), this will greatly help when deploying large scale Horizon deployments and across multiple sites.

CPA hosted applications will also support HTML Blast access giving users the options to access there application through there web browser.

These are just a few of the new features of Horizon 6.2, other new features include. One way AD Trusts, FIPS/CC support, 4K Monitor Support and Streamline Pool Creation to name a few.

For more information go and check out the Horizon page on VMware.com Here

Managing Horizon Gold Images Across Multi-Site Deployments

~ vDelboy ~ 2 Comments

One of the challenges when deploying VMware Horizon across multiple sites or data centers is how to keep your Gold/Master images in sync and how to get them from one site to another.

In this blog I will show you how you can utilize the new Content Library that is part of vSphere 6 to help manage this challenge.

There is a caveat to using the content library – it does not currently manage VM Snapshots. This blog will also show how you can work around this caveat to make the solution work for your deployments.

You can read the rest of my post and find out what I will be doing on VMware.com Here

Is ThinApp Dead?

~ vDelboy ~ 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2015-08-25 at 8.48.52 AMNow that VMware App Volumes is live and a number of customers have deployed App Volumes or are thinking of deploying App Volumes, one of the questions that I constantly get asked is, “is ThinApp Dead?” Or “is App Volumes replacing ThinApp?”

Well I want to say this once and for all that ThinApp is not dead and App Volumes is not replacing ThinApp.

ThinApp still has a purpose in the EUC stack and is still the leader in Application Virtualization. In fact, App Volumes and ThinApp can work together happily and App Volumes is a great tool for delivering ThinApped applications to the End User.

App Volumes makes it very easy to deliver your ThinApp application quickly and instantly to your End Users.

Another use case for App Volumes and ThinApp is to deliver your ThinApped applications to RDSH servers so that you can stream your ThinApped applications to your End User devices such as iOS and Android devices. This can even improve your XenApp environment.

App Volumes and ThinApp working together make it very easy to quickly spin up a RDSH host and publish applications through VMware Horizon View or through Citrix XenApp.

I hope that this quick post puts the question to bed for the foreseeable future.

As a ThinApp fan I am happy that there is still life in this great solution!!!