myvirtualcloud.net

Alastair Cooke’s guest this week will be Sora Cho, who is the Director of Technical Services in the APAC region at Wyse.  We will be talking about the what, how and why of thin clients for VMware View and other server based computing solutions.

I (Alastair Cooke) have been promoting Wyse thin clients since 1998 and for a long time felt Wyse was the only company who got what a thin client is about.  Bring your questions and experiences and ask the hard questions.

You can visit Alastair’s blog at http://www.demitasse.co.nz

The broadcast is LIVE via TALKSHOE.com.

You can participate via web accessing http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/75046.

Title: Wyse on thin clients
Start Time: Wed 8/9/2010 09:00 PM EST (Sydney Time)
Duration (minutes): 45”
Call ID: 75046

or click the link below

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Auckland (New Zealand) – 11PM
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If you would like to listen pasts episodes click here or download from iTunes.

How much are you paying for your fast storage? Recently I have seen more and more people from the blogosphere talking about replacing plate spin hard drives with Solid State Drives (SSD) on laptops, desktops and even servers.

I have gone through the same path. My homelab run its system’s primary partition on a SSD Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+. The performance when loading Window or any other application installed on the SSD is really good – at least much better when compared to most plat spin hard drives.

However, last week one of my customers brought to my attention that some SATA III plate spin hard disks on the market are actually as fast as a Solid State Drives (SSD). More specifically I am talking about the Western Digital VELOCI RAPTOR. This SATA III hard disk has capacity of 600GB, 10000RPM and 32MB Cache. Using PassMark – Disk Mark to compare it to the most common SSDs on the market this HD does not disappoint.

Top End SSDs

Common SSD Range

WD VELOCI RAPTOR (WD6000HLHX)

See full list of benchmarks here

Next I had to compare price per Gigabyte for the most common hard drives and also some of the top end. The dollars in this list are in AUD but it should reflect approximately the same parity anywhere.

When comparing the PassMark – Disk Mark from the VELOCI RAPTOR with the Kingston SSD the difference is not that much; however when comparing the price per GB we see a significant difference. The VELOCI RAPTOR is almost 5 times cheaper than SSD, at the same time as the Disk Mark demonstrate a difference of only 68 points on performance

Both drives I mentioned in this article are based on SATA III architectures. The SATA III bus has a maximum specification of 6 Gbit/s when utilizing all 10 channels available; reaching throughputs of 500 MB/s and over. Fortunately the disk technology available today, at least off the shelf, does not fully utilise this capacity. As an example, the Veloci Raptor will only reach a maximum read throughput of 157.1 MB/s in a sequential transfer.

There is a good article about the WD Veloci Raptor here if you are interested in reading more.

VDI

Off course I could not miss the opportunity to discuss VDI and VMware View. In January, 2010, I have published an article named “Expensive storage array not required for VDI?” where I introduced the idea of running virtual desktop on SSDs. Recently VMware also published a document entitled “The VMware Reference Architecture for Stateless Virtual Desktops with VMware View 4.5” reinforcing that same idea for some very specific VDI scenarios.

As technology evolves SSDs and ESSDs will reach that maximum 6GB/s SATAIII limit, but by then we will hopefully have other architectures available at reasonable cost. In the meantime I would recommend you looking carefully on the type of throughput your workload (homelab or production) require and make de proper decision.

The decision might be even easier when you think about creating redundant disk topologies. As an example, 3 VELOCI RAPTOR in a RAID5 setup will provide better throughput, more storage disk space, more reliability/redundancy than 2 Kingston 64GB at a less expensive cost.

I have just uploaded the new release of my online VDI Flash Calculator. This new release adds full support to VMware View 4.5 Disposable Disks and includes a Storage Breakdown Summary to facilitate planning of storage tiering.

Disposable Disks will benefit scenarios where virtual desktops are powered off when not in use and where storage tiering has been incorporated into the design. To use this feature make sure you enter the size of the disposable disk and select VMware View release 4.5 from the dropdown menu.

The VDI calculator can be found at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?page_id=1076. Alternatively, go to my blog homepage and select VDI Calculator.

Release 1.3
- Added support for VMware View 4.5 Disposable disks
- Added new Storage Breakdown summary for VMware View 4.5 Tiering

Release 1.2
- Added Host number calculation based on Desktop State (On, Suspend, Power Off)
- Added Storage calculation based on Desktop State (On, Suspend, Power Off)
- Added 4Gb overhead for vmKernel for Host Memory with overcommit
- Fixed bug when calculating Hosts Memory overcommit with low VMs per core

Release 1.1
- Added validation for Number of Desktop Pools (max. 512 Linked Clone VM per Desktop Pool)
- Added developer name and blog URL at bottom

Release 1.0

The VDI calculator can be found at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?page_id=1076. Alternatively, go to my blog homepage and select VDI Calculator.

The NDA for VMware View 4.5 has been lifted and I would like talk a little bit about an important new storage feature released with View 4.5 – Tiered Storage. Tiered Storage allow administrators to select the most adequate Datastore for a given type of disk (.vmdk) and/or workload.

In the past I have written about how VMware View Composer works and how base image, replicas and linked clones are created and maintained. If you would like to read the entire article click at “Real Life example of Storage Sizing for View Linked Clones”, otherwise let’s quickly review.

• Master Replica – The Master Replica is a one off for each SOE used as template. Unless the homework has not been properly done there shouldn’t be many Master Replicas.
• Replica – The replica is a thin provisioned clone of the Master Replica. It is created for each new desktop pool in each datastore and it’s based on the snapshot in use at any given desktop pool.
• Linked Clone – is composed of Delta Footprint + Log + User Data Disk. You will find information on how to calculate the size in my article Sizing Storage for VMware View Linked Clones.

VMware View 4.5 introduces the following new disks:

• Persistent Disk – This is the old User Data Disk that has been renamed. It is still possible to store the persistent disk within the Guest OS disk, or in a separate disk.
• Disposable Disk – A separate disk for the guest OS paging and temp files, View Manager deletes these disposable files when the linked clone is powered off.

The Linked Clone virtual desktops are now composed of Delta Footprint + Log + Persistent Disk + Disposable Disk, therefore the new storage calculation formula has also changed to:

Total Storage = (n° VMs * (Delta Footprint + Log + Persistent Disk + Disposable Disk) + Replica + Master Replica + Overhead)

Linked Clones with disposable disks can slow the growth of linked clones. Be aware that you will now be assigning a Disposable fixed size disk upfront and this should be included in the calculations. When you configure a linked-clone pool from a parent virtual machine, make sure you configure a disposable-file disk that is larger than the paging-file size.

Let’s now go back to storage tiering.

As I mentioned, VMware View 4.5 allow administrators to select different Datastores, where different types of virtual disks (linked clone, persistent and disposable) can be stored on fast, high-I/O storage, e.g., enterprise solid state disk drives (ESSDD) or Fibre Channel, and less accessed data onto less-expensive drives such as SAS or SATA. High-I/O storage will provide better performance for View Composer replicas that are constantly accessed (read-only) by all virtual desktops in the pool.

Picture gently pulled from ‘Cost-Effective Storage Solutions for VMware View 4.5 Enabled by EMC Unified Storage’. Nice reading, find document on Chad Sakacc’s blog.

Administrators are able to choose these options during the initial setup of the desktop pool. Datastores can be changed and/or re-assigned after the initial setup, but be aware that the selection to use Persistent Disks and Disposable disks can only be done during the initial setup of the desktop pool.

The ability to designate a Datastore dedicated to replica disks is IMHO one of the most important storage improvements in VMware View 4.5 and will allow for much greater I/O performance.

VMware View 4.5 yet presents some additional amazing new features:

• Windows 7 Support 32/64-Bit
• Smart Card Support for PCoIP
• Local Mode Desktop
• A native Mac Client
• Kiosk Mode
• Automated USB Redirection
• Location based printing
• Client localization (German, Japanese, French, Simple Chinese)
• Adobe Flex UI Administrator interface
• Higher broker scalability
• Role based delegation
• SysPrep support for Linked Clone desktop pools
• Persistent disk management
• Refresh, Recompose and storage rebalance for non-persistent pools
• Semi-automatic pools
• Extensibility with Powershell, SCOM and SDK’s, Event database
• System Dashboard, User diagnostics and troubleshooting
• ThinApp entitlement
• Smart Card revocation
• Support for vSphere and vCenter version 4.1

This week most of the cool kidz are at VMworld in San Francisco learning and playing with the latest technologies from VMware and Partners. I was not so fortunate to be there, but I had a chance to help a customer to virtualise their legacy applications using the latest release of ThinApp (4.6).

Yes, the new ThinApp 4.6 is also a hot topic at VMworld. If you didn’t have a chance to use ThinApp I recommend you to download the evaluation product and start packaging your applications.

This customer in specific has already been using VMware ThinApp for at least 4 months as part of the desktop strategy to move all workstation to Windows 7. They started using ThinApp after a major failure trying to utilise other application virtualisation products, not to mention names. Being a government department they have a crap load of legacy applications. Some of the applications are 15 years old, some based on Java 1.3 and others that will only work on Internet Explorer 6.

Using previous releases of ThinApp they have been able to virtualise those legacy applications whilst allowing different releases of Java to co-exist on the same Windows XP. If you recall, up to Java 1.3 only a single instance of Java was allowed per Windows. ThinApp also allowed them possible to package IE6 and run on Windows 7.

Couple weeks ago VMware released ThinApp 4.6. I consider this release to be a game changer in the application virtualisation industry. Why? ThinApp can now capture IE 6 and many of its plug-ins on a Windows XP machine. Used in conjunction with the ThinApp ThinDirect plug-in, installed on a user’s native browser, Web sites, or specific pages can be redirected to automatically open in a virtual IE 6 browser. In addition, an application that requires Internet Explorer 6 can be packaged with Internet Explorer 6, so that the application runs automatically on the virtual Internet Explorer 6.

Before ThinApp 4.6 to package a legacy IE6 + Java1.3 the process would be somewhat like:

• Install Windows 2000 SP4
• Install IE6
• Run windows update > install update for BITS > reboot
• Run windows update > Install Microsoft Installer update > reboot
• Run windows update > install the following patches > reboot
• Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 for Windows 2000 (KB905495)
• Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 for Windows 2000 (KB958869)
• Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (KB980182)
• Install/Initiate ThinApp pre-Scan
• Install java1.3 + registry changes > reboot
• Install Application > reboot
• Run post-scan

With ThinApp 4.6 the process is somewhat similar but the options are the key differentiation:

• Install Windows XP SP3
• Install/Initiate ThinApp pre-Scan
• Install java1.3 + registry changes > reboot
• Install Application > reboot
• Run post-scan

Cutting the chase, during the post-scan you will have the option to harvest IE6 from Windows XP and run it in a fully visualised sandbox, or create an entry point for the default Internet Explorer installed in your Windows and run it inside the sandbox. This second option gives you the possibility to create a fully portable application package that will run in any release of Internet Explorer, or even being able to use a single default IE with multiple legacy java versions – in my case 1.3.

From the release notes, other features I consider industry killer are:

• ThinApp ThinReg application enables a virtual service to be installed as a physical service, so that it starts when the physical machine is started. Any user can start and stop the service.
• Internet Explorer 6 is supported for Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) machines.

This customer is deploying ThinApp packages into their base SOE but their desktop strategy is already defined and ThinApp is a key component to allow them to migrate to Windows 7. In the future they will stream the packages from a centralised network share. Once they are ready for VDI adoption the last thing they will have to worry is about application compatibility.

It’s not uncommon to see 20% of the applications causing 80% of the issues for IT administrators. Take a look at your application catalogue and identify legacy applications with heavy dependencies, and give it a go with ThinApp.

For more information and downloads visit http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/