Comments for myvirtualcloud.net

Comment on View Calculator by Julian Botero

Julian Botero — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:31:18 +0000

@Andre in regard to my question which you replied to on 05/03/2013, I found this quote in Citrix XenDesktop Best Practices document. Just thought I would share…
LUNs accessed by means of Fibre Channel or iSCSI should not host disks for more than 20-30 virtual machines, in order to avoid read/write latency caused by SCSI reservations or SCSI queuing. For environments based on VMware vSphere 5.x and a VAAI-capable storage array, the maximum number of virtual machines per LUN should not exceed 75.

Comment on What’s New in VMware Horizon View 5.2 (Beyond Marketing) by Dynamic PCoIP in View 5.2 | MindFlux Inc.

Dynamic PCoIP in View 5.2 | MindFlux Inc. — Wed, 22 May 2013 22:03:28 +0000

[...] and if you’ve stopped by the excellent myvirtualcloud.net and read Andre’s post on View 5.2 you may have seen my comment there and will also be up to [...]

Comment on View Calculator by Sittichai Palanisong

Sittichai Palanisong — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:44:20 +0000

@Andre.

In this case if I disable 3D rendering then the storage sizing should be the same as in 5.1, right?

Comment on A Rant About Storage Vendors by Jim Sanzone

Jim Sanzone — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:08:13 +0000

I think there’s a 2nd issue, too. You called it out that most didn’t know the performance of thier own systems…but even if you sized it perfectly on day 1, there has to be a constant effort of assess and remediate as the performance profile of your end users and the applications and data they use changes. The most important metric is user experience and the perceptions that the users have…are they happy? Iops, response time, capacity, utilization…those are the “temperature” gauges rather than the final metrics.

Maybe storage performance is more like a car, now. I really don’t know how much horsepower my car has, but it has enough to get me where I need to go. Somebody at the factory sized the engine based on the weight of the car and the expected range of the payload. I know that when I fully load it up, it does perform differently than when it’s just me in the car…but I understand the limits. Could some orgs have systems in place similar to this? One that got sized right in the beginning and they are ok with the performance they are getting?

The guy who sold me the car recommended it to me based on my needs when I came to the dealership, and I understood the specs and capabilities of the car. Wouldn’t it be great if storage and desktop admins could buy thier VDI or cloud infrastrucure that way too? Without having to be storage performance workload experts? If they could just buy a system that was sized by someone “at the factory” and it just worked?

I’ll stop now before this becomes a commercial, but what you found isn’t unique…we get the storage conversation as its our world…but the general population lives in a different world. How can we in the “factory” help them without them having to become engineers themselves?

Comment on A Brief History of Desktop Storage Architecture by Amitabh Dey

Amitabh Dey — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:16:14 +0000

This is Brilliant! Kudos to you, Andre and Tristan!

Comment on Save [VDI] Storage using VM Swap File Host Placement by A Brief History of Desktop Storage Architecture » myvirtualcloud.net

A Brief History of Desktop Storage Architecture » myvirtualcloud.net — Tue, 21 May 2013 01:08:05 +0000

[...] Basic tiered storage involved moving seldom used, temporary, and non-essential desktop VM data off of “expensive” shared storage and onto host DASD. Many administrators continue to do this today. Refer to Save [VDI] Storage using VM Swap File Host Placement. [...]

Comment on View Calculator by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:01:03 +0000

Sittichai Palanisong, yes, things have changed from View 5.1 to View 5.2 due to additional storage resources utilized for advanced video processing. I recommend reading the article below. Thanks.

3D Software Rendering with View 5.2… What’s Changing!
http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=4927

Comment on VMware View – Disconnect your session when the VM is IDLE by Ken Mickeletto

Ken Mickeletto — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:24:50 +0000

Looking to download a copy of this utility but the website http://www.brooksyounce.com is no longer valid. I searched around a bit but all I can find are fake file hosting sites and even if I do find it on one of them, I am now worried about if the file had been modified.

Anyone have a safe place to download this from?

Comment on A Rant About Storage Vendors by Itzik

Itzik — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:24:15 +0000

HI Andre,
great write-up, as you know, the answer to this is “..You are a Geek, in general, nobody knows this”.
as someone who design VDI workloads day in and day out, I couldn’t agree more, ive seen crazy low or crazy high numbers, it appears that people just goggle something and they make their mind fix on a specific number..

Comment on View Calculator by Sittichai Palanisong

Sittichai Palanisong — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:49:18 +0000

Hi Andre,

I have a partner who used the VDI calculator for sizing of View 5.1. When they changed the version to Horizon View 5.2 somehow the storage usable capacity is increased from 16.25TB to 22.7TB even all parameters are the same.
What is the change in 5.2 that cause this difference?
-Sittichai

Comment on A Review of Horizon View 5.2 Limits and Maximums by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:25:10 +0000

Sachin,

32 hosts is the maximum number of hosts per vCenter Cluster. You may have more than 32 hosts in a View environment.

10,000 desktops per vCenter is supported but I would recommend not going close to the limit due to the size of the failure domain and also because of the reduction in concurrent operations.

-Andre

Comment on A Review of Horizon View 5.2 Limits and Maximums by Sachin

Sachin — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:29:16 +0000

Great post Andre! I have a couple of questions.

I know 32 hosts is a new max, but was that per instance of View or vCenter?

Also, I understand that the max number of desktops has increased from about 2,000 to 10,000 with View 5.2. I know that sometimes one should not get close to a max because performance can suffer or it is in practice just not wise. So, I’m wondering if VMware really suggests getting close to the new 10,000 max.

We’re trying to maximize the number of desktops we can support in a single instance of vCenter.

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by The return on of the Start menu? Word is spreading that Microsoft is set to give in on Windows 8 and stop shoving tablet features down the throat of desktops « TUG Sweden

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:48:47 +0000

[...] has been some evidence, however, that Microsoft has re-worked the file system performance such that using Windows 8 in VDI environments allows for better performance and/or higher density. The bottom line: If Microsoft “fixes” Windows 8 and makes it more like the old days, [...]

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by ronny

ronny — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:08:22 +0000

@Rob, I’ve used the Cortado thin Print engine with the terminal server option Therefor printing via PCoIP doesn’t work (only via RDS). But at this is already a start.

Comment on Horizon View Offline VDI Calculator (Sneak Peek) by xu

xu — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:22:38 +0000

I can try

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Rob G

Rob G — Wed, 08 May 2013 01:14:39 +0000

Can someone provide guidance as to how they got thinprint to actually work. There are tons of thin print products and some do not work with server 2008. What drivers do you need and what is the process? Any help is greatly appreciated. Great article!!

Comment on Horizon View Offline VDI Calculator (Sneak Peek) by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:14:56 +0000

Xu, not for the first release, but we can make that happen for a 2nd release if you are willing to help with the translation.

-andre

Comment on Horizon View Offline VDI Calculator (Sneak Peek) by xu

xu — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:06:31 +0000

Could support language pack?
Such as Chinese

Comment on Horizon View Offline VDI Calculator (Sneak Peek) by briansuhr

briansuhr — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:21:23 +0000

Very Cool, always wanted this. Thanks

Comment on Horizon View Offline VDI Calculator (Sneak Peek) by dstafford

dstafford — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:20:19 +0000

I’d really like an augmented reality version for iOS that lets me point the camera at my infrastructure stack and automatically populate the requisite values. #kthxbai

Comment on How to enable USB 3.0 in Horizon View 5.2 by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:59:40 +0000

Davoud, I have not tested with Zero Clients.

-Andre

Comment on How to get VMware View Desktop Login Count by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:58:48 +0000

burak ç?nar, It seems to me you have not loaded the View PoserShell Module. You should start a PowerShell shell session using the shortcut View places in your server.

-Andre

Comment on View Calculator by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Fri, 03 May 2013 17:53:14 +0000

Julian, the soft imposed limits relate the number of concurrent SCSI reservations in a FC or iSCSI LUN. That does not apply to NFS protocol. Those are safety numbers that have been tested and approved by vendors. Can you go beyond those numbers? Yes, absolutely. However, when doing so, make sure you keep track of storage metrics, such as latency, ensuring the users still have a good experience when using the solution.

-Andre

Comment on Horizon View Multi-VLAN Explained by Technology Short Take #32 - blog.scottlowe.org - The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:21:43 +0000

[...] Andre Leibovici explains how Horizon View Multi-VLAN works and how to configure it. [...]

Comment on View Calculator by Julian Botero

Julian Botero — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:56:22 +0000

I know you are no longer supporting the XenDesktop calculator but this seems to work fine for calculating that as well. My question is related to the “Number of VMs per Datastore” variable. Your other manual says “VMware recommends a maximum of 64-128″. Can you point me to that actual reccomendation. I havent found a concrete number but i have found in Cirtix XenDesktop documentation where they state “it is a best practice to implement no more than 20-30 virtual machines per LUN on average.” If you could point me to a different statment from VMware it would be appreciated. Link to Citrix paper below.
http://support.citrix.com/servlet/KbServlet/download/17979-102-671614/Introduction%20to%20Storage%20Technologies.pdf

Comment on Windows 7 Transparent Page Sharing and the ASLR story… by vSphere 5.1 & Hyper-V 2012 memory concepts explained and compared - viktorious.nl - Virtualization & Cloud Management

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:58:25 +0000

[...] Windows 7 Transparent Page Sharing and the ASLR story - Andre Leibovici [...]

Comment on How to get VMware View Desktop Login Count by burak ç?nar

burak ç?nar — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:00:30 +0000

i got an error when i try to run ps.
i’m using view 5.1

The term ‘Get-EventReport’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is co
rrect and try again.
At C:\Users\user\Desktop\get_vm_login_count.ps1:20 char:25
+ $event = Get-EventReport <<<< -viewName user_events -startDate $startdate | Where {$_.eventtype -eq $eventtype}
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Get-EventReport:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Comment on How to enable USB 3.0 in Horizon View 5.2 by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:44:28 +0000

David, this has more to do with device compatibility than transfer speeds.

Andre

Comment on How to enable USB 3.0 in Horizon View 5.2 by Davoud Teimouri

Davoud Teimouri — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:44:45 +0000

Very good document, thank you.
Do you test that on Zero Clients?

Comment on How to enable USB 3.0 in Horizon View 5.2 by dstafford

dstafford — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 01:59:38 +0000

Any initial estimates of peak throughput for a USB3 device over the TCP channel? (Do I need to upgrade my MBAir to 10Gb/E )

Comment on Shadowing VMware View Desktop Sessions by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:13:01 +0000

Arjan, thanks for sharing with us.

-Andre

Comment on A Review of VMware View 5.1 Limits and Maximums by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:12:19 +0000

Mulford, those are VMware validated numbers. You may go over 140 but should pay attention to common storage metrics, such as latency, response time, IOPS always ensuring the desktops are responsive enough for your use case. The same is valid for Full Clones.

SIOC won’t solve low performing storage array, but rather will not let a noisy VM steal IOPs from other VMs. It will promote fairness.

-Andre

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:09:45 +0000

Unai, you will not be able to print because the print driver shipped with View Agent does not support Windows Server GuestOS. You need to download and install Cortado ThinPrint Universal drivers and server.

-Andre

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Pete Rod

Pete Rod — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:17:54 +0000

Ya, I did. I even shutdown the machine and verified again…

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Unai

Unai — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:03:37 +0000

Heya Pete

Have you changed the properties of the virtual machine, setting it as windows 7? (step 17)

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Pete Rod

Pete Rod — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:20:46 +0000

Has anyone else had any success on View 5.2? I’ve followed this guide and View still only sees the VM as a 2008R2 (Datacenter). I’ve also checked the Database and do not see the machine showing up in the servers OU – hence I can’t check the PAE setting.

Comment on How to: Win2K8 w/ PCoIP, Linked Clones, USB, Printing & much more on VMware View (DaaS) by Unai

Unai — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:11:41 +0000

Hello

First all, Thanks Andre for the guide, it works great !!

Does anyone solved the thinprint issue? Or the only way is to use cortado thinprint for example?

regards

Comment on A Review of VMware View 5.1 Limits and Maximums by Mulford

Mulford — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:47:15 +0000

The number of virtual machines per LUN (140/VAAI) is when they are linked clones? If so, what is the limit if I want to use full virtual machines? It should be SIOC enabled for this?

I am quite confuse because I have been reading a lot of documents about “how many VMs per LUN/Datastore” and the one of the best I found says 20 VMs (I guess Full VMs) per LUN even using VAAI.

I had working with View Planner 2.0 and different test using IOmeter and the sizing of the LUN is one of the most complicated steps (also storage performance/IOPS ).

Thanks !!

Comment on VMworld Public Session Voting is Open and these are my sessions by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:07:36 +0000

Before someone asks if I intend to present all sessions… hopefully not!!
Please choose the ones that align more with the contents you would like to be exposed to.

Thanks
Andre

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:34:52 +0000

Thanks Jim.
Would you have any material you could share with me so I can publish to the all my readers? Thanks.

Comment on Shadowing VMware View Desktop Sessions by Arjan

Arjan — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:55:47 +0000

Hello Andre, I would like to point you to UltraVNC. UltraVNC is free for ALL usage.
ALL includes commercial usage. It works great in shadowing View desktop sessions and has a lot of features: File transfer, Video driver, Optional Encryption Plugins, MS Logon, Text chat, Viewer Toolbar, Java Viewer with File Transfer , as well as Viewer Auto scaling and Server Side Scaling, Multiple-Monitors-support,Repeater/Proxy-support, Auto reconnection.

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Jim Moyle

Jim Moyle — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:58:38 +0000

Andre, I’ve found peak and average during steady state for Win8 to be very similar to Win7. On the other hand, I’ve also seen the same boot performance difference as you noticed.

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Ravi

Ravi — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:38:32 +0000

Win 8 reminds me of Vista, i will wait for win 9 or whatever they will call the next release.

Comment on Yet another reason to move your VDI to Windows 8 by Windows 8 shows reduced IOPS requests, more ideal for VDI than Windows 7? – vmstan.com

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 02:05:53 +0000

[...] Windows 8 shows reduced IOPS requests, more ideal for VDI than Windows 7? ? [...]

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Andre Leibovici

Andre Leibovici — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:53:33 +0000

John, thanks for the feedback. I have published boot IO results http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=4976

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Cloudin' Around - Jeffrey Hall – Using Windows 8 with your VDI deployment may just be the trick

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:16:14 +0000

[...] Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 (http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=4967) 2. Yet another reason to move your VDI to Windows 8 [...]

Comment on Yet another reason to move your VDI to Windows 8 by Amitabh Dey

Amitabh Dey — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:27:51 +0000

Quite Interesting! Thanks for sharing, Andre!

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Yet another reason to move your VDI to Windows 8 » myvirtualcloud.net

Yet another reason to move your VDI to Windows 8 » myvirtualcloud.net — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:26:06 +0000

[...] « Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 [...]

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by John Hardman

John Hardman — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:53:33 +0000

You should take a look at the IOPs load for booting too, you will see similar results.

For those that bitch about the UI… there are lots and lots of 3rd party add-ons that give you the old start button UI… so spend a few bucks per VM (or wait for SP1) and save thousands in SAN to support Win7 IOP loads.

Comment on Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8 by Whatever

Whatever — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:47:09 +0000

Negate iops with a shit user experience. Great idea.