Continue reading »]]> 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 community member, including Citrix employees, who helped me to make sure calculations and terms were correct during the Beta program. Thank you!

If you are not yet familiar with my new VDI Calculator click here or just launch it using the green button below.

What’s New!

• XenDesktop support for deployments on VMware vSphere
• Assigned and Pooled deployments
• Personal vDisks
• Several validations to make sure you are not going beyond the supported limits
• Tooltips for both Horizon View and XenDesktop deployments
• Reporting for XenDesktop deployments

Not to forget important existing features since release 1.0

• Offline Support – The new version will be able to run when disconnected from the network. When connected, it will auto-update itself with the latest release.
• Load/Save – Now you can save and load your configurations eliminating repetitive task of entering the values every time you use the calculator. This is a great future for consultants that have to manage multiple projects for multiple customers.
• It’s FREE!!! – Thanks to the sponsors this tool is absolutely FREE, even for the mobile version that will be soon released. If you are a vendor and is interested in having your Ad dynamically presented on the calculator just send an email to at andre_leibovici@yahoo.com.

What’s Next

• Android support
• Block Size and IO calculations for even better accuracy
• Scale-out approaching using hyper-converged architectures
• Server Profiles – you select the brand, and the calculator will spit out the model you should buy
• Upload configuration to Cloud and be able to access it from anywhere
• Add in version of vcenter/view/esxi for auto-fill on the max sizes
• Drop down for some “canned” reference architectures (such as a 8-blade UCS chassis (HP, EMC, Netapp, IBM, Nutanix etc) and the usually set up for pools/Vms).
• much more…

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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
• Automated Provisioning
• Identity Management, Federation and Role Management
• Self-Service Portal
• Reporting and Metering

All that time I was focusing on DaaS aspects that relate to large service providers’ implementations. There is nothing wrong with that, especially given that at the end of the day service providers are the big players in this space. Microsoft is joining the game with the unofficial project ‘Mohoro’ (link), and even Dell is providing virtual desktops.

The reality is that any organizations, small or large, could have a successful DaaS implementation simply creating an self-service portal where users and consumers can unilaterally provision virtual desktops, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

Self-Service Portals should be an easy-to-use web interface that abstracts infrastructure information from users. Hardware information such as datastores, resource pools and desktop images should not be something that users should be required to have knowledge about. A user should be able to simply request a Windows desktop with Office 2010, 2 vCPUs and 4GB RAM.

So where does that lead us with all remaining components?

They are important, but not essential for DaaS deployments.

Multi-tenancy is the property or architecture feature where separate software instances or hardware systems are set up for different client organizations. Multi-tenancy may cover multiple areas, including not only CPU and memory resources, but also networking and storage.

Multi-Tenancy may not be required if you are deploying DaaS to a single entity, organization or enterprise. Multi-Tenancy starts to become more critical when more organizations share the same hardware infrastructure or multiple authentications boundaries start to interpolate.

Elastic Resources is the component that allows automated expansion and contraction of infrastructure resources. Whilst most cloud-based solutions will provide some form of elasticity, the component is also not a critical piece for many forms of DaaS. As an example, the administrator could ensure that there are enough resources available for the foreseeable forecast.

Automated provision is the component that ensures that desktops requested via the self-service portal are properly created. Most VDI solutions on the market have automated provisioning built-in and also provide some form of API’s that can be used to request creation of new desktops. However, it’s also possible to have the administrator to ensure there are enough desktops available for the foreseeable forecast, eliminating the need for automated provisioning.

Identity Management, Federation and Role Management. Having the ability to explicitly access internal, external and corporate resources in a secure and authenticated manner is essential. However, that doesn’t mean that for a DaaS solution you are obliged to support multiple Active Directories or authentication boundaries. Your DaaS solution could simply be connected to a single Active Directory source, whilst admin accounts could have been manually setup.

The ability to meter and report usage based on different and relevant metrics such as CPU and Storage consumption could be important for many DaaS deployments, but not all. Some organizations may want to show back utilization back to the business in order to justify investments, while other may want to charge-back different business units.

Ultimately, what I am trying to say here is that you don’t need to be a huge organization or a service provider to create your own Desktop-as-a-Service solution.Over the next few blog posts I plan to exemplify how you can build your own DaaS solution with VMware Horizon View and few other components from the VMware portfolio and/or Open Source.

If you want to go ahead and explore the subject I would recommend you to look at project mycloudportal. My Cloud portal is an open source self service layer for the cloud, but it can easily be used for your DaaS solution. The project can be found here. Another option is to use VMware vCloud Automation Center as your frontend (here).

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]>

If you are in the Minneapolis area make sure you attend the Minneapolis VMUG User Conference. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, Jun 11th 2013 at the Minneapolis Airport Marriott.

I am honored to present the keynote of the day with a session entitled “End-User Computing Vision for the Post-PC Era and VMware EUC Product Update“.

The event is also filled with sessions from well-known community members.

Click here for Agenda and Click here for Registration

Join your fellow VMware users for this full-day event including in-depth technical sessions, demonstrations and exhibits. This is a great opportunity to meet with your peers to discuss virtualization trends, best practices, and the latest technology!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 available in the previous Flash version, plus new key features that will make life easier for many users.

* Java 6 or later required

Features:

• Offline Support – The new version will be able to run when disconnected from the network. When connected, it will auto-update itself with the latest release.
• Load/Save – Now you can save and load your configurations eliminating repetitive task of entering the values every time you use the calculator.  This is a great future for consultants that have to manage multiple projects for multiple customers.
• Tool Tips – When you hover over a field or combo box you see an explanation what exactly that property will do.
• Validations – Property validations have been added to reduce the number of possible errors. These validations include checking your numbers are within VMware’s supported numbers.
• It’s FREE!!! – Thanks  to the sponsors  this tool is absolutely FREE, even for the mobile version that will be soon released. If you are a vendor and is interested in having your Ad dynamically presented on the calculator just send an email to at andre_leibovici@yahoo.com.

What’s Next!!

• Android support
• Block Size and IO calculations for even better accuracy
• Scale-out approaching using hyper-converged architectures
• Server Profile – you select the brand and the calculator will spit out the model you should buy
• Upload configuration to Cloud and be able to access it from anywhere
• Add in version of vcenter/view/esxi for auto-fill on the max sizes
• XenDesktop on vSphere
• Drop down for some “canned” reference architectures (such as a 8-blade UCS chassis (HP, EMC, Netapp, IBM, Nutanix etc) and the usually set up for pools/Vms).
• much more…

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 View desktops and provides load balancing for each pool by directing connection requests to the terminal server that has the least number of active sessions.

As of Horizon View 5.2 only 2008 Windows Server Terminal Services is supported. The recipe below will allow administrator to install Horizon View agent on Windows 2012 RDS and enable connectivity to 2012 RDS deployments.

Please be mindful this is TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED BY VMWARE.

You will have to make few changes to the standard Horizon View Agent 64-bit before you install it on your Windows 2012 server. Horizon View Agent uses Microsoft Installer to run a series of validations to understand what components should or should not be installed and what conditions should follow. First we need to open and hack the View Agent.

You will need to download Orca. Orca MSI Editor allows you to edit the properties of any MSI file. With this tool, you can change the title and text within the installer and look at how and where the files are delivered. Once installed you can right-click any MSI and select Open with Orca. This tool used to be a part of Microsoft Developer Tools but is now retired and no longer supported.

Download Orca from here.

The steps outlined below are not supported by VMware. I recommend testing in development environment. If you decide to test or implement you are doing it on your own risk.

Install View Agent and Hack it

1. On a Windows 2K8 R2 Server with latest VMware Tools installed execute the installation VMware View 5.1 Agent package (VMware-viewagent-x86_64-5.1.2-928164). Do not click Install or Next.
2. Go to %temp% folder, typing %temp% at the Run prompt.
3. Find the folder containing the unpacked installation files and copy them to a temporary folder on your desktop.
4. Using the Orca utility open ‘VMware View Agent64.msi’ file existing in the temp folder.
5. Navigate to ‘Condition’ table.
6. Under ‘Tables’ find and open ‘LaunchCondition and delete first four lines and click save.
7. Only ‘Not Version9X’ and ‘Privileged’ conditions should remain.
8. Close editor
9. Install View Agent from the ‘1-copy’ folder
10. Register the agent with View Connection Server (view.domain.local)
11. Reboot VM

Fake Out – Make the VM believe that it is part of an LDAP server

1. Log in to Horizon View Server as: domain\administrator
2. Connect to one of your Horizon View connection servers via RDP and execute the ADSI Edit tool or adsiedit.msc
3. Use the connection settings below to connect to the internal ADLDS (DC=vdi,DC=vmware,DC=int). Click OK.
4. Navigate to Servers OU and select and open the latest CN added to the list. At this point you should be able to see a property ‘Display Name’ containing the name of the server. If this is not the server you are adding you will need to find the correct CN.If you have problems finding your VM because your ADAM has too many entries, read VMware View Pool Membership Management using PowerCLI. The PowerShell object View-Get-Objects will help you to retrieve elements from the ADAM database.
5. Because VMware View is not ready to understand Windows 8 kernel version the pae-OSVersion property is not populated during the View Agent registration process.Navigate to the ‘pae-OSVersion’ property and change it to ’4′. Click OK.
6. Now go to View Manager and log in
7. If done correctly, RDSx-x will appear and you can now make a pool out of it.
8. Pools -> Terminal Services Pool
9. Select RDS_x-x etc.

I would like to acknowledge the help from my VMware colleague Fred Schimscheimer to write up this post. Thanks!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> I just found out I have been awarded with the VMware vExpert 2013.

The vExpert program is a recognition to the contributions to those who have demonstrated significant contributions to the community and a willingness to share their expertise with others.

This is the 4th consecutive year I am awarded on the vExpert program and It’s a honor for me to be part of this select group or people that in one way or another go out of their way, beyond their day-to-day responsibilities, to help the virtualization community. This group of bloggers, podcasters, webcaster, twitters is amazing.

Congratulations to all vExperts 2013!

Original Blog Post by John Troyer: vExpert 2013 awardees announced

I would like to thank John Troyer, Corey Romero, and the VMware Social Media & Community Team for their efforts to move this program internally at VMware.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 right-click to chat, the Microsoft Lync 2013 client performs all the functionality within the Horizon View desktop and acts just  as another desktop application. For Lync 2013 client functionality that includes real-time media, such as VoIP and Video Chat, the Lync VDI plugin running on the client endpoint performs all the media processing, to offload the workload from the servers hosting the desktop VMs.

In order to enable this critical media offload functionality VMware created the following functions.

1. VMware implemented a Microsoft dynamic virtual channel (DVC) to allow communications between the virtual machine and the client endpoint.
2. The Microsoft Lync 2013 client running inside a Horizon View desktop uses the DVC to communicate and establish a connection with the Lync VDI plugin (running on the client endpoint).
3. If the handshake between the Lync 2013 client and the Lync VDI plugin is successful, a popup window appears on the client endpoint running the VDI plugin.
4. The user is asked to enter “Sign-in address” and password for the Lync VDI plugin (the username/password combo is the same as the credentials for the Lync 2013 client).

Before going ahead it is important to highlight the support matrix for the Lync VDI plugin with different client devices. The Lync VDI plugin is only supported with Windows clients at this time.

1. VMware only supports the Lync VDI plugin when used with the PCoIP protocol. The Lync VDI plugin may function with RDP 8, however it has not been tested end to end with Horizon View desktops.
2. Only the 32-bit version of the Lync VDI plugin can be used with Horizon View clients. The reason for this is because even though there are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the View client, the PCoIP client process running on the client is a 32-bit process.
3. The Lync 2013 Client installed on the virtual desktop must match the Agent Bit-level. e.g. 32-bit Lync Client must be installed on a 32-bit Agent machine.

Configuration on Windows Client Endpoint

In order to enable the Lync VDI plugin to pair up with the Lync client, the end-user or administrator has to configure  registry settings on the Windows client endpoint. Configure the following registry settings on the Windows client machine.

 
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync]
"ConfigurationMode"=dword:00000001"
"ServerAddressInternal"="lyncsrv2013.lync.local"
"ServerAddressExternal"="Access.lync.local"

Under the “ServerAddressInternal” and “ServerAddressExternal” fields only use the hostname for the respective servers. MIcrosoft does not recommend and support the use of IP addresses in the server fields.

The Pairing Process

1. Launch Horizon View Desktop

2. The Microsoft Lync 2013 Client will start on View Desktop and login to Lync Client

3. After successful login to Lync client, pairing icon will look like this (lower right corner of Lync client):

4. Pop up window appears (it may take 1-2 minutes for it to appear):

5. Enter login information

6. If pairing is successful a green checkmark will be displayed: (after login, it may take up to 3 minutes to pair)

7. If pairing is not successful a red X will be displayed (after 3 attempts):

I would like to acknowledge the help from my colleague Tony Huynh helping me out to put together this content. In my next post about Lync 2013 I will provide troubleshooting guidelines.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> Veeam is raising the bar and is giving away the ultimate mobile virtualization lab. Check it out here.

ThinkPad W530 with Windows 8 Pro and 32GB of total memory
ThinkPad Battery 28++
Lenovo USB 2.0 Port Replicator with digital video
ThinkPad USB 3.0 750GB portable secure hard drive
Lenovo Slim USB portable DVD burner
Veeam, VMware and Microsoft software!

Continue reading »]]> 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 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 available in the previous Flash version, plus some new key features that will make life easier for many users:

• Offline Support – The new version will be able to run when disconnected from the network. When connected, it will auto-update itself with the latest release.
• Load/Save – Now you can save and load your configurations eliminating repetitive task of entering the values every time you use the calculator.  This is a great future for consultants that have to manage multiple projects for multiple customers.
• Tool Tips – When you hover over a field or combo box you see an explanation what exactly that property will do.
• Validations – Property validations have been added to reduce the number of possible errors. These validations include checking your numbers are within VMware’s supported numbers.
• It’s FREE!!! – Thanks  to the sponsors  this tool is absolutely FREE, even for the mobile version that will be soon released. If you are a vendor and is interested in having your Ad dynamically presented on the calculator just send an email to at andre_leibovici@yahoo.com.

What’s Next!!

Here is a list of ideas. If you like any of them or if you can think of anything else, please let me know.

• Block Size and IO calculations for even better accuracy
• Scale-out approaching using hyper-converged architectures
• Server Profile – you select the brand and the calculator will spit out the model you should buy.
• Upload configuration to Cloud and be able to access it from anywhere

We are currently running a small Beta test program to ensure you get a high quality product that you can rely upon to create and calculate your VDI and DaaS designs. We should have the Beta program finished in a week or so and then the calculator will be available to everyone. Keep tuned!!!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 most of the work was done by Tristan. Well done Tristan!

Physical PCs

In the beginning…there were physical desktops and everything was on DASD (Direct access storage device).

Physical PCs 2.0

Filers at team and corporate level started to arrive and user data began to land on shared storage.

Physical PCs and Terminal Services

With terminal services came further distribution of storage for desktops in that enterprise applications began to land on shared storage and even server storage.

Early VDI for the really unfortunate

Some early adopters of VDI were not provided with SAN access (storage administrators worried about VDI) and started hosting desktops on DASD at vSphere host level.

Early VDI for the more fortunate

The more fortunate early adopters were able to host desktops in enterprise SAN/NAS in the same way that many vSphere customer had been hosting server workloads.

VDI with basic tiered storage

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.

VDI with advanced tiered storage

Advanced tiered-storage arrived in VMware View 4.0 and allowed storage tiering of linked clones to different storage platforms (based on capacity and performance needs). Refer to VMware View 4.5 Linked Cloning Operations Explained (Part 1) and VMware View 4.5 Linked Cloning Operations Explained (Part 2).

VDI with advanced tiered storage and persona management

With more advanced tiered storage + persona management, further separation of storage was possible.

VDI with local SSD or Flash

With the introduction of the stateless reference architectures for VMware View, high performance DASD (SSD or flash) could be used for host linked clones. In this way, shared storage is lightly used for access to user data, persona, and enterprise applications. Refer to Use Flash Drives (SSD) for Linked Clones, not Replicas and Offloading Virtual Desktop IOs with Atlantis ILIO: Deep Dive .

VDI with auto-tier SAN / NAS

Some advanced storage solutions arrived that promised to be a auto-tier solution where all VDI components could land on the same storage platform but be moved to appropriate backend tier based on IO characteristics. Refer to EMC FAST Cache effectiveness with VDI. In this category I would also put a number of different technologies such as the scale-out like Nutanix with Fusion IO cards and Nexenta ZFS with ZIL and L2ARC.

VDI with storage features in Software + advanced physical storage

Finally, advanced automatic tiering in hardware and intelligent storage features in software (such as the View Storage Accelerator) have shown great promise in providing a simplified front-end storage architecture. Refer to Understanding CBRC (Content Based Read Cache).

We have certainly not covered all possible storage technologies for VDI but this list is amusing and demonstrate how reference architectures and deployment models have changes over the last few years. It’s all about cycles and we keep repeating them as the technology gets better and prices come down.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 capabilities in Horizon View or what’s coming with the next release of Horizon Mobile. All fresh and cool stuff!

When I proposed one of my fresh new sessions I was asked to present “Getting VDI Storage Right”. My immediate reaction was to say that this was an old topic that every VDI administrator and architect had already mastered and that there was no need to present on such subject. I am sure I am in right mind when I say that because at the end of the day I have been writing about storage performance and architectures for VDI for over 3 years now.

Well, I decided to respect the VMUG board request and put together a session deck on the subject. When the VMUG day comes, with a packed room, I open my session with a rant about presenting on such topic but I kept on going. Why am I writing about it then? Well, at some point during my session I had a slide with the following bullet:

• Who in the room knows what the average & peak IOPS are for your VDI environment?

That’s when I went perplex! There was only a single hand up. I then decided to ask how many were actually currently doing VDI in some form. More than half of the room had their hands up.

It seems to me that all those hundreds of storage architecture and performance blog posts written by me and the blogger community have not been yet assimilated by organizations doing or planning to do VDI, or they are not hitting the target audience. That honestly makes me sad because I also think that to some extent this is laziness from storage administrators and VDI architects, but on the other end I also think that most storage vendors are not prepared to provide customers with proper assessment and guidance, whilst are more interested in completing the sale as quick as possible.

I work extensively with storage vendors and I can attest that many of them will say their solution is best for VDI but they have absolutely no clue about architecting such solution even thou they may have a joint architecture with VMware, Citrix or another VDI vendor.

I worked for EMC and they used to have a EUC/VDI specialist team to help customers. It appears to me this group has been thinned a little bit.  Atlantis Computing has a very good grasp on VDI as this is their bread and butter. Nutanix will say their solution scale linearly, like Atlantis, and they have recently on boarded some subject matter experts.

Other storage vendors have reached out to me in search for VDI expertise, and some of them are even using a personalized version of my VDI calculator on the field to help customers.

I honestly believed this whole storage conundrum discussion was over, but it is clearly not. With Microsoft announcing project Mohoro set to deliver Windows 8 “Desktop-as-a-Service” the whole discussion has been  reignited. How do we scale storage to accommodate for hundreds of thousands of desktops?

On the other side of the spectrum I plead you to make sure you are working with storage vendors that are indeed interested in helping you with your VDI solution and have the expertise to put you in the right track avoiding storage bottlenecks in the future.

A IDC, Goldman Sachs research from Dec, 2012 demonstrated that in the enterprise space from 95% market domination in 2005 Microsoft market share has fallen to just 20% by 2012. However, Windows is not going away anytime soon and Microsoft project Mohoro is a clear indication that the “Desktop-as-a-Service” is only warming up. I would love to know how Microsoft is architecting their own storage/compute solution for Mohoro.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 has been introduced with the changes in Horizon View 5.2. The changes are based on the functionalities of ThinPrint Server Engine 8.6.

• SpeedCache allow print jobs to be compressed by avoiding the repetitive sending of the redundant image data.
• Finishing support let users control the full range of features of multi-functional printers.
• Currently there are two forms of cloud printing – virtual and mobile printing. While only part of the printing process in virtual printing is relocated to the cloud, with mobile printing the entire printing process takes place in the cloud. Read more about it here.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 framework and will run on Windows, Mac and Android devices. There will be a special version specifically built for Android devices using native gesturing capabilities. No, no iOS thus far.

Keep in tune and don’t worry about the less than optimal user interface on the screenshot below – it will look great by GA timeframe, and it will also look great on Android devices.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> If you are attending EMC World 2013 in Las Vegas next week and is interested in how to effectively deliver Desktop-as-a-Service using EMC technologies you should attend my session with EMC’s Matt Cowger.

In this session we will discuss what DaaS really mean to organizations and what are the associated challenges - infrastructure resiliency, licensing costs, IO Profiles, self-service, storage design and architecture. From a VMware perspective I will also touch on different technologies available Today that make DaaS a reality.

Here is our session, make sure you register and attend!

VMware: Desktops-as-a-Service with VMware View & EMC

VMware View 5.1 provides an ideal platform for delivering desktops as a managed service for enterprise customers of all sizes. For many years, service providers have been daunted by technology and licensing challenges involved in building a viable service. VMware View can provide the foundation for building a service offering for delivering desktops from the cloud. Storage infrastructure is one of the backbones of a DaaS offering, however new storage technologies are rapidly transforming deployment models.

Now, if your organization is embracing BYOD, PYOD, Consumerization and Mobile workforce you should attend Scott Davis (VMware EUC CTO) session to find out how VMware can help you manage this new and diverse mobile workforce.

VMware: End-User Computing Vision for the Post-PC Era and VMware EUC Product Update

This session features VMware’s CTO for End User Computing discussing VMware’s vision for the future and the myriad of industry developments forming it. Multiple devices, application platforms, mobile devices, Bring Your Own Device initiatives, Cloud computing, and next generation applications are combining to a profound effect on IT. Learn about VMware latest EUC products including View, Mirage, and the Horizon Suite, DaaS, and a sneak peek and demos of technologies percolating in VMware’s labs to help IT manage and secure the Post PC era environment.

See you there!!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 earlier. The instructions below are The steps outlined below are TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED BY VMWARE. I recommend testing in development environment. If you decide to test or implement you are doing it on your own risk.

In order to enable USB 3.0 for Horizon View Windows soft-clients you will need to create a Windows registry key which enables Horizon View client to see USB 3.0 devices.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\Client\USB]
“AllowUSB3″=”true”

For Horizon View Client for Mac OS X you will need to use the shell (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) to edit the settings. For more information on how to edit settings for Mac OS X refer to the documentation here.

#defaults write com.vmware.viewusb AllowUSB3 true

Confirm  with:

#defaults read com.vmware.viewusb

Depending on the USB 3.0 chipset you may have issues with Windows 7, Vista and XP Guest OSes.

To validate that USB3 functionality is enabled you should look for the following item in the log files

[vmware-view-usbd] DevFltr: Device Speed = Super

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> The VMworld Public Session Voting is now Open to anyone and allows VMware to poll the general public on which sessions they want to see presented at the event.

This year I decided submit only co-hosted sessions with people who are specialist in their product areas. People like Mac Binesh, Director for Horizon Performance; John Dodge, Tech Marketing DIrector; and Narasimha Krishnakumar, Horizon View Product Manager.

Any session with those guys is certainty of getting out of the session with a list of things to research or act on.

I am also  part of a very special panel discussion on Enterprise Mobility Management with no one less than Jack Madden from Techtarget and BrianMadden.com.

The not so good part is that even as a VMware employee I still need your vote to get sessions approved (well, I guess that’s better and fairer for everyone).

Please go ahead and click HERE to start your voting; and bellow you will find a list os sessions I am being part of. Thanks for your vote!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]>

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 there’s a lot to be discussed about it.

The event is also filled with sessions from well-known community members. VMware’s own Paul Strong (CTO, Global Field & Customer Initiatives) is doing the morning keynote.

Click here for Agenda and Click here for Registration

Join your fellow VMware users for this full-day event including in-depth technical sessions, demonstrations and exhibits. This is a great opportunity to meet with your peers to discuss virtualization trends, best practices, and the latest technology!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 environments from Windows 7 to Windows 8. In this test Windows 8 excelled when compared to Windows 7. During the boot process there were 54% less write IOs and 39% less read IOs at peak time in favor of Windows 8.

The average IO consumption, for both read and write, were approximately 50% lower when compared to Windows 7.

Windows 2K8 also demonstrated interesting results with lower peak and average IO for reads than any other Windows version. For write IOs it didn’t do so well, but still better than Windows 7.

Most VDI solutions do not have constant boot storms, but those that use floating pools and require constant desktop refresh could hugely benefit from the lower IO overhead provided by Windows 8 during boot time.

It seems that Windows 7 is actually the most demanding Windows version in regards to disk IO operations.

The storage performance conundrum may not be an issue for newer storage architectures, such as those using storage class memory devices, that can drive an enormous amount of IOPs at very low latency. However, it could also mean that architects are able to increase host density without increasing latency.

I did not run a production working set using system testing tools such as View Planner or Login VSI to completely validate the theory. If you have done so and is willing to share, please do!

Here are the results for the previous tests but I would recommend you going over to the article for better explanation “Why you should move your VDI to Windows 8“.

IDLE

1st Login

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> 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 into details in this article.

In short, IOps are the number of commands sent by the GuestOS to the storage, and these commands can often overload storage solutions when they are not properly sized for the VDI workloads. Write IOs normally have a higher cost than read IOs due to RAID striping that occurs for every write IO. IOPs and RAID together define the storage layout and the numbers of disks required. The RAID type will set the numbers of spindles required to support the VDI workload based on the amount of IOPS and Read/Write ratios — especially Write IOs given that RAID adds write penalty depending  on the RAID type chosen.

VDI workloads are not only made of boot and login storms. Applications, logging and other components also generate both read and write IOs.

If you want to learn more on IOPS please refer to Get hold of VDI IOPs, Read/Write Ratios and Storage Tiering. Also read VMware View 4.5 Storage Tiering explained and Sizing Storage for VMware View Linked Clones and Real Life example of Storage Sizing for View Linked Clones.

Anyway, back to the tests.

I measured the average and maximum number of IOPS requested by different GuestOS at two different stages. The first stage (below) is when the desktops have been IDLE for over 12 hours.  The graph below demonstrate that the maximum number of IOPS for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 are roughly comparable, with one Windows 8 anomaly for the desktop “Win8-02″. I am not sure what caused the anomaly.

In this first test both Windows 7 instances presented much lower write IO average when desktops are IDLE, however not as low as Windows 2K8. Windows 2K8 has the lowest average IO consumption of all three Windows versions.

On the second stage of the test I measured the IO consumption during the 1st user login. In this test Windows 8 excelled when compared to Windows 2K8 and Windows 7 on both, read and write IOs. Windows 8 had a write IOs peak 46% lower than Windows 7. On the average write IO the number was 20% lower in favor of Windows 8, demonstrating much more granular control over the IOPS overtime.

Before I give you my final conclusions I have to state here that this is not a scientific test and I beg you to run your own validation tests.

Microsoft has without doubt improved Windows file system performance, reducing the amount of IOs and data required to and from the storage. If steady state workloads in Windows 8 present the same benefits  and performance improvements demonstrated during the login process it could drastically help to reduce VDI storage costs since nowadays most storage costs are driven by performance, not by capacity.

The storage performance conundrum may not be an issue for newer storage architectures, such as those using storage class memory devices, that can drive an enormous amount of IOPs at very low latency. However, it could also mean that architects are able to increase host density without increasing latency.

I did not run a production working set using system testing tools such as View Planner or Login VSI to completely validate the theory. If you have done so and is willing to share, please do!

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> The year of 2012 was an important year for enterprise mobility management, where many start-up companies and large organizations put their stakes on the ground competing for a share in this $180 million market that is increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 15% to 20% during the next few years, according to industry analysts.

Early adopters of the technologies available have already recognized how transformative and fast paced the enterprise mobility management market really is. Some analysts and enterprise mobility experts are already paving a way out of MDM (Mobile Device Management) saying it’s a too heavy-handed approach to secure mobile applications and data, where IT literally take control of employee-owned mobile devices. To this point, there are lighter-handed MDM options available on the market that offer a good degree of control without being too intrusive.

The market answer is to move to a mobile app centric approach, the MAM (Mobile Application Management), where a number of different technologies and approaches are used to secure mobile apps and enforce polices and security. Some of the technologies in use by MAM are app wrapping, app secure VPN and even SDK driven app frameworks where mobile apps are developed on top of a framework that manipulate and handle security.

MAM usually supports custom-built enterprise mobile apps that have been built specifically to use the MAM vendor’s API; or in a more light-handed approach it will require the app to be wrapped with the MAM technology.

According to a Dec, 2012 research from the Yankee Group, employee-owned tablets used for work purposes has grown 16% from 2011 to 2012. This demonstrates not only that mobility in general is full steam ahead, but also that employees want to use mobile technologies to be more productive.

To get work done employees will look for apps that make them more productive, and if those are not available in the corporate app store they will likely go outside to find a new app the suits their ‘business’ needs. This has happened before with file-synchronization engines and is currently happening with note-taking apps.

If the app is not available in the corporate app store it’s possible that organizational content is created or moved to cloud services. On the offensive, vendors are exploring this market, enabling content sharing with added security features for corporate customers. However, if an employee wants to use a different service, or if tomorrow there’s a better app that will make them more productive, nothing will stop them from moving data or creating content using non-approved corporate apps and services.

Just like MDM, MAM is focusing on the security aspects of who is using the app, leaving a security gap that delineates the usage boundaries for the data. These boundaries reflect what and how employees are allowed to access and share data, independent of application or device.

A 2012 Forrester research suggests that 70% of the corporations want to use mobility to allow document viewing and employee access to portals, email and calendar. More than 52% of the organizations surveyed have implemented or are expanding video and photo application activities. The research goes into more detail, but the point I want to make is that line-of-business mobile applications are not high priority in most organization’s agendas.

Even if LOB mobile apps are responsible for a huge market, we need to ask the following question – What fraction of LOB mobile apps will require security around it to prevent data leakage? In many cases a simple photo taken or a screen-grab would circumvent the security mechanisms. However, we need to remember that MDM and MAM are not just about security as they also embrace life-cycle and deployment of mobile apps.

There are LOB mobile apps being used today for data input in select market verticals, and they are being adopted at fast pace. Some well-known use cases are: delivery and drivers (acknowledgements, routing and GPS), insurance (photos and forms), road-warriors (ordering and search) and finance (market watch and real-time statistics). A large amount of the devices carried by road-warriors are corporate-owned and many of them are specially reinforced devices to cope with heavy-duty operation. If devices are corporate-owned, then both MDM and MAM are practical solutions.

The same Forrester research demonstrates that 28% of the organizations that answered to the survey already allow employees to use any non-harmful application or device and they DO provide some support for the item, a 13% increase from 2011 to 2012.

I personally like the idea that ANY mobile app should be fully embraced by organizations, enabling the “True BYOD”.

Organizations need to worry about is who is accessing the data and what can be done with it. An app downloaded from iTunes, Google Play or Ubuntu store could have access to corporate data, but data could be geo-tagged not allowing it do be consumed from unauthorized areas, data could be meta tagged not allowing it to be consumed under specific conditions or by specific devices, data could be tagged with mechanics of how it can be shared across apps etc.

Allowing employees to use with their own mobile apps with content management doesn’t eliminate risks associated with content being intentionally moved or created outside the enterprise, but it gives options to employees to do the right thing.

Enterprises feel they must control consumerization and users, however unless they fully embrace the idea of content tagging and accepting that any mobile app can be used by employees to make them more productive we will never reach the BYOD nirvana.

Nothing I am writing here is new and all that has been talked and discussed before. We as an industry are not quite there yet, but as Aaron Levie (BOX CEO and Founder), mentioned in a tweet: “The product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that required a giant leap.”

The opinions expressed anywhere on this article or this blog are my personal opinions. Content published here is not read or approved and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of my employer.

Continue reading »]]> This is just a quick note to say that Nutanix is sponsoring premiere sessions of 2013, Star Trek Into Darkness all over the country (USA). To register to one of the sessions just click on the link here.  I have already registered for Santa Clara, CA. Here is the movie trailer.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> VMware Horizon Mirage is a layered image management solution that separates the PC into logical layers, which are owned and managed by either IT or the end user. Mirage enables enterprise IT administrators to centrally control the base and application layers guarantying a consistent view of the image across all endpoints. Through the Mirage Management Console, the administrator configures and manages clients, base images and app layers, performs operations such as updates and restores, and monitors the system operation through the dashboard and event logs.

In a SDDC environment automation is one the most critical pieces to ensure all parts work together. Despite Mirage provides all management capabilities via a full-featured dashboard, the lack of an supported API hinders the ability to promote datacenter automation.

So, I have 2 good news for Mirage administrators.

Good News N°1 – There is a web API in the Mirage Server. It’s hidden, clunky and undocumented - but it’s there.

Good News N°2 – I have created a VMware Mirage PowerShell Automation Module and I am sharing it with the broader community.

Important – the Mirage API approach is TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED BY VMWARE. I recommend testing in a development environment. If you decide to test or implement you are doing it on your own risk.

I am sharing this module with the borader community to enable administrators to create automation for Horizon Mirage taks via PowerShell. The cmdlets can be executed manually or be part of a larger PowerShell script, or even be triggered by automation and workflow tools like VCAC, vCenter Orchestrator or Puppet.

This version of automation module was created for and tested with Mirage V3.7_SP1 and no forward or backward compatibility is guaranteed. I know for fact that some of the cmdlets will not work with Mirage 4.0 and need to be updated given the Mirage API has changed since.

I am hoping that sharing this module with the community will enable administrators to understand how to implement it and build upon what I have created. If you update this module or add new functions and cmdlets I would appreciate you sharing back with the community.

The module contains the following functions:

• Add-MirageCollection
• Assign-MirageBaseImage
• Centralize-MirageEndpoint
• ConfirmRestore-MirageEndPoint
• Connect-Mirage
• DeCentralize-MirageEndpoint
• Get-MirageCVDBaseImage
• Get-MirageEndPoint
• Get-MirageEndpointSnapshot
• Remove-MirageCollection
• Remove-MirageEndpoint
• Restart-MirageEndpoint
• Restore-MirageEndPointSnapshot
• Resume-MirageEndpointNetworkOperations
• Suspend-MirageEndpointNetworkOperations

The functions (cmdlets) are self-explanatory, but additional information about how to use it can be found in the module header. To load the module, open a PowerShell session and type “Import-Module -Name mirage_module.psm1”.

Download the module here.

Here are some examples of how to execute the cmdlets after the module has been loaded.

Connect-Mirage -mgmtHost "x.x.x.x" -username "administrator" -password "password" -DLLpath "C:\Program Files\VMware\Wanova\"
 Get-MirageCollection -collection "collectioname"
 Add-MirageCollection -collection "collectioname" -filter "mirage01"
 Remove-MirageCollection -collection "collectioname"
 Centralize-MirageEndpoint -Endpoint "endpointname" -BaseLayer "baseline"
 DeCentralize-MirageEndpoint -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Get-MirageEndPoint -ContainerType:Pending
 Remove-MirageEndpoint -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Get-MirageSnapshot -Endpoint "endpointname"
 ConfirmRestore-MirageEndPoint -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Suspend-MirageNetworkOperations -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Resume-MirageNetworkOperations -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Restart-MirageEndpoint -Endpoint "endpointname"
 Assign-MirageBaseImage -Endpoint "endpointname" -BaseLayer "baseimagename" -MajorVersion 1 -MinorVersion 2
 Get-MirageCVDBaseImage

In order to support different version of VMware Horizon Mirage you will need to create a new DLL. To create a new DLL to make the module work with different versions of Mirage one should follow the following steps:

1. Replace Management Server configuration (“baseAddresses”) – replace “localhost” in “ <http://localhost:8443/WanovaAd… with the actual machine address – required for the next step to work
2. Create stub client code from WSDL: SvcUtil.exe
   http://<Management address>:8443/WanovaAdmin?wsdl – creates LicensedAdminApi.cs
   The resulting LicensedAdminApi.cs file will contain the service contract (the methods, resulting from the WSDL) and the data contracts (the data portion, coming from the XSD) for your service.
3. Compile the client: csc.exe /t:library LicensedAdminApi.cs – creates LicensedAdminApi.dll

If you cannot find csc.exe in your environment please follow this instructions to detect what .NET Framework versions and service packs are installed. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/199080/how-to-detect-what-net-framework-versions-and-service-packs-are-installed

Please note that even with a new WSDL/DLL the PowerShell module would need to be fully tested for compatibility. The reason being is that the Mirage WEB API is constantly changing and is not supported for remote interaction.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> It was 2010 when I first published in my blog the online VDI calculator for View and for XenDesktop. In April 2011 I stopped updating and supporting the XenDesktop version of the calculator, but it is still available in my blog.

The calculator has since been trough multiple upgrade cycles, and new functionalities have been added according to the VMware View product evolution. However, many people also use the calculator to size VDI deployments for other brokering platforms such as XenDesktop and vWorkspace, or other hypervisors, such as KVM and Hyper-V.

Today, the calculator is pretty much a standard VDI sizing tool for many professionals, including professional services organizations from the largest IT consulting companies in the world. I’ve been told that by many and I also track where the hits are coming from.

I keep track of the utilization, and one thing I was able to observe through the numbers is how the VDI market is still growing. In 2011 the daily average number of unique visitor was 91, hiking up to 134 in 2012, and in 2013 is already at 154 unique visitors per day.

The uptake on the calculator usage could be due to number of different reasons, including Google Page Ranking or people getting to know the tool. However, I know for fact that Google has been raking it 1st for a long time whenever you search for “VDI Calculator” and 2nd when searching for “Virtual Desktop Calculator”

I believe organizations are starting to look at VDI and Desktop-as-a-Service as an effective way to provide secure, manageable and easy access to applications and internal organizational resources, enabling the remote workforce, rather than placing focus on BYOD and cost reduction.

A recent article by Forrester’s analyst, David Johnson, describes what may be happening in the market and how and when VDI or DaaS is making sense to organizations. (HAS VDI PEAKED? A CHANGE IN THE ADOPTION DRIVERS SHEDS NEW LIGHT, AND NEW LIFE).

In the meantime the number of unique views on the calculator continues to rise, demonstrating that the uptake on VDI or DaaS is not anywhere near over.

The free VDI calculator can be found here.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> When VMware View 5.1 was release I wrote about the changes to storage and memory footprint when the 3D software rendering option was enabled.

• VMware View 5.0 3D Reverse Engineered
• vSphere 5.0 New .vswp file & Storage Tax on VDI

Just to recap:

ESxi 5.0 implements a second .vswp file for every virtual machine created either with hardware version 7 or 8. This second .vswp file is dedicated to memory overhead and will be used when the host is under resource constraint. When the virtual machine is created the memory overhead is defined, however the VM and the VMkernel will not use the whole reserved memory until required.

With Horizon View 5.2 and vSphere 5.1 new changes have been implemented, modifying the amount of storage footprint and memory allocated for the video .vswp file. The new values are more aggressive than used to be with vSphere 5.0.

Couple things to highlight before getting into the numbers:

• Horizon View 5.2 does not allow selection of 24-bit or 32-bit color palette. 32-bit is the default option.
• The resolution mode has been narrowed in Horizon View 5.2, only allowing administrators to select between 1680×1050, 1920×1200 and 2560×1600. 1920×1200 is the default option.

3D Software Rendering Disabled

• Memory footprint per VM in MB.

• Storage footprint per VM in MB

3D Software Rendering Enabled

When the 3D software rending is enabled for a desktop pool the amount of storage utilized for the .vSWAP file is not dictated by the resolution and number of displays, but rather by the amount of video RAM assigned for display. In previous releases of VMware View when 3D software rendering was enabled it would automatically add 256MB to the .vswp file – but that mathematics does not work anymore. I performed some reverse engineering to identify the most common cases.

• Memory footprint per VM in MB

When you create a VM using vCenter you will see the following information: “Extra 64MB plus 16MB per display”.

• Storage footprint per VM in MB

Now, you might be asking yourself. Do I need to compute all that into my VDI solutions design? The answer is yes, you do. The simply fact of adding 512MB video ram will increase the VM storage footprint in 1.9GB. However, you don’t have to be concerned about all this calculation because I have included in a the release of my VDI calculator (http://myvirtualcloud.net/?page_id=1076).

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> I have just release the Horizon View VDI Calculator v.3.1 with important updates to the graphics stack in order to correctly support the new 3D software and hardware rendering.

What’s New in Release 3.1

- Added support for new 3D functionalities in Horizon View 5.2
- Added support for 64, 128, 256 and 512MB Video RAM
- Removed 24 or 32 bit color option
- Video resolutions removed: 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×1024, 1600×1200, 1152×864, 1280×800, 1440×900

Along with the changes to the 3D support there are important storage and memory footprint overheads to be observed. I am writing another article to explain what is changing with vSphere 5.1 and Horizon View 5.2 when 3D support is enabled for a virtual desktop.

Check out the VDI calculator training video. You can find the video at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=2551

Check out the manual to help you to better use the VDI Flash Calculator. The manual can be found athttp://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=1927.

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

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> Gabrie van Zanten at gabesvirtualworld.com published an updated to his PowerShell script that enables Horizon View to utilize dynamic IP addressing for PCoIP connections using whatsmyip.com. This pretty cool for people installing Horizon View at home for lab purposes.

Update: I have checked the script to work with VMware View 4.6, VMware View 5.0, VMware View 5.1 and VMware View Horizon 5.2. There was an update needed for the URL used to get the external IP address. Now using http://ifconfig.me/ip as URL. In Horizon View 5.2 there is a new URL, called the Blast External URL, to enable HTML5 for View. This URL can use a FQDN instead of IP so you don’t have to change it.

Check out his article here.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> Services Providers and large customers with requirement for multi-tenant Desktop-as-a-Service frequently ask me how would be possible to integrate Horizon View and vCloud Director and get both technologies to work together. As of today, the official VMware answer is – this is not supported.

In this article I demonstrate how multi-tenant implementations with View and vCD is achievable with some automation. However, let’s first look at why this is not supported today.

Most attempts to integrate View with VCD focus in placing View Connection Servers inside a vCD tenant organization. This works well for VMs and VApps created by and through vCD. However, View only communicates with vCenter Server, not vCD. For this reason, unless a dedicated vCenter server is placed in each vCD tenant organization with nested ESX’s you will not be able to have a completely independent environment. In this article I don’t plan to discuss vCD architecture. However, placing additional vCenters and nested ESX’s in a vCD tenant organization is not a scalable solution nor will excel in performance.

In addition to that, for a true multi-tenant environment you would need dedicated Active Directory domain servers hosted within each tenant organization. This AD server may be an extension of a customer network trough a VPN connection.

When Horizon View creates virtual desktops it will only communicate and place them in vCenter, not in VCD. Therefore, desktops will not be able to contact the correct AD server to be able to join the domain and execute other customization related tasks; nor will they be in a vCD organization. Therefore, vCD does not see the desktop nor manage resources for it.

The picture below demonstrates a deployment with Horizon View running inside a vCD organization and how it will communicate to vCenter only.

VMware does not support the steps outlined below. I recommend testing in development environment. If you decide to test or implement you are doing it on your own risk.

Enter a new undocumented feature in Horizon View 5.2 “HoldCustomization”.  This feature was a request I placed with engineering team  to help me to achieve multiple different objective; being one of them out-of-band vCD integration for Horizon View. When using this feature make sure the desktop pool is created with provisioning disabled, and only enable provisioning after the pae-HoldCustomization attribute is set to 1. If you need help to modify the ADAM database, please refer to my article How to Access Windows 2K8 Server via PCoIP with VMware View  for instructions.

When a Horizon View desktop pool is enabled with HoldCustomization the desktops will not be automatically powered-on after creation – this applies to both full and linked-clones. Because desktops have not been powered on it is possible to execute certain tasks before the customization process starts and before the domain join fails while trying to contact the correct Active Directory server.

As an example, one of the tasks that could be executed at this point in time is an Import-CIVApp task in vCD via API (PowerShell, Java, .NET). I am not going to explain in details how the function work in this blog post. Here is a code example:

Import-CIVApp -VM (Get-VM -Name $vm.name) -NoCopy -OrgVdc $org -RunAsync -Confirm:$false | Wait-Task

Once the VM is imported into vCD it will be automatically configured with identity, placed in the correct organization and registered with vCNS (vShield Edge). Now you need to automate the addition of the vCD VM into a pre-configured org-network using vCD API. Here is a sample of how to do that with PowerShell:

Function Configure_VMNetwork {
Param(
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 [string]$org,
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 $vm,
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 [string]$newNetworkName,
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 [Int]$NetworkConnection,
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
 $IpAddressAllocationMode #$IpAddressAllocationMode = Pool, DHCP
 )
 $vmext = (Get-CIVM -Org $org -Name $vm*).ExtensionData
 $NetworkConfig = $vmext.Section | where {$_ -is [VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Views.NetworkConnectionSection]}
 if (($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection).Count -eq 1) {
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection)[$NetworkConnection].network = $newNetworkName
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection)[$NetworkConnection].IsConnected = $true
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection)[$NetworkConnection].IpAddressAllocationMode = $IpAddressAllocationMode
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection)[$NetworkConnection].NeedsCustomization = $true
 } else {
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection | sort-object NetworkConnectionIndex)[$NetworkConnection].network = $newNetworkName
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection | sort-object NetworkConnectionIndex)[$NetworkConnection].IsConnected = $true
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection | sort-object NetworkConnectionIndex)[$NetworkConnection].IpAddressAllocationMode = $IpAddressAllocationMode
 ($NetworkConfig.NetworkConnection | sort-object NetworkConnectionIndex)[$NetworkConnection].NeedsCustomization = $true
 }
 $NetworkConfig.updateServerData()
 Return ""
 }

At this point in time the VM is ready to be powered on via vCD (must be via vCD because vCD executes few run-time configurations).

When the VM is finally back online, now in vCD, the desktop customization will continue normally and the desktop will be added into the domain and available to be connected via View Connection Server.

At his point in time you have a fully contained View environment with Connection Servers, Security Servers, View Composer, Active Directory and the desktops running inside a vCD tenant organization and all View related tasks such as refresh, recompose and reset will continue to work as per usual.

It is important to observe an implication while using this approach – vCenter Server is shared amongst View deployments in different organizations, therefore it’s important to harden Horizon View to avoid attack from inside the organization. In order to do that the attacker would need to have passed AD credentials or RSA token authentication to be able to start trying to do something. However, I am just raising awareness of the shared vCenter.

Automating View, vCenter, vCD with pre-created vAPP templates to create a multi-tenant infrastructure for desktop-as-a-service is possible. This guide doesn’t show you how to do it, but rather gives you an idea how to accomplish it.

There is another method to achieve similar results, where desktops are created in vCD and then added to manual pools in View. I’ll cover that in a different article. However, the downside of that is that you loose desktop lifecycle and pool management capabilities provided by View; such as refresh on logoff, recompose and refresh operations.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> Horizon View 5.2 provides Microsoft Lync 2013 client support, including full support for UC VoIP and Video on both RDP and PCoIP. This new feature enable a tighter integration between Microsoft Lync and Office applications with full collaboration capabilities.

Microsoft Lync 2013 client is a Unified Communications (UC) application that is installed on a desktop.  Microsoft Lync client is used for presence, instant messaging (IM) and other functions, such as placing a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Video chat call.

In order to enable the Lync 2013 client to pair up with the Lync VDI plugin running on the client endpoint, VMware implemented Microsoft’s dynamic virtual channels (DVC) inside PCoIP. The Microsoft DVC provides a communications path between the virtual machine (VM) and the client endpoint, and the Lync 2013 client uses the DVCs to communicate with the Lync VDI plugin running on the client endpoint. The graph bellow depicts how the solution is architected.

Using Horizon View 5.2 and Microsoft Lync 2013 together will enable the following features to be used:

• Presence
• Instant Messaging
• Desktop Sharing
• Application Sharing/PowerPoint sharing
• Whiteboards
• File Transfers
• Online Meetings
• Communication modes for Online Meetings are limited by peer-to-peer communication modes.  For example, if audio is not supported on the specified architecture, audio will not work in Online Meetings.
• Joining online meetings from Microsoft Outlook meeting reminder and/or meeting invitation is not supported.
• Office Integration
• VoIP
• Audio is supported only in a VDI environment. Audio is not supported in a session-based desktop delivery environment such as Microsoft RDS.
• Video Chat
• Multi-party video chat is not supported.

The solution works with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Embedded and Windows Thin PC. Before using Lync 2013 administrators must ensure that the client hardware meet the following specifications: CPU 1.5GHz, at least 2GB RAM and 4GB total storage.

Software Components	Description
Microsoft Lync 2013 Server Components	Backend server that the Microsoft Lync clients register with.
Microsoft Lync 2013 client	Microsoft Lync 2013 client application that is installed in VM.
Microsoft Lync VDI plugin	The Lync VDI plugin is installed on the client machine.  Lync VDI plugin that pairs with Lync 2013 client in VM.  Once Lync VDI plugin is paired with Lync 2013 client, all media processing is automatically redirected to the client device.
View 5.2 (Agent and Client)	Need to use the View 5.2 agent and corresponding View 5.2 client
VM Operating System	Supported on Windows 7 VMs only with Service Pack 1.
Client Operating System	Supported on Windows 7 and Windows 8 client OS.  Please note that Windows 8 clients is only offered in Tech Preview.

There are also some additional restrictions to be observed:

• PCoIP process running on the View client (32 & 64-bit) only operates in 32-bit mode.  Therefore only the 32-bit version of the Lync VDI 2013 plugin is supported.
• Client Machine – the 32-bit version of the Microsoft Lync VDI 2013 plugin will not work from a machine that has the 64-bit version of Office 2013. This is unsupported by Microsoft.
• RDP 8 is not supported.

I would like to acknowledge here the excellent work from Tony Huynh and his team to get these functionalities working. In my next post about Lync 2013 I will go a little deeper and explain how the communication works under the covers and provide some troubleshooting guidelines.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> View Pool Manager allow Horizon View administrators to easily manage users across desktop pools and security groups in large deployments.

One of the of the biggest challenges View administrators face in large deployments is the desktop pool maintenance. Commonly each desktop pool has an Active Directory security groups with the correct amount of users a given desktop pool will support. As employees leave or join the organization the security groups become messy, requiring maintenance to ensure that the number of users in each group correctly match the amount of desktops available in each desktop pool.

This little tool will help administrators to save time adding, removing and maintaining users across desktop pools and security groups while helping to ensure that each security group does not contain more users than the amount desktops in the desktop pool.

The tool allow administrators to bind an Active Directory connection and specify:

• Number of users per security group (based on View pool size)
• Floating or Persistent deployment model
• Source Security Groups (all users to be distributed to pools)
• Destination Security Groups (All groups where users may be assigned to)

Why is this tool awesome?

Because View administrators do not have to waste hours adding, removing and maintaining users, desktop pools and security groups while ensuring each security group does not hold more users than the amount desktops in a given pool.

Download the tool from VMware Fling website here.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> I have just release the Horizon View VDI Calculator v.3.0 with full support for Horizon View 5.2 and vCenter 5.1. This is a major release of the calculator with multiple enhancements to mostly support higher scalability with the new versions of View and vCenter.
 
What’s New in Release 3.0

- Added support for pools with 2,000 desktops
– Added support for new processors with 12 and 16 cores
– Added support for user-defined VM limit in vCenter
– Added support for user-defined vSphere cluster size
– Added support for 10,000 desktops with vCenter 5.1
– Multiple backend changes to support Horizon View 5.2
– Multiple backend changes to support vCenter 5.1
– Enabled high availability features as Default options
– Removed support for vCenter Server earlier than 5.0
– Removed support for View earlier than 5.0
– Removed cluster size dependency on storage protocol

vCenter VM Limit -  In previous versions of the calculator the limit was pre-set by the calculator. With vCenter 5.1 supporting up to 10,000 desktops you may now set how many VMs should run run per vCenter Server. Increasing or Reducing the number of VMs per vCenter will define the number of individual blocks per Horizon View pod.

Max Cluster Size – vCenter 5.1 and View 5.2 introduced support for up to 32 hosts per cluster with NFS and Block storage technologies. Based on your design and use-case you are now able to define the maximum number of hosts per cluster.
 

Support for new processors with 12 and 16 cores

What’s Next?

SEsparse – For the next small release I will be adding support for the new SESparse disk format. However, SESparse reclamation process is based on disk utilization and that will drastically vary according to use-cases and usage. To size for SEsparse today, if you know you are able to reclaim 2GB every time wipe/shrink operation is sun, than set the total disk size to a smaller number.

Check out the VDI calculator training video. You can find the video at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=2551

Check out the manual to help you to better use the VDI Flash Calculator. The manual can be found at http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=1927.

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

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> During many of my customer briefings, conference sessions  and discussions with friends I frequently notice that many of the terms used in EUC (End-User Computing) are yet unknown to many – so are the benefits of the multiple different technologies being created and implemented in enterprises today – things such as MDM, MAM, EMM etc.

In an effort to disseminate information about this emerging market that according to analysts is worth U$180B I recorded a series of videos covering the basics of EUC. These are short videos (about 2min) that cover a different part of the EUC spectrum in each episode. I’m calling it EUC 1:1

This fourth episode covers EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) and Mobility Market. I hope you enjoy it!
 
(Watch it in HD)

If you cannot see the embed video click here.
 
This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> This week I received an interesting question from a colleague that I had also been asked in the past. However, in the past I was not able to present a good solution for the problem. Let me present the scenario.

A VMware View pool of persistent desktops was created and provided to developers using the Linked Cloning technology. Over time the developers deployed their own applications and created content in their virtual desktops. The storage administrator is now requiring the VMs to be moved around and distributed to different storage LUNs for maintenance and performance reasons.

Storage vMotion doesn’t work in this situation and is not supported with Linked Clones. VM cloning will also not work, failing with the following error message:

Another option is VMware View Rebalance operation, but that one will refresh and reset the virtual desktops to their pristine state. Learn more about Rebalance and other Linked Clone operations in my article VMware View 4.5 Linked Cloning Operations Explained (Part 2).

The VMware KB “Converting a linked clone virtual machine to a full clone virtual machine (1026753)” will also explain how to use vmkfstools to convert the linked clone VMs into full clone and than add it to a VMware View manual desktop pool.

However, my colleague didn’t want to convert Linked Clone VMs to Full Clones because they would lose manageability over the desktop, such as refresh and recompose operations. For this same reason V2V solutions were also not an option because we would have to let View Composer do it’s customization job before doing the migration.

The solution: Horizon Mirage.

Mirage keeps a complete virtual copy of each end point synchronized with the data center. The administrator can re-assign the virtual copy to a new end point (virtual or physical) and all user profile, user data, and user-installed applications will be restored to the new device – even if the new device is a different hardware make or model, or virtual instead of physical. Mirage is hardware and driver agnostic as it created different driver layers for different hardware models.

The administrator is now create a new Linked Clone VM in the correct LUN and use Horizon Mirage to migrate all the data from one linked clone to another linked clone VM.

Mirage also leverages de-duplication in storage – This means that data is only stored once no matter how many users or end-point device exists in a organization.  Additionally, all data is compressed before it is sent and  SSL can be enabled between all client-server communication.

If you want to learn more about Mirage read my article VMware Mirage Architecture and Use Cases.

Please note that at the time of writing this article Horizon Mirage integration is not officially supported by VMware.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> During many of my customer briefings, conference sessions  and discussions with friends I frequently notice that many of the terms used in EUC (End-User Computing) are yet unknown to many – so are the benefits of the multiple different technologies being created and implemented in enterprises today – thinks such as MDM, MAM, EMM etc.

In an effort to disseminate information about this emerging market that according to analysts is worth U$180B I recorded a series of videos covering the basics of EUC. These are short videos (about 2min) that cover a different part of the EUC spectrum in each episode. I’m calling it EUC 1:1

This third episode covers MIM (Mobile Information Management). I hope you enjoy it!

(Watch it in HD)

If you cannot see the embed video click here.
 
This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> One of the most common requests I get from customer and partners is – When will VMware View support Windows 2K8 as Guest OS?

As most of you probably know Microsoft does not provide SPLA licensing model for Windows 7 to allow customers and service providers to create Desktop-as-a-Service offerings using Enterprise grade VDI solutions such as Horizon View. However, Windows Server 2K8 does provides SPLA licensing model and if those customers and service providers are able to deliver Windows Server 2K8 combined with the new Horizon View Multi-VLAN feature they could effectively service a large part of the DaaS market without incurring into Microsoft licensing issues.

Please note that I am not inferring that Horizon View with Windows 2K8 is effectively Desktop-as-a-Service, like some of the vendors out there. I personally believe DaaS is much more than simply delivering Win2K8 desktops, and that it should embrace key important concepts such as Mobility, Portability, Automated Provisioning, Identify management, Federation, multi-tenancy at all layers, chargeback, and an easy-to-use self-service web portal where user can consume services. This is subject for another article. However, the solution below, despite unsupported, will effectively put customers and service providers in alignment with Microsoft licensing.

If you are an avid reader of my blog you will remember that I published back in 2012 a guide on how How to Access Windows 2K8 Server via PCoIP. That hack is currently being used by many customers, but it was not effectively easy to deploy because it required the administrator to hack into the VMware View database and manually add each desktop. Furthermore, Linked Clones and many other features such as printing and USB redirection were not working. But, you don’t need to go back to my old article because all you need is here and in a much simpler way.

I cooked up something TOTALLY UNSUPPORTED BY VMWARE that will allow customers and partners to provision VMware View desktops using Windows 2K8 Server, PCoIP, Linked Clones, ThinPrint, SmartCards, Persona Management and USB redirection; all in a natural and automated fashion.

Important Note: The techniques below has been only tested by me for the latest VMware View 5.1 release.

The only changes you will have to make to get the solution working is to the standard VMware View Agent 64-bit before you install it on your parent VM. VMware View Agent uses Microsoft Installer to run a series of validations to understand what components should or should not be installed and what conditions should follow. For Windows 2K8 specifically, VMware View agent will only allow Terminal Services Access Pools with the connection protocol being RDP. So, first we need to open and hack the View Agent.

You will need to download Orca. Orca MSI Editor allows you to edit the properties of any MSI file. With this tool, you can change the title and text within the installer and look at how and where the files are delivered. Once installed you can right-click any MSI and select Open with Orca. This tool used to be a part of Microsoft Developer Tools but is now retired and no longer supported.

Download Orca from here.

The steps outlined below are not supported by VMware. I recommend testing in development environment. If you decide to test or implement you are doing it on your own risk.

1. On a Windows 2K8 R2 Server with latest VMware Tools installed execute the installation VMware View 5.1 Agent package (VMware-viewagent-x86_64-5.1.2-928164). Do not click Install or Next.
2. Go to %temp% folder, typing %temp% at the Run prompt.
3. Find the folder containing the unpacked installation files and copy them to a temporary folder on your desktop.
4. Using the Orca utility open ‘VMware View Agent64.msi’ file existing in the temp folder.
5. Navigate to ‘Condition’ table.
6. Delete the conditions from PCoIP (0), SVIAgent (0), SmartCard (0), ThinPrint (0), and USB (0) features. Delete only the content of the condition, not dropping the entire row. Save the changes.
7. In ControlEvent table set:
1. Dialog CustomSetup, argument ConnectionServer, set condition to 0
2. Dialog CustomSetup, argument ReadyToInstall, set condition to 1
8. In InstallExecuteSequence Table set:
1. Action VM_AddLDAPMachineEntry_SD.2EDC2186_29E9_4662_86CD_26051967D0CA, set condition to 0
2. Action VM_AddLDAPMachineEntry.2EDC2186_29E9_4662_86CD_26051967D0CA, set condition to 0
9. In Registry Table set:
1. Registry vcManaged, set Value to #1
10. Save the VMware View Agent64.msi and copy all the files to a temporary folder in your Windows 2K8 VM.
11. Execute ‘VMware View Agent64.msi’ and go through the install normally.
12. This is a critical step to ensure VMware View Composer is will customize the desktop and bypass the OS version check. Replace C:\Program Files (x86)\Commom Files\VMware\View Composer Guest Agent\vmware-svi-ga.exe with the patched file you download from here.
13. Open the Windows Device Manager; go to ‘Display Adapters’ and select ‘Update Driver…’
    Select ‘Browse my computer for driver software’ and ‘Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer’. (optionally, if you see the VMware 3D driver available in ‘Display Adapters’ you may select it and skip step 13.
14. On the following screen select ‘Have Disk…’ and select the wddm_video driver at C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video\vm3d.inf. Without changing the video driver PCoIP will not work.
15. We are almost done! The next procedure will ensure that new View Composer internal disk goes online when attached to the Linked Clone VM. Open command prompt and type DISKPART.exe. Now type DISKPART > san policy=OnlineAll. Type exit.
16. Close the command prompt window shutdown the server.
17. Next you will need to change the VM OS type to Windows 7 (64-bit) so VMware View can recognize it as a valid Parent VM for View Composer.
18. Take a Snapshot of the VM and you are done!

From now on just create desktops pools the same way you always do. Use Automated Provisioning, Dedicated or Floating, Horizon View Composer linked clones. Here is my Windows 2K8 configuration:

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.

Continue reading »]]> Identifying what replica is assigned to what desktop pool can be somewhat challenging in Horizon View. However, in some cases administrators need to know the object relationship to properly plan desktop and pool migrations across hosts or datastores.

The PowerShell script bellow produces a output that demonstrate this relationship.
  

  
To execute save the script below as a .PS1 file in a View Connection Server with the VMware.VimAutomation.Core plug-in installed. The VMware.VimAutomation.Core plug-in is automatically installed with the VMware vSphere™ PowerCLI. Before executing the script you will need to change the vCenter server address at

 <p>Connect-VIServer -Server vsphere5.company.com

  
Here is the script:

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core

function Get-LinkedClone {
 #The following line is a fast replacement for: $vms = get-vm args[0] | get-view
 if( $args[0] -eq $null ) {
 # $vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,Summary,Config.Hardware.Device
 $vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine
 } else {
 $vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,Summary,Config.Hardware.Device, -Filter @{Name = $args[0]}
 }

 $linkedClones = @()
 foreach ($vm in $vms) {
 Write-Host "The name of the vm is " $vm.name
 $unshared = $vm.Summary.Storage.Unshared
 $committed = $vm.Summary.Storage.Committed
 $uncommitted=$vm.Summary.Storage.Uncommitted
 $provisioned= ($vm.Summary.Storage.Commited + $vm.Summary.Storage.Uncommitted)

 $ftInfo = $vm.Summary.Config.FtInfo

 # This identifies if it is thin provisioned.
 if ( ($unshared -ne $committed) -and (($ftInfo -eq $null) -or ($ftInfo.InstanceUuids.Length -le 1)) ){
 # then $vm is a linked clone.
 # Find $vm's base disks.
 $baseDisks = @()
 foreach ($d in $vm.Config.Hardware.Device) {
 $backing = $d.backing
 if ($backing -is [VMware.Vim.VirtualDeviceFileBackingInfo] -and $backing.parent -ne $null) {
 do {
 $backing = $backing.parent
 } until ($backing.parent -eq $null)
 $baseDisks += $backing.fileName
 }
 }

 $isReplica=$vm.name.Contains("replica-")

 if (($baseDisks -ne $null) -and -not $isReplica)
 {
 # $replica=$baseDisks[0].Substring($baseDisks[0].IndexOf("]") +2 , $baseDisks[0].IndexOf("/"))
 $slashpos=$baseDisks[0].IndexOf("/")
 $replicaDisk=$baseDisks[0].Substring(0, $slashpos)
 $rbracketpos=$replicaDisk.IndexOf("]") +1
 $replica=$replicaDisk.Substring($rbracketpos).Trim()

 #$VMName = $vm | select -expandproperty name
 #$VMUnshared = $vm | select -expandproperty storage | select -expandproperty perdatastoreusage | select -expandproperty Unshared
 #--- Get the disk space assigned

 Write-Host "the VM " $vm.name " has this many disks" $vm.Guest.disk.length
 $totalDiskSpace = 0
 $diskSpaceAssigned = 0

 for ($iCount = 1;$iCount -le $vm.Guest.Disk.Count; $iCount++)
 {
 $index=$iCount-1
 $diskSpaceAssigned = [math]::Round($vm.Guest.Disk[$index].Capacity / 1GB)
 #$Details | Add-Member -Name "Disk$($DiskNum)FreeSpace(GB)" -MemberType NoteProperty -Value ([math]::Round($disk.FreeSpace / 1GB))
 $totalDiskSpace=$totalDiskSpace + $diskSpaceAssigned
 }
 $GuestTotalDiskSpace = $totalDiskSpace
 $uncommittedGB= [math]::round($uncommitted/1GB,2)
 $VMUnsharedGB = [math]::round($unshared/1GB,2)
 # $VMUsed = $vm | select -expandproperty storage | select -expandproperty perdatastoreusage | select -expandproperty Committed
 $VMUsedGB = [math]::round($committed/1GB,2)
 $VMprovisionedGB=[math]::round($provisioned/1GB,2)
 $linkedClone = new-object PSObject
 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name Name -Value $vm.name
 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name Parent -Value $replica

 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name DiskCount -Value $vm.Guest.Disk.Count

 #$linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name BaseDisks -Value $baseDisks
 #$linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name DiskProvisionedGB -Value $VMprovisionedGB

 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name UniqueDiskUsedGB -Value $VMUnsharedGB
 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name VMCombinedStorageGB -Value $VMUsedGB
 $linkedClone | add-member -type NoteProperty -Name GuestTotalDiskSpace -Value $GuestTotalDiskSpace

 $linkedClones += $linkedClone
 }
 #else { do nothing for VMs that are not linked clones }
 }
 else
 {

 Write-Host $vm.Name "Not a Linked Clone" -ForegroundColor 'Red'
 }
 $stan = $linkedClones | sort Name, DiskCount, VMCombinedStorageGB, UsedStorageGB, GuestTotalDiskSpace
 $stan | ConvertTo-Html > c:\temp\output.html
 }
}

Connect-VIServer -Server vsphere5.company.com
Get-LinkedClone</pre>

  
Thanks VMware EUC Senior Consultant Hans Bader for sharing the script with us. However, please not that I have not heavily tested the script and if you find any issues or want to improve it please share with us.
  
This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.  

Continue reading »]]> Eric Siebert (@ericsiebert) from vSphere-Land has just published results for the 2013 Best VMware and Virtualization Blog Election. My blog finished in 14th place, coming down from the 17th position last year and 39th place the year before.

Thanks to all my readers for the votes!

The announcement was made during a special vChat  recorded with special guests John Troyer, David Davis and Simon Seagrave. I would like here to acknowledge the amazing work Eric and his troop do every year to get this voting going. Finally, I would like to congratulate all bloggers out there for the amazing work we all do sharing knowledge and helping others. Thanks!!!

Here is the full 2013 top bloggers list.

This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.