Deep Intro to VMware, Part 5: VMware View

Managing VirtualStorm desktops with VMware View.

In the previous article I showed you how to make clones of a master image. These clones are static clones and now we need a way to provision these to our end users. One of the methods to do this is by using VMware View. In one of the later articles I will demonstrate some other ways to do this.

Now we have to install VMware view. The installation is very straight forward and will not give you problems. Make sure you install the VMware view manager on a Windows 2003 Domain member. Otherwise it will not work and you will not be able to provision the images.

After you have installed VMware view manager start it by using the shortcut in your start menu.

Log on to the console by entering the credentials. As you see the domain is already given. If you have multiple domains you need to install more VMware consoles to manage every domain.

After starting the VMware view manager you will always go to the configuration screen.

Make sure you have a valid VMware VDM infrastructure 3 license to fill in and register the console.

Then go to Virtual Center servers

Enter the IP address of the server and give the correct user name and password. If you want to use linked clones make sure you check if the VMware view composer is installed and running. In one of the next articles I will explain the VMware view composer and demonstrate to you how to work with it.

In the example one desktop pool is visible.

Now we are going to create a new desktop pool that enables our users to get access to a desktop.

Click on Global desktop and pool view. In the right screen you now are able to add a new desktop pool. Select add.

You now are able to select one of four options.

Individual desktop will enable you to manage one single computer. This can be the case if you have software with a dongle or a very expensive license and you will enable end users to use this desktop. You just can't enable it at the same time.

An automated desktop pool is a pool that will be automatically created and managed by Vmware view. When your VirtualCenter server has Vmware ViewComposer installed your are able to provision LinkedClones in this option.

The third option is Manual Desktop pool. This is the option we use for giving end users access to VirtualStorm Desktops or Blade PC's.

Microsoft Terminal services Desktop Pool is used to connect endusers to Microsoft Terminal server.

Select Manual Desktop pool and click Next.

Now you can select out of two options:
Persistent or non-persistent.

If you want the desktop to be assigned to a user you choose persistent. Now this desktop will be assigned to a user at first connection and the user keeps this desktop as his desktop. If you have only users working at the same time this can be a good option.

If you wish to share desktops because you have for instance 500 users working in shifts or in different time zones, then you can deploy 200 desktops and share them between the users. It will save you more then 250 to 300 license because of the concurrent usage of all software inside that image.

For VirtualStorm images we choose Non-persistent.

Choose the option Virtual Machines managed by VirtualCenter. Even when you deploy hundreds of VirtualStorm desktops with the DVS management console, these desktops are added inside the database that VirtualCenter uses. VMware view will see the images and handles them as VirtualCenter managed desktops.

Select the VirtualCenter server that handles the images. Make sure this is the same server that you use in the settings of then DVS manager. If you give a different VirtualCenter as you use in DVS manager you will not be able to add the images to the pool.

Give the desktop pool a unique name and a Display name. The unique name is necessary to make sure that the database connects to the correct pool. The display name can be chosen at will.

In the first option you can enable or disable the pool by default. If the pool is disabled the end users can no longer connect to the images.

When the VM is not in use you can choose what VMware needs to do with it. Select the option: Ensure VM is always powered on. This will ensure that the VM's will stay available even when the end user uses the Shutdown command. If you say that the images should shutdown you have no way to start them again besides going to virtual center and power them on again. VMware does not support Wake on lan and therefore the images will not be able to start at need.

In the screen for Automatically logoff you can choose what happens when the user disconnects. It is best to choose after and set a given time. When a user disconnects the image will stay running for this user and eventually you will have hundreds of images running with no users. If you share the images somewhere during the night you will be out of images because endusers locks them. You can set the option after and then give a certain number of minutes to free up the images.

Always select the option allow users to reset the session. If an endusers computer freezes up he can reset the session and grab a new one. If you do not select the option the enduser needs to contact the helpdesk to reset the session for him.

If you want users to have more then one session you may select the option allow multiple sessions.

In the next screen you see all the images. You can select them by type, name or path.

If you give the images that you roll out with the DVS management console a name like vstorm1-name of image, here you can say name, contains Vstorm and all images will be visible. Then you can easily select the highest button to select them all.

Now all these images will be added to the specific desktop pool.

The last screen shows you all the options you have chosen.

If you click Finish the desktops will be ready for the end users.

Next step is to entitle the desktop pool to your endusers.

Create a active directory group in AD that contains all the names of the endusers that need access to this specific desktop pool.

Then click on the desktop pool in the right screen of the View manager and click entitlements.

Click add to start selecting the endusers.

If you want to add users by their user name select users in the top of the screen. Because we deploy large numbers of desktops we select groups and click on find to find and select the appropriate group.

Select the group that needs access to the desktop pool and click add.

As you see the group is added. You are able to add more then one group to this desktop pool, and that you are also able to add one group to more the one desktop pool.

Now the desktop pool is created and the users are entitled.

Make sure the View agent is inside the image.

Every user that now starts an rdp connection will get one of the images inside the desktop pool. Until he logs off this session is his own personal session. After the user logs off the session will be cleaned and will wait for the next user.

Depending the size and the memory the Virtual Machine uses you can address a number of guests on every host. When you have images that are about 20 GB in size and have around 1 to 1.5 GB of memory you can address 50 to 60 guests on every ESX server without having too much latency.

In one of the later articles I'm going to help you understand VDI and then I will show you several examples on how and why.