Once again, here is a common question I get from all kinds of people, partners, customers, random people via email….  here are my thoughts on VDI benefits over Terminal Services:

• Easier to manage for the average IT Professional, because of the standard OS, standard application installations
• Printing and applications are more stable due to them not being shared by multiple concurrent users.
• Resources can more easily be guaranteed for each user
• New systems can be dynamically provisioned, when, or before they are needed
• Systems can easily be deleted when they are no longer needed, or to push out a new base image
• Application compatibility and support from application vendors, as almost all apps are written for XP Pro & Vista.
• Much easier to do a “one off” configuration for users with “special needs”
• Developers can be made administrators so they can destroy their VMs, “if necessary”, without affecting others.  Normal users should still be locked down, if they’ll tolerate it.
• Desktop Administrators/Engineers are “a lot” less expensive to employ than Terminal Services/Citrix Administrators.

The first bullet is the most important to just about every organization.  Most companies have Terminal Services or Citrix in place, but few are truly comfortable managing these systems.  Terminal Services and Citrix are often maintained by a very small subset of the IT Staff, because the rest of the IT staff has no idea how the technology “really” works.  It’s also true that many companies already have a Virtual Infrastructure in place, and people to manage that infrastructure.  With that in mind, one can utilize those resources to manage the hardware for VDI, while providing desktop support & helpdesk personnel with a much simpler and more feature rich set of tools to do their jobs.

For companies that are happy with Terminal Services, VDI is just another tool to help them address application delivery and desktop management issues.  TS usually only penetrates about 20% of corporate desktops or applications to be delivered, so there is a lot of room for VDI.

When looking at VDI there are things that MUST be addressed, as each Virtual Desktop is a “single user Terminal Server”. If one doesn’t consider and address problems inherent to Terminal Services when deploying Virtual Desktops, you’ll just have the same problems, but now for more users.

• Universal Printing
• User Profile Management
• User Environment Configuration & Lockdown

Provision Networks has been making these tools for about 10 years, so we don’t have to cobble these tools together for VDI, or acquire some technology and try to integrate it with our current management framework.

Notice that I did NOT say that Terminal Services was bad, or that companies should throw TS away and fire all of their TS/Citrix Engineers.  I think there is a place for both “in some cases”, i.e. at companies that have a fine tuned, well maintained Terminal Services implementation and more than one or two adminstrators that understand how everything works.  Proper change control and thorough documentation in a Terminal Services environment is absolutely required for it to remain stable, and be managed by more than one person.

VDI can be centrally managed using our Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite, regardless of the underlying hypervisor(s) in place. The Virtual infrastructure can consist of a single vendor’s hypervisor, or any combination of different hypervisors, while still being managed from one pane of glass (the Provision Management Console).  This same console can also centrally manage Terminal Servers, Applications, User Profiles, Network Printers and all of the settings related to the User Environment 

So have I ever recommended Terminal Services over VDI to a customer that does NOT already have a Terminal Services deployment, and a staff that really knows how to effectively manage Terminal Services? Not yet.  The good thing is that we’re not asking customers to choose one or the other.  Customers can deliver applications or desktops from VDI, PC Blades, standard PCs and Terminal Services, and can manage it all in one place.

VDI does have some down sides/requirements:

• Virtual Infrastructure is REQUIRED, i.e. VMware, Virtual Iron, Hyper-V, Virtuozzo
• SAN storage is typically required. 
• MSFT Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) license subscriptions are REQUIRED. (except with Virtuozzo, but that’s an entirely new post)

VDI is still a fairly new concept to most companies, even those with extensive investments in Server Virtualization.  With that in mind, I get this question several times a week, so below is my answer to one of these queries.

Just like customers use our Virtual Access Suite to extend the base functionality of Windows Terminal Services, they can also use it to extend VMware, Microsoft, Virtual Iron or Parallels base VDI functionality.  We actually announced our VDI offering (project TITAN) at VMworld in 2005,  and released it as Virtual Access Suite for VMware VDI at VMworld in 2006.

Provision Networks started doing business in 1990s under the name Emergent Online (EOL), which was a Citrix Platinum Partner in the Metro DC Area.  We started making tools to address issues with Citrix and Terminal Services in 1996, and many of these tools still exist in our Virtual Access Suite today.  We treat VDI as single user terminal servers, so most of our tools that enhance management, performance and user experience on TS, translate directly to VDI.

So at a high level, Quest Software’s Provision Networks Division does the following:

Read the rest of this post »

You might have noticed that today we have officially announced a new, exclusive partnership with Parallels. This partnership allows Quest Software and Parallels to ship a special Parallels Virtuozzo Containers  - Virtual Access Suite bundle. This bundle allows customers to benefit from the combined feature set of both products at greatly reduced prices when compared to purchasing the two products separately: both products at an economically feasible $140 per concurrent desktop connection for the entire stack.

One of the cornerstones of the success of the Virtual Access Suite is our Hypervisor-agnostic approach. With this new partnership we are taking this yet one step further. In the case of Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, the term Hypervisor might not even be the anatomically correct term but I am not going to go into that here. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, here’s what is about in a nutshell: Parallels Virtuozzo Containers enables users to run multiple workloads as isolated, simultaneously executing virtual environments called “containers”. Since it is installed on top of the operating system (OS), the containers use the resources of the underlying host OS, rather than needing their own. This means a far greater density of workloads can be run on a physical server: three times that of other approaches. In addition, fewer deployed OS instances means the solution is easier to manage and containers can be provisioned with applications and services on-the-fly, with a single click.

The fact that Parallels Virtuozzo Containers’ has a different approach to virtualization combined with the fact that this approach allows for greater density of workloads conceptually puts it somewhere in the middle of Terminal Services and VDI. This allows for some exiting, cost effective solutions for all kinds of environments.

If you want to find out more about this unique bundle, feel free to contact the Quest or Parallels presence nearest to you. They will be able to fill you in on the exiting possibilities.

This week Rick, Jeff and I attended Briforum in Chicago.  The event was at the Navy Pier, which was a fantastic location, right on the water.  In addition to that, the expo floor was in a single room of a brownstone building, which made it very easy to see what was going on at the different booths.

Exhibitors of note were Quest Software (us), Microsoft (Nelly Porter), Citrix (Gus Pinto & Rich Crusco), Ericom and Qumranet.  Each vendor was showing off something new, i.e. Citrix XenDesktop, Ericom’s use of the Teradici Display Protocol, Microsoft’s RDP enhancements and Qumranet’s KVM Hypervisor, Solid ICE Connection Broker and SPICE Protocol.

We were showing Virtual Access Suite 5.10 at our booth, which we shared with the guys from Thin Client Manufacturer CLI (Computer Lab International).  Rick gave presentations on Printing and Application Compatibility, and I gave our Vendor Presentation were I demonstrated 5.10 and new technologies like Multimedia Redirection and Bitmap Acceleration.

Below are pictures from the event, and from downtown Chicago.  Some of the pictures were taken by The Brian Madden Company, and some were taken by “yours truly”.

Briforum 2008 - Event Photos + Chicago Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27803145@N05/sets/72157605707824803

A selection of things from the set

When a managed desktop (virtual or physical) is added to a managed desktop group, the Provision Networks Data Collector Service must be installed to allow the managed desktop to communicate properly with Provision Networks Connection Brokers. The process that accomplishes this is called the Initialize Computer task and is one of the responsibilities of the Connection Broker.

This Initialize Computer task is very important. When it does not complete successfully the connect broker will consider the desktop unusable and mark it as “offline”, thus making it unavailable to users. The failure to successfully complete the Initialize Computer task can have lots of different causes. Some of the common causes are:

• Firewalls that are blocking the communications between the Connection Broker and the Managed Desktop (read this post for all the ports used in these communications)
• Name resolution issues (the Managed desktop can not resolve the name of the Connection Broker or vice versa)
• Insufficient privileges held on the Managed Desktop. These privileges boil down to being able to connect to the administrator file shares (C$, D$, etc) and the privilege to create a service on the Managed Desktop. A local admin typically has these privileges. The account used here is the “Computer Administrative Account” that is set in the properties of the Computer Group.

Depending on where the cause of the computer initialization failure lies, it might help to enable debug logging. We already showed you how to enable logging on the Connection Broker. You can also enable logging on the Managed Desktop itself. To enable logging, do the following.

• In the registry on the Managed Desktop, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Provision Networks\Provision-IT
• Create a new “String Value” with the name “DCServerLog” (case sensitive) and a value of “C:\DCserverlog.txt”.
• Next restart the Provision Networks Data Collector Service. Either open a command prompt and type net stop pndcsvc followed by net start pndcsvc or, alternatively, use service.msc to restart the service.

After the service has been restarted you will find a file in the root on the C:\ drive called “DCServerlog.txt” that holds all the logging for the Provision Networks Data Collector Service. This log has all the information you will ever need to troubleshoot Provision Networks Data Collector Service issues.

It is important to note that this logging is recommended only for troubleshooting purposes and should be disabled in production environments, when possible.

Content delivered trough VDI and Terminal Server environments is growing exceedingly rich. The use of videos, images and photos and other rich content in VDI and Terminal Server environments has become a requirement. Flash is a particularly good example of this. Flash is one of the most popular formats to deliver multimedia rich content these days. Unfortunately, due to its graphic nature, Flash does not perform very well over slow connections using just the RDP protocol (like other VDI vendors use). This does not just go for Flash. Content containing high numbers of images (any website these days) or videos also delivers a somewhat poor user experience when using just the RDP protocol. This is especially true for slower network connections.

This is why Provision Networks has developed several technologies to significantly enhance the performance of multimedia content in RDP sessions. We already showed you a demonstration of how we are accelerating the performance of video in a VDI or Terminal Server session. The following videos are demonstrations of Provision Networks RDP Bitmap and Flash Acceleration for VDI and Windows Terminal Services. They compare the performance of using just the RDP protocol (like VMware VDM uses for example ) to using RDP with the Provision Networks RDP Bitmap and Flash Acceleration. The difference is quite significant. See for yourself:

RDP Flash Acceleration Video on Youtube:

Download Link High Quality Version - Maximize using the button in the lower right corner of the Flash Player

RDP Bitmap Acceleration Video on Youtube:

Download Link High Quality Version - Maximize using the button in the lower right corner of the Flash Player

Videos by Patrick Rouse and editorial by Michel Roth.

The Provision Networks Connection Broker is the most advanced connection broker yet it is very simple to set up. We feel that an advanced product should not have to complicated. Every once in a while some troubleshooting is however necessary. This especially is the case when first setting up the Provision Networks connection broker. If you need to troubleshoot the connection broker it is a good idea to set up logging for the connection broker. Here is how you do it:

Select the properties of the connection broker in the Provision Management Console:

Next, click the configuration button in the following screen:

Finally, select the trace logging as in the following screen:

After that, restart the Provision Networks Connection Broker service. This yields a very detailed log that has tons of information in it. Be sure to deactivate the trace logging once you are done troubleshooting because the log file can grow large pretty quickly. Happy troubleshooting!

While not exactly the most well known technical conference in the world, if you’ve been working with Server Based Computing for any length of time, this is a conference you should plan to visit.

Briforum is organized by The Brian Madden Company, which is run by Industry Analyst and Author, Brian Madden. Brian runs the most popular Server Based Computing Community Website www.brianmadden.com, and has authored books on Citrix and Terminal Services.  Brian is also a Microsoft MVP for Windows Terminal Services, and Citrix Technology Professional.  All that being said, Brian is “probably” most well known for being able to get the attention of  companies like Citrix, for speaking his mind (typically on his website) and not backing down from his controversial statements.

So what is BriForum?  It is a yearly technical conference that focuses on Application Delivery, whether via Terminal Services, Application Virtualization or Desktop Virtualization (VDI).  What makes this conference special is that the sessions can be presented by anyone, so long as they submit interesting content, and have experience to backup what they’re saying.  It is truely a technical deep-dive conference, where geeks go to learn from other geeks.  There are also presentations given be each of the vendors, and often by Microsoft and Citrix.

So what is Quest doing at Briforum?  The Provision Networks division of Quest has five employees that have presented at previous BriForum Conferences, and three of them will be at this conference.

Dr. Ulrich (Rick) Mack is our Sr. Sales Engineer from Brisbane Australia and is probably the most popular presenter at Briforum.  He’s probably the most humble guy you’ll ever meet, but is completely brilliant.  His two sessions this year are:

My Application Won’t Work!
Monday, June 16, 2008 at 17:30, in Room 3

Bring us your hardest printing problems (Workshop)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 08:30, in Room 2

 Jeff Pitsch is our Sr. Sales Engineer for the Midwest United States & Eastern Canada, is a Microsoft MVP for Windows Terminal Services and has presented at Briforums in 2005 and 2006.  Jeff will be running our Exhibitor Demo Lab, so if you what to see what our Virtual Access Suite does, Jeff will have a demo rig at his disposal so you can get a one on one with an expert that uses our software every day.

Patrick Rouse (me) is also a Microsoft MVP, and is our Sr. Sales Engineer for the Western United States & Canada and Latin America. Patrick previously presented at  Briforum 2006 in Germany and will be delivering our Vendor Presentation:

Quest Software, Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite - Help, my connection broker is on steroids! (sponsored by Quest Software)
Monday, June 16, 2008 at 13:45, in Room 4.

I did mention that there were five of us that have previously presented at Briforum, but only three were going to be in Chicago. The other two are:

Michel Roth, also a Microsoft MVP for Windows Terminal Services and our Sr. Sales Engineer from The Netherlands (Holland), and my partner in crime (so far) for maintaining this blog.  Michel also runs the popular Server Based Computing Blog www.thincomputing.net.

Peter Ghostine.  Peter is our CTO, and the Technical Architect of Virtual Access Suite.  Peter has traditionally been the person that delivers the Vendor Presentation, but he’s busy getting Virtual Access Suite out the door (next Friday, June 20, 2008).  Peter has been creating widgets to improve the performance and ease the management of Windows Terminal Services and Citrix since the 1990s.

On June 5, 2008 Dan Kuznetzky posted the following on his ZDNet Blog.

Quest Software has been acquiring other management software companies rapidly over the past year or so. This includes companies such as Provision Networks, Vizioncore, ScriptLogic. I recently had a conversation with company representatives to learn more about the strategic plan behind those acquisitions. I must admit that before I had a chance to speak with these folks, I had come to the erroneous conclusion that the plan was “if they’re small, have interesting technology and are vaguely related to management, let’s buy ‘em.” I’ve since learned that they have a plan, it’s just based upon a philosophical approach.

View the entire article here

The following are demonstrations of Provision Networks Multimedia Redirection for VDI and Windows Terminal Services.  These demonstrations are intended to compare native RDP Protocol rendering of multimedia vs Provision Networks Multimedia Redirection Technology.