Storage has always been a hot subject, especially in regards to VDI. One misconception that some people seem to have is that the storage requirements in VDI environments are so high that VDI would be a bad idea for most companies. Although I agree that the storage requirements for VDI are higher than for Terminal Server, I do not necessarily agree that this automatically renders VDI solutions cost-ineffective from the get-go. One reason for this is that VDI often gets implemented in environments that already have enterprise storage (SAN) in place. The second reason is that the storage requirements are not as large as some portray them to be. I’ve seen calculations based on 20GB of disk space per virtual desktop, which, in most cases, is a pretty high number. If you’re looking at VDI as a means to deploy Windows XP desktops, chances are 6-10GB per virtual desktop is more than sufficient to fulfill your needs. If you multiply that number by 500 virtual desktops, the difference is pretty significant. Another reason for my disagreement is that the choice of virtualization platform could very well dictate the storage requirements of a VDI solution. Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, for example, is inherently storage-optimized. Using this platform as the foundation for a turnkey VDI stack, you will dramatically reduce the storage requirements, making VDI very similar to Terminal Server (Quest and Parallels have an exclusive VDI partnership).

By no means am I denying there is ample room for improvement in the way of reducing VDI’s storage requirements. Needless to say, reducing these requirements will certainly yield higher ROI. At Quest Software, we have been keenly aware of this fact right from the beginning. That’s why we have been working very diligently to further extend the already rich feature set of our virtual desktop management solution with an image management solution dubbed CIMS (Common Image Management System) which we publicly announced at VMworld 2007. I would like to take this opportunity to talk a little more in detail about CIMS.
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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:

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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.

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

Internet seems to be everywhere these days and so do smartphones. Browsing the Internet while on the move is a very compelling thought. I have found however, that even with the coming of devices like the iPhone, the Internet experience isn’t very good to put it gently. This is of course largely because of the tiny screen of a mobile phone compared to “normal” browser screens.

Some sites however look great on a mobile phone. Try CNN.com for example. This is because these sites can detect when a mobile browser is connecting and display a version of the website that is optimized for a mobile phone.

This is really cool so this is exactly what we did to the Official Provision Networks Blog! Now when you browse to this blog using your mobile phone (just the normal URL) you should automatically get redirected to the mobile browser-friendly version of this blog. So far this has been tested with a Windows mobile-based phone and a iPhone. The iPhone proof is below, courtesy of yours truly.

Is our blog also displaying the mobile browser-friendly version on your phone? Let us know in the comments!

I often get asked about the features of Provision Networks Virtual Acccess Suite. Below is a modular architectural diagram of the Provision Networks Connection Broker. It does not show every little feature, but shows a basic overview of what the suite offers.

While it’s true that one can use the Provision Networks Connection Broker with any Hypervisor, the diagram specifically shows VMware, Virtual Iron, Microsoft Hyper-V and Parallels Virtuozzo because we integrate with those products to provide features like VM Creation, VM Deletion, Sysprep Customization and Power Management, i.e. Power On,. Suspend, Resume…. Our integration with Parallels Viruozzo is currently in progress, so it probably won’t be complete for about 90 days.

When using a different hypervisor, the existing virtual machines are imported into the Provision Management Console, so they can be managed, assigned to users….

Please let me know if anything is unclear, or if you’d like access to my original Visio Diagram.

P.S.  The items in dark blue in the Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite block are “Power Tools” that can be installed on top of Citrix MetaFrame, Presentation Server, XenApp or POTS (Plain Old Terminal Services).  These “Power Tools” are available individually as a per-server license or as part of Virtual Access Suite “Standard Edition” which is licensed per concurrent user. I probably shouldn’t use that acronym (POTS), as it usually means Plain Old Telephone Service. :)  The other items are in both the Desktop Services Edition (VDI) and Enterprise Edition (VDI & TS) with the exception of Terminal Services Load Balancing and publishing apps/desktops from Terminal Services, which is an Enterprise Edition “only” feature.

Vizioncore, inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quest Software [QSFT] takes one from the competition by hiring Russ Naples, VP of Product Development at Citrix.

Read the announcement here

As far as most people are concerned, Provision Networks really came onto the scene at VMworld in 2006 when they released their first VDI Connection Broker. Truth be told, the history goes back to the 1990s when our CTO (Peter Ghostine) teamed up with his brother, and Provision Networks Division VP & General Manager (Paul Ghostine), starting a company called Emergent Online (EOL). EOL delivered Citrix Training, opened an Application Service Provider and quickly became the premier Citrix Channel Partner in the Americas.

It became evident that there were technology gaps in Citrix WinFrame/MetaFrame, so Peter began creating add-on tools that EOL could sell to their customers. Below is a summarized timeline of the product releases and milestones the now Provision Networks Division of Quest Software:

October 2000 - EOL THINssentials Software Suite released. Thinssentials included:

• EOL AppPortal™ - provides single-point access to Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame hosted applications via an intuitive Microsoft Outlook-style listbar. Administrators can configure folders and applications for individual users and groups. When users log on to the server farm, they receive a listbar populated with just the applications that they were granted permission to access. Multi-server replication and auto-refresh capabilities are inherent to the product.
• EOL Printer Driver Services™ - Enables Citrix MetaFrame and Terminal Server administrators to disseminate printer driver packages to one or more WTS/MetaFrame servers simultaneously. Pre-installing printer drivers on WTS/MetaFrame servers is absolutely necessary in order to support client printer auto-creation over Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP connections. This product helps to significantly reduce the administration time required to disseminate printer drivers to multiple servers in an application farm
• EOL ICA Session Watchdog™ – Runs as a true NT service and provides a hands-off solution to common Terminal Server and Citrix MetaFrame related problems such as: 1) ICA client-side printers not auto-deleting when users log off, 2) Stuck print jobs, and 3) ICA connections going “down” inexplicably. This product helps to keep your Citrix MetaFrame and Terminal servers in optimum condition, significantly increasing availability and reliability of client-side printing over Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP connections.
• EOL ListDrivers™ - Allows an administrator to enumerate all installed printer drivers and associated details, as well as delete drivers on any target MetaFrame or Terminal Server in the application server farm. The administrator can also generate a “dependency report” outlining what other drivers rely on the same files used by the driver the administrator intends to delete.
• EOL SessionMeter™ - Limits the number of concurrent sessions allowed by users in a WTS/MetaFrame application server farm. An administrator can, for example, restrict users from logging on to more than one session at a time.
• EOL Secure Desktop Services™ - Pre-configures and locks down your users’ server-based desktops as easily as pointing and clicking, without the need for using NT profiles and policies or cost-prohibitive third-party products. An administrator can specify the application shortcuts, folders, color backgrounds, and various other desktop settings on a per-user or group basis. Multi-server replication capabilities are inherent to the product.
• EOL Managed Printer Services™ - Pre-configures client-side and network printer resources on a per-user or per-group basis. Multi-server replication capabilities are inherent to the product.
• EOL CleanProfiles™ - Runs as true NT service and deletes “orphaned” copies of cached profiles.
• EOL SetPassword™ - Permits users to easily change their own passwords and administrators to change anyone’s password.
• EOL SetPrinter™ - Allows users to choose their default printer and manually connect to client-side and network printers.

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This week at Citrix Synergy (iForum) Doug Brown of www.dabcc.com did a presentation where he compared VMware VDM2 to XenDesktop. At 18:45 of this video he was asked “who does he think has the best (connection) broker”, to which he answers “I like Provision Networks, I think it’s the best…”

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