Expanding on the existing integration with hypervisor management tools, we have introduced the ability to reconfigure the memory of a Virtual Machine or a group of Virtual Machines. This is a useful feature should the requirements of a User change and the memory need to be increased or decreased. This feature can also be used to change the memory configuration when provisioning new desktops from a template, should the memory size in the template be insufficient.

By simply right clicking on a computer name and selecting ‘Reconfigure…’ you can access the memory configuration tool, this option is also available when you right click the computer group. Please see the screenshot below:

As well as changing the memory size on the fly you can schedule a task at a computer or computer group level. This is done via the ‘Properties -> Task Automation’ option when right clicking a computer or computer group, please see the screenshot below:

Finally, you can set the date and time as to when you would like the change to occur, you may wish to apply the change out of hours to reduce impact on users:

Example use case:
Company XYZ has a pool of 100 virtual machines that are configured with 512MB RAM. Due to a new release of an application used by this pool of machines, such as Visual Studio, the memory size needs to be increased to 1GB RAM. This tool would allow you to schedule the memory increase to occur outside of working hours, if there was an immediate requirement to apply this change it could be done at a group or individual computer level.

Earlier versions of vWorkspace already allowed for delegation of control. This was delegation of the “all or nothing” kind. As our product grew (with more hypervisors and more application and desktop delivery platforms supported ) and our install base grew we learned that we needed to add a more granular way of delegating control in the vWorkspace console. Well, in vWorkspace 6.0 we did we exactly that.

With the enhancements to delegated control in vWorkspace 6.0 you can delegate control to almost every single action that can be performed from the vWorkspace 6.0 Management Console. This allows you to create extremely detailed delegation schemes.

Let’s take a look at an example of how some customers use our delegated control features. Because of the unique nature of vWorkspace we have many customers that choose vWorkspace to deliver applications and desktops from different delivery platforms, all from one product and one console. The support and administration departments relative to these applications and desktop platforms often are (still) separated. Our enhancements to delegated control in vWorkspace 6.0 allows these customer to deal with this and delegate control accordingly.

More specifically, they set up delegation of control in such a way that:

• Members of the TS support department only are allowed to support the vWorkspace Terminal Server users.
• Members of the desktop support department only are allowed to support (virtual) desktop users.
• Members of the TS administration team are only allowed to manage the the vWorkspace Terminal Servers.
• Members of the desktop administration team are only allowed to manage the the vWorkspace managed (virtual) desktops (they actually go even further by delegating control for shadowing but that is a story for another feature spotlight!).

As you can see from this example, the enhancement in delegation of control in Quest vWorkspace 6.0 gives organizations more flexibility in managing their applications and desktop delivery platform(s) while still maintaining a “single pane of glass” administrative experience.

Take a look at how delegation of control look in Quest vWorkspace 6.0 in this short video:

administrative delegation

This blog post will kick off a series a posts that will go through some of the exiting new features of vWorkspace 6.0 in detail. This first “vWorkspace 6.0 feature spotlight” is about our advancements in flexible computer assignments.

One of the edges that vWorkspace has always had on its competitors it the tremendous amount of flexibility that is offered. One of the best examples of this is the fact that almost every resource in the vWorkspace Management Console ( the vMC - one console to rule them all ) can be assigned not just to users or groups but also to:

• IP subnets. This allows you to create your own location based rules (like for printing).
• Client names. Using client names allow you to link a specific client only to a specific resource.
• Active Directory entities. This way you could use an OU as an assignment filter for a resource.

Prior to vWorkspace 6.0, this flexibility was not available for the assignment of managed desktops but now it is! This means that in vWorkspace 6.0 you can assign a managed desktop to Users, Groups, OUs, Client IPs, or Client Names. This is how it looks.

This way of assigning managed desktops was actually based on several customer requests. Since we have been doing VDI for almost 4 years now (which is a very long time in the VDI space) we have had a lot of time and experience to learn and benefit from the knowledge of our customers. The need for more flexible computer assignment is one of the things we learned. For example, one of our customers is using the more flexible computer assignment options to enable the scenario of the “shift-worker” in a hospital, by assigning a particular desktop to a client machine instead of a user.

So, prior to centralizing their applications and desktops, this customer used to have a rich client in a hospital room that locally ran the applications that were used by multiple nurses subsequently, each one continuing the work where the previous shift left of. With the flexible computer assignment options in vWorkspace 6.0 the nurses are able to work in the exact same manner (which is what end users like) while the hospital was reaping the benefits of centralizing their application and desktop workloads.

This hospital is just one of the examples of how this feature can be used. I have seen many more examples ranging from factory personnel to schools. I am sure you can think of other usage cases as well. This small video shows you how to enable this feature:

Flexible Computer Assignment

Of course this is just one of the many new features in Quest vWorkspace 6.0. You can download a fully functional evaluation version of vWorkspace 6.0 here yourself.

I remember seeing a demonstration some time ago from a VDI vendor that showed they could do multimonitor. I also remembered thinking “so what? we can do that as well”. Over time I realized that I was wrong to assume that the advanced capabilities of Quest vWorkspace were that well-known.

So I decided to create a “blair-witch” demo: I just walked up to one of the cubicles that we have over at the Quest Desktop Virtualisation Group HQ and shot a demo of what vWorkspace can do today. My “cameraman” used a webcam as the camera so if it is not the quality you are accustomed to, you know why.

The important part is that the video shows what Quest vWorkspace 6.0 can do today. In the demo we are showing a vWorkspace session to a Windows XP virtual desktop that:

• uses 4 monitors, with the desktop being only on the first monitor (so not just spanning). You could even use monitors with different resolutions if you want to.
• shows how  applications are able to be monitor aware in a vWorkspace sessions (they can maximize to the monitor they are on)
• where we plug in and use different USB devices in this mulitmonitor vWorkspace sessions
• is playing a full HD movie

This is just a very brief demo that does not even show some of the other features of Quest vWorkspace 6.0 like graphics acceleration, user profile management, universal printing, virtual desktop shadowing or any of the other features…

So you’ve installed vWorkspace 6.0, but how is the Graphics Acceleration feature Quest has been talking about enabled? 

First let’s lay out the prerequisites:

1. vWorkspace 6.0 Desktop or Enterprise + Experience Optimization Pack Licenses

2.  If using vWorkspace Desktop Edition, uninstall previous versions of pntools and install the 6.0 version of pntools.msi.  Pntools.msi enables functionality such as Universal Printing, Graphics Acceleration, Universal USB Redirection, Seamless Windows, Enhanced Multi-Monitor, Bi-Directional Audio and Latency Reduction.  Pntools can be pushed to VMs via the vWorkspace Management Console, either one machine at a time, to several machines at the same time, to entire Computer Groups or via Automated Task.

If using vWorkspace Enterprise Edition and Windows Terminal Services, install vWorkspace 6.0 on the Terminal Servers.  Terminal Servers do not require pntools.

3.  Install version 6.0 of the Quest vWorkspace Client.  Currently Graphics Acceleration is only for Windows Clients, but it is scheduled to be ported to Linux Clients in the near term (probably within 90 days).

4.  Access applications or desktops via the vWorkspace 6.0 AppPortal, Web Access or Remote Desktop Connection.  AppPortal or Web Access are the preferred connection types. 

Enabling Graphics Acceleration.

1.  Open the vWorkspace Management Console -> Resources (Node) -> Managed Applications (Node) -> Right Click -> Properties -> Enable Graphics Acceleration and select the Image Quality.  Best Practice is to enable Graphics Acceleration at this location as a system wide setting, and selectively disable it on a specific application (if necessary).

 2.  vWorkspace Management Console -> Resources -> Client Settings -> New… -> Give the new Client Settings Policy a name, for example “Graphics Acceleration Enabled” or “EOP Users” -> Under Optimizations set Graphics Acceleration to “yes”.

 3.  On the “Client Assignments” tab of the Client Settings Policy that you just created, assign this feature to a User, Group, OU, Client IP/IP Range or Client Name/Naming Convention.

At this point Graphics Acceleration is enabled for the specified clients (in my example to my Active Directory User Account).  Typically this would be for everyone, like the Domain Users Group.  The next time the assigned user connects their vWorkspace AppPortal Client to this farm, it will enforce this setting on their client.

If users will be connecting via Web Access, to enforce this setting on clients select “enable Graphics Acceleration” under “Performance” in the Admin portal (shown below). 

Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10 is the last version to use the “Provision Networks” name.  On January 13th its successor Quest vWorkspace 6.0 was announced and today the new bits hit the wire.  6.0 is available to partners “now” and will be available to customers via www.vWorkspace.com as soon as the download sites replicate (typically 24-48 hours).

The group of employees that used to say that they worked for “Provision Networks” now work for Quest Software’s Desktop Virtualization Group.

The product gets a new name, cosmetic makeover, and a new website.  It’s going to be hard to stop saying “Provision Networks”, as I still say NFuse, SoftGrid, Ardence… but I’m trying.

So what’s new in 6.0?  RDP Graphics Acceleration is the most requested feature, but below is a fairly comprehensive list.

EXPERIENCE OPTIMIZED PROTOCOL FEATURES:

• Graphics Acceleration for RDP. This adds additional compression to RDP to dramatically reduce bandwidth consumption and improve end user experience, making RDP usable over WAN connections. This feature is optional and part of the EOP product SKU, which also contains Multimedia Redirection, Local Text Echo and bi-directional audio. Each of these features can be assigned to Users, Groups, OU, Client IP or Client Device Name.
• Multimedia Redirection for Linux clients (previously existed only for XP/Vista clients). Seamlessly redirects any Windows Media Content to the Linux client for native quality local playback.

CLIENT FEATURES:

• USB Redirector of Windows & Linux clients - allows for support of any USB device plugged into a Windows or Linux client that has the vWorkspace Client.
• AJAX Web Interface - The Web-IT ASP.Net Web Interface has been re-written in AJAX to provide a better look and feel and to provide a pop-up free web UI.

PLATFORM FEATURES:

• X64 support for Terminal Services, VDI, Physical desktops
• Windows Vista and 2008 Host Support. Previously there was no official support for these as the host OS, so vWorkspace now delivers feature equivalence for these OS, i.e. Seamless Windows, Universal Printing, User Profile Management, Credentials Pass-through, EOP features…
• Parallels Virtuozzo Containers Integration - automates Parallels Virtuozzo Container provisioning similar to how vWorkspace supports other hypervisors, i.e. power management, cloning, deletion, AD Integration, task automation, sysprep…
• HP RGS Support - Allow HP RGS Receiver enabled vWorkspace Clients to connect via the HP RGS Protocol, instead of RDP. This offers support for GPU backed graphics acceleration required by 3D modeling, OpenGL or other graphics design applications.

SECURITY FEATURES:

• Secure connection files – Similar to RDP files in that they instruct the client on how to connect to the destination Terminal Server or Remote Desktop. The vWorkspace connection file is encrypted and can only be used once before it expires.  The file cannot be saved or read by an end user to obtain any sensitive information.

MANAGEMENT FEATURES:

• Granular Delegated administration of the vWorkspace Management Console. Control to every action that can be performed in the vWorkspace Management Console can be delegated. Every object in the management console has an ACL where administrators can allow or deny access.
• User Profile Management for VDI & Physical desktops. This feature was previously only available for Terminal Services users and now supports VDI and physical desktops. This is an infinitely more stable profile management solution verses Roaming Profiles – and is included as a fully integrated feature.  This allows user specific setting to be seamlessly applied to any desktop, whether it is permanently or temporarily assigned.
• Location support for the vWorkspace Management console. This allows Administrators to organize connection brokers, terminal servers, desktop groups, datacenters etc. by location or to organize them for delegated administration or for organization purposes.
• VDI and Physical desktop Remote Control / Shadowing. This allows for the remote control of Virtual Desktops just as the Remote Control feature that was already available for Terminal Services, creating a full, seamless session management experience that is platform (SBC /VDI) independent.
• Integration with Expand Networks and other QoS / Bandwidth compression appliances. This automatically configures the RDP settings to allow Expand Networks or similar appliances to further compress & cache RDP content.
• Reconfigure VM - This allows administrators to reconfigure the amount of VM memory from the vWorkspace Management console. Changes can be committed immediately or after a user logs off.
• Disk non-persistence. This automates the VMware Disk non-persistence feature which resets a Virtual Desktop to its previous state after a logoff or reboot. A single checkbox in the vWorkspace Management Console for each VM or Computer Group enables or disables this feature.
• Managed Computer assignment - VDI and Physical desktops can now be assigned in the same manner as all other vWorkspace resources, i.e. to Users, Groups, OU, Client IP or Client Name. Previously managed computers could only be assigned to users. This extends support to kiosk and special purpose workstations where a specific client should connect to a specific VM or PC based on the client device name or IP, not based on the user.

Anyone who’s ever used Adobe Acrobat Reader, or any other PDF reader on Windows Terminal Services or via Remote Desktop knows that it’s painfully slow over RDP.  Most of the videos we’ve posted demonstrating Quest’s EOP Graphics Acceleration have shown web content, as it’s usually the biggest pain point for Terminal Services & VDI users. 

It’s important to note that Quest EOP accelerates all graphical elements of the Terminal Services or VDI display, and in the video below I demonstrate, side-by-side, the difference between Microsoft RDP and Quest EOP when viewing a PDF with Acrobat Reader 9.0 over a WAN connection.  The connection was from my notebook computer in San Diego, CA to two virtual desktops in Reston, VA, via my Verizon wireless cellular card.  This connection was also tunneled thru Quest’s Secure-IT SSL Gateway.  The bandwidth of this connection is approximately 384Kbps and the latency of the connection is approximately 175ms.

quest_eop_vs_rdp_pdf_wan

So by now everyone knows that VDI is being adopted at a rapid pace, but often without enough due diligence by IT.  Server virtualization offers amazing return on investment, and is often implemented without end user ever knowing.   Users still access the same file servers, exchange servers, web servers… they just don’t know or care that the physical servers have been virtualized and consolidated.

Desktop virtualization sounds fantastic to the people that successfully completed a server virtualization project, and to the CIO & CFO that are looking to save even more money with virtualization.  Things that are often overlooked are the end user requirements. Just because one can deliver a remote display to a PC or thin client, doesn’t mean that it will be accepted by end users, and doesn’t mean that it will meet end user’s operating requirements.

So what are some of these “end user” requirements that IT should consider when designing a virtual desktop infrastructure.

1. Display performance - this is a no brainer, but more often than not IT is deploying virtual desktops without testing each of their customer’s applications to make sure they are responsive over the chosen remote display protocol.  It should also be noted that just because the application works fine across the LAN, does not mean that it will perform the same across a bandwidth limited, shared WAN pipe with significantly more latency than the LAN.
2. Printing - another “duh!, eh”, but for IT professionals without Server Based Computing experience, as it relates to application delivery, this is often overlooked.   IT may not understand that the Terminal Services printing infrastructure is quite different than that of normal client server computing.  Users will expect to be able to print to the same printers they used to, without having to call the helpdesk and without sacrificing functionality that they had on their physical PC.
3. Local devices - most clients support USB storage, but support for devices like TWAIN & WIA Scanners, webcams and VOIP headsets is not something that Microsoft delivers out of the box to remote desktops.

So what is EOP, and how does it relate to all of these statements?  EOP stands for both “Experience Optimized Protocol” and “Experience Optimization Pack“.  The Provision Networks division of Quest Software licenses and has been extending the feature set of the Microsoft RDP Protocol since 2004.  The following are core features of Quest’s Enhanced RDP Protocol that exist for Windows Terminal Services and VDI:

• Seamless Windows - remote applications look and act like local applications without being encapsulated by the Explorer Shell or the Remote Desktop Client window.  They minimize to the taskbar like local apps and retain the proper Z-order (when you alt+tab thru apps).
• Session Sharing - multiple seamless windows remote apps share the same Windows Session on a Terminal Server or VDI/Physical Remote Desktop, instead of being spawned in additional sessions.  This allows applications to interact with each other, i.e. different Microsoft Office applications.  Additionally, if a non-seamless desktop session is launched, and seamless windows remote apps exist, the seamless windows remote apps share the session with the desktop, and will be moved into the desktop session.
• Enhanced Multi-monitor support - this forces the Windows Taskbar and start menu to be confined to the primary monitor, allows users to maximize applications on the monitor of their choice and the applications remember these settings.  This was introduced in Virtual Access Suite 5.10 that was released in July.
• Universal USB Device Redirection - this is a new feature that allows clients to use virtually any USB connected device, i.e. VOIP headset, TWAIN/WIA Scanner, webcam…
• Universal Printing Virtual Channel - this has existed in Provision Networks’ products since 2001, we were a Citrix Platinum Partner, and we sold add-ons for Citrix and Windows Terminal Services.  This feature allows users to print to any client defined printer without having to install or have installed the printer driver on the Terminal Server or Virtual Desktop.  In addition to this Virtual Channel for client printers, Quest also supports use of the Universal Printer driver for Windows Network Printers (Session Printers in Citrix terminology) and Remote Print Relay printers (gateway printing).

Quest’s “Experience Optimization Pack” adds the following “User Experience” features to the previously mentioned core features:

• Graphics acceleration - this compresses and optimizes how graphics are rendered on the remote display, so Terminal Services and VDI can support graphical applications and animation that typically did not perform well over RDP.  This also dramatically reduces the bandwidth requirements of the RDP protocol, typically by 400 to 800%. I have seen some websites that consume 18 times more bandwidth when rendered via the standard Microsoft RDP client or VMware VDM client, than when using Quest EOP.
• Multimedia Redirection - this seamlessly redirects Microsoft DirectShow content (anything that can be played in Windows Media Player) to the client CODEC where it is rendered in full fidelity, insted of being rendered by RDP.
• Latency Reduction - when a lateny network is detected, client keystrokes are rendered on the client device so the end user can see them before they are transmitted to the remote RDP host.  This enables remote workers to use word processing application that typically suffered over a latent network connection.
• Bi-directional audio - this allows for support of microphones, even those that are not USB connected, which would be supported by the Universal USB Device Redirector.

So the combination of Quest’s core RDP enhancements and the optional “Experience Optimization Pack” features equals Quest Software’s ”Experience Optimized Protocol” (EOP).  Enhanced RDP has been referred to in many ways by industry analysts, and our own employees, so now we have an actual name for our RDP enhancements, “EOP“

rdp61_eop_live

QuestEOP

Provision Networks Multimedia Redirection Demonstration

So VMworld starts on Monday, and we’re getting ready to make a big splash with our new enhancements for VDI and Windows Terminal Services.  One of our new enhancements is something that I don’t think anyone thought could be done (make RDP perform well across the WAN, or display animation and complex graphics).  It used to be a foregone conclusion that RDP just could not perform well across a latent or low bandwidth connection, or one that is displaying complex graphics or animation.

This is no longer the case, as is shown in the video below.  This video is two mintues long, and during that two minutes I am working with two virtualized remote desktops via SSL Secure Gateway, from the same client computer, connected to the public Internet via a Verizon Wireless card, from the Southwest Coast of the United States to the Northeast Coast of the United States. I typically have about 384Kbps download speed, and the latency to the remote site is about 150 milliseconds.

So anyways, during this two minutes I load the exact same webpage on the two remote desktops.  On one desktop, the webpage never even finishes rendering the alpha-blended splash screen during the entire two minutes, whereas on the desktop running Quest’s EOP (Experience Optimized Protocol)  the page loads instantly and you can see me clicking around, flipping from page to page,  while the other one seems frozen. 

If you look closely, the desktop on the left that is using the standard RDP protocol, that is offered with products like VMware VDM, Leostream, 2x, Ericom, nSuite, Desktone [insert every other VDI and Terminal Services vendor that utilizes the Microsoft RDP Protocol] is drawing block by block, layer by layer and it is completely unusable.  It’s not just a matter of that one is more responsive than the other, but that one is using so much bandwidth that it’s completely saturating my Internet connection.  When this happens the only way interact with the frozen remote desktop is to wait for it to finish loading (no telling how long that would take), or to have an administrator reset the session.

Yesterday I visited a client that was ready to deploy VMware VDM, but they had to support several remote sites, some connected over DSL and others over T1 with MPLS. Users were complaining that they couldn’t use some websites that they use on their PCs every day (some for leisurely Internet browsing, and some to do actual work). We tested connecting to one of the Remote Desktops with the VDM client and launching their default webpage www.live.com.  This page took more than 30 seconds to load with the Vmware VDM client, and less than 2 seconds to load with Quest’s EOP.  In addition to that, the system integrator asked me how much less bandwidth we were consuming with the Provision Networks Client.  We measured it with NetLimiter Pro, and the Vmware VDM client used 18 times more bandwidth to load this one webpage than the Provision Networks client did.  This was way better than I expected, and the video below is even more impressive than what I just described.

If this sounds interesting to you, come see it in person at VMworld Booth #1039 from September 15-18, 2008.  If you’re not going to VMworld, just ping me and we can come to you.

rdp61_eop_live

QuestEOP

One of our Systems Consultants ,Patrick Rouse, has created another demonstration of our RDP Graphics Acceleration. Quest’s RDP Graphics Acceleration (aka EOP - Experience Optimized Protocol) is not limited to browser graphics, but rather can accelerate all bitmapped graphics, such as the Explorer Shell, Microsoft Office applications, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime, Google Earth…

In the video Patrick compares RDP 6.1 on Vista SP1, to Quest Software’s EOP Graphics Acceleration. On the Vista SP1 Remote Desktop the local system policy has RDP “optimized to use less network bandwidth”, which is the maximum data compression level and best performance currently offered by Microsoft for the RDP Protocol. Enjoy, as the performance improvements Quest has made to the Microsoft RDP Protocol are very impressive!

Quest’s RDP Graphics acceleration is available as part of the Experience Optimization Pack (EOP) for Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite, for Terminal Services, Virtual and Physical Desktops.

rdp61_eop_live