TechAgility

My only disappointment is that we are currently in the middle of moving our current Solutions Centre from one Office location to the other so it’ll be some while before I get a chance to test this.

It certainly looks quite impressive and it does have some lofty aims, but from a brief look through as well as their well deserved reputation based on Flex Profiles I’m sure this will stand up to it’s promises.

Test Scenario’s
With login VSI you can compare many different scenarios:
• VDI vs. SBC
• VMware, XenServer or Hyper-V running virtual desktops or Terminal/Citrix Servers
• Virtualized XP desktops versus virtualized Vista Desktops
• Performance impact of application streaming technologies
• Impact of (different) virus scanners
• Performance impact of tuning parameters
• Different VDI platforms
• Different Storage platforms
• Impact of changes or updates like service packs or security fixes
• Hardware differences
• x64 vs. 32 bits
• Etc…

I’d be very interested in hearing from anyone who does have the facility to test?

Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

Monday, May 12, 2008   |   0 Comments   |  

The consulting firm Login Consultants just opened the beta program of the first benchmarking tool for presentation virtualization: Login Virtual Session Index (VSI).

The product will measures the performance of a remote desktop session served by a Microsoft Terminal Services  / Citrix XenApp server or a VDI virtual machine.

To run the tool it’s required to have a 4 tiers infrastructure: a domain controller for the authentication a file server for logging user sessions, a server to host the TS/XenApp/VDI service and a workstation to launch the user sessions.

The firm is also working to introduce support for application streaming.

Enroll for the beta here.

virtualization.info: Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

written by dcaddick

So along with Alessandro I’m curious as to why the name ThinApp has been chosen as it does have more than a passing resemblance to Citrix’s new XenApp?

I wonder if this is any indication of the coming marketing campaigns in the push for customers attention in the Desktop Virtualization market?

VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

In January 2008 VMware, a hardware virtualization company, acquired an application virtualization startup called Thinstall.
The plan is to use the Thinstall technology to stream virtualized applications on the virtual desktops that VMware spawns through its connection broker: the Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).

So fare VMware has been pretty fast in rebranding the Thinstall Application Virtualization Suite: the beta program for the new version is open since end of February and the testers can already download the beta 2.
The final version of the product, temporarily called Project North Star, is expected for the H2 2008.

The only information missing so far was the final name that VMware wants to use.
Now Micheal Keen, Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture group at Alliance Technologies, reveals that the final name is ThinApp.

Duncan Epping further validates the news reporting that a former Thinstall employee confirmed.

The choice is interesting considering that Citrix just renamed its Presentation Server product in XenApp.

virtualization.info: VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

written by dcaddick

I am sure this is not really what VMware had in mind when they were touting VMware OnDemand? I’m guessing they had more of an idea that it would combine some of the benefits of ACE with ESX?

I have just got back from some training in Houston and while listening to a question from a colleague from the UK where he asked if "VDI was going to be able to use the full suite of Hypervisor functionality like vMotion…"  and that got me thinking…

Some of the Conventional Wisdom around the place holds that VDI by itself will likely not be able to cover all of any one customers needs and most will more than likely need to look at quite possibly a number of different approaches to cover ALL employees and ALL Applications.

So with this in mind I’d be interested in your thoughts on the following idea?

Just a few thoughts around VDI??

Let’s say that we stock a couple of decent servers with loads of resources and allows us to run quite a few VDI instances? OK? So one of the possible issues with the classic VDI so far is that if a user places a bit too much pressure on the resources then it has the potential to impact on all other users, being as it is a shared resource? (This is still one of the classic gotcha’s in Terminal Server and Citrix PS - the session is sticky and it stays with the same server unless a logout/login occurs)

So one idea I’m kicking around is the possibility that if a user started something like a 120Mb Excel spreadsheet that might consume quite a bit of CPU then would it be possible to use the vMotion to transfer him to a BladePC, if they started 3 or 4 of them (or they needed more resources?) then transfer them to a BladeWS…..?

Seamlessly!! with the user completely unaware that this has happened!!

Now the fundamentals of vMotion (or XenMotion for that matter?) requires shared boot storage - BUT I don’t think it needs to be NFS or iSCSI, etc. - the Citrix Provisioning Server or OS Streaming method like Neoware IM would probably work just as well in this scenario? As this then leaves the Virtual HardDisk/Storage in a common area accessible by the Vitrual Desktops regardless of whether they are running on VDI’s, the BladePC’s or the BladeWS’s.

The other point is the similarity of CPU would possibly cause an issue, and this probably extends beyond just Intel/AMD? This appears to be a fundamental of vMotion/XenMotion? So this might not fly today, but it is possible that with improvements in the Hypervisors this issue might be overcome at some stage soon?

Anyway, what do you think of the *idea/concept*? As a user requires more CPU and resources they might be able to be transferred from shared resources (VDI on ESX) to individual resources (BladePC) and then high powered resources (BladeWS) - once the high intensity workload has finished then the user would be transferred seamlessly back through the stack to a VDI instance on the ESX server.

Please bear in mind that this is only a concept at the moment and there are clearly problems and issues to be overcome - but the main reason for this post is to ask if you think it has legs? What do you think?

Clearly the ESX/Hypervisor would need to be able to run on hardware outside of it’s current Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) but with Xen this might not be such an issue?

Is wonder if this is where XenDesktop is headed?

written by dcaddick

So this turned up in my email this morning courtesy of Login Consultants and I must admit that I am intrigued as to what it’s full capabilities will be, but judging by their previous efforts with tools like Flex Profiles I’m sure it will be a very useful tool indeed.

May 7: 1st Beta Release Free “Login Virtual Session Indexer”

May 7th Login Consultants will release the first beta of Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI), a free and easy to use benchmarking methodology from Login Consultants. The Login VSI is a complete toolset that allows you easily to compare scalability of all virtualization platforms and technologies. Login VSI supports all recent Windows OS’s (including 32 and 64bit), Office 2003 and 2007, all application streaming technologies and most importantly both SBC and VDI.

Because the setup is so simple there is an infinite amount of combinations and technologies you can now compare. For instance, you can also measure the relative impact of a virussanner or performance optimization technologies. Additionally, Login VSI will be a perfect tool to compare scalability of different virtualization platforms. Enter May 7th in your agenda, and watch our website www.loginconsultants.com.

written by dcaddick

So news is in courtesy of Alessandro that it looks like it’s quite possible that folks will no longer be able to run ESX as a guest OS inside VMware Workstation. We all know it’s not a good idea - but sometimes it’s the easiest way of being able to demonstrate or troubleshoot issues when you don’t have handy access to an ESX Server.

VMware Workstation 6.5 doesn’t allow ESX as guest anymore

Friday, April 11, 2008   |   0 Comments   |  

No matter how much VMware is extending its HCL, a large number of users is still looking for ways to install the company flagship hypervisor ESX (formerly ESX Server) inside Workstation virtual machines.

Being one of the most wanted feature ever, hacks to achieve the goal proliferated, and our post about how to run ESX Server 3 inside a Workstation 6 virtual machine is one of the most article ever read.

Said do the community disappointment in discovering that the new Workstation 6.5 beta 1 prevents the hack mentioned above doesn’t come by surprise.

One of the VMware employees that addressed the complains anyway is mentioning (but not promising) the possibility to run again ESX inside a VM since the Workstation 6.5 feature list is not finalized yet.

virtualization.info: VMware Workstation 6.5 doesn’t allow ESX as guest anymore

written by dcaddick

Talk about the cat among the pigeons? I was certainly aware that MS’s 2008 was to have Hyper-V included at a minimal cost of USD$28 but that is not due for another 5 months or so, and it was always expected that the pricepoint would come down to meet MS but this is quite early I would have thought?

As Alessandro points out - this will cause some serious pain in the Sales Channel, this is where Citrix had a big jump on VMware and as far as I am aware VMware was getting very serious about trying to ramp this up ASAP - but it would now appear that one of those benefits or sales models that was being offered to the partners will now be disappearing?

So I wonder what this will do to Citrix’s Xen pricing, I can only imagine that they are going to join VMware and MS and will want to be in there competing on price as well?

So the best guess at the moment is that most of Ron Oglesby’s crystal ball gazing of a couple of years back is now coming to fruition and the Hypervisor is already a commodity - so let’s move on to management of the Virtual World?

Dell to give VMware ESX Server 3i for free?

Saturday, March 15, 2008   |   4 Comments

Not only Dell is going to sell virtualization-ready solutions (hardware + VMware ESX Server 3i) in one click, but it seems that the OEM vendor is going to give ESX Server 3i for free.

As last article of the week The Inquirer reports the words of Martin Niemer, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware, which says that Dell will not charge anything for the hypervisor.

If confirmed this decision will have a serious impact on the sales channel.

On one side other OEMs that have a distribution agreement with VMware (HP, IBM, Fujitsu and other) will be almost obliged to do the same to not give Dell any competitive advantage.

On the other side the VMware distributors and resellers will see their chances to sell ESX Server in the SMB market fall down near to zero.

virtualization.info: Dell to give VMware ESX Server 3i for free?

written by dcaddick

Now somewhile back I produced the following post regarding any other alternatives to RDP and ICA and at the time I might have been somewhat flippant about NComputing’s model based on Windows XP SP2, and since then there have been a number of other companies like Miniframe jump on the same bandwagon where they are effectively using a desktop based OS to provide concurrent multi-user sessions and I always thought this did somewhat fly in the face of the EULA?

At the time I was sort of suspecting that MS might have actually been turning something of a blind eye to this in some parts of the world, but now it seems that MS has finally decided to get off the fence (or at least the Lawyers have now made a decision? and produced this document to clarify things.

So I’d like to clarify here that this is not that I don’t think NComputing can add value, but in doing any due diligence anyone who seriously wants to consider either NComputing, Miniframe or any other method of using XP SP2 in a multi-user model should seriously check this document from MS before going too far down this path?

If I was contemplating, or indeed already using this scenario I would be asking the Vendor to review this document from MS and provide some sort of legal indemnification?

Licensing Windows Client Operating System in Multiuser Scenarios

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights. The opinions expressed within are my own and should not be attributed to any other Individual or Company or the one I work for.

SPICE might be an alternative to ICA and RDP?

Now this is very interesting news because with all the interest around VDI there is still no real alternative to ICA other than RDP (or VNC…?) and in this I’m not even going to consider Ncomputing’s WoIP, as from a techies point of view this would appear to simply be a rehash of RDP, although I’m prepared to be convinced otherwise?

But it might be exciting to see that there is a real possible alternative to the ICA/RDP stranglehold and this might have the makings of some interesting changes to how things might be approached in the VDI space?

******UPDATE******
As a consequence of this post I have been contacted by Ncomputing and it would appear that their WoIP is actually what they term a combination of UTMA and UXP and does indeed make the connection/transition/session at a lower level in the stack. However, you will not find much detail on the inner workings of this as it’s proprietary, and I’m still trying to understand how this all plays out with regards to the Microsoft Licensing side of things as detailed here in a post on their Forum
http://ncomputing.com/ncomputing/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=963&hilightuser=1087

If/when I find out more I’ll update either here, or as a separate post on my new blog at www.techagility.info
******UPDATE******

SPICE might be an alternative to ICA and RDP?

written by dcaddick

In some cases the regular methods of "Going to Market" with a new product is fraught with pitfalls as it is conceived by Marketing and/or Product managers who then seem to loose sight of what the Customer is actually after - I’ve always thought it better to get the product and solution in front of the customer as quickly as possible and let them make up their mind and give feedback?

In all fairness, with some of the larger Vendor’s there is so much red tape and bureaucracy this makes it nigh on impossible to actually create demo sites like this that Gareth has created - so kudos to him for getting this created.

What Gareth has alluded to but possibly failed to qualify was, if you don’t have a Citrix ICA client installed then you might also want to think about downloading that elsewhere than from his hosted servers as that will also be quite quicker at over 17Mb for the web client?

Xendesktop or VDM2? Compare them for yourself

When the beta code for VDM2 was first released I wanted to push them both out over the Internet, however there was a red tape / NDA issue.

Now that VDM2 is released I can put both of them out together. All of the components are running as virtual machines on one ESX host. The XP clients are identical in terms of their configuration and resources.

The two URLs are https://oasxendesktop.oas.co.za for the Citrix XenDesktop and https://VDM2.oas.co.za for the VMware VDM2.

username is demo
password is also demo.

The latency is likely to be pretty awful for those abroad. It is slow but usable in South Africa but I am interested in seeing how the performance is from Europe, I think our under-sea cable terminates in Europe so it will probably be even worse in North America.

We have unfortunately also been having to contend with an inordinate number of power cuts, so please bear with our Third World infrastructure. Crises notwithstanding, I will try to give you some more details on the configuration some comparisons on the two different mechanisms tomorrow.

Stop Press:
Whoa, the reason that the Xendesktop demo worked was that most people already had a Citrix client. The VMware VDI agent is 6MB in size and getting that over our slow link will be hopeless.
Try to download and install it from http://garethcharlotte.googlepages.com/VMware-vdmclient-2.0.0-403.exe , this is hosted by google and should come down fairly quickly worldwide.

VMware and CITRIX for South Africa

written by dcaddick

I am so glad to have noticed this while in the office I can set the download going while I head off for Lunch, although I’m not sure I’m going to have too much time to play over the weekend as the missus clearly has ideas of Xmas shopping and taking advantage of the sunny weather this weekend?

Microsoft launches Hyper-V beta 1

Thursday, December 13, 2007   |   0 Comments

Completely unexpected Microsoft launches today the first beta of its upcoming hypervisor Hyper-V (formerly codename Viridian / Windows Server Virtualization).

This first beta, initially planned for the end of this year, was later postponed to February 2008, in sync with the global launch of Windows Server 2008 (formerly codename Longhorn). But Microsoft put a great effort to launch the beta ahead of time and disturb the VMware launch of VI 3.5.

The new build unlocks several critical features customers were looking for:

• Quick Migration and support for host-level HA (up to 16 nodes)
• Out-of-the-box integration with Windows Server 2008 Server Manager (no more separate installation)
• Support for Windows Server Core edition (allowing a smaller hypervisor footprint)
• Support for Volume Shadow Service (VSS) (which implies capability to perform VMs live backup at host level)
• Support for 64GB virtual RAM per VM
• Support for multiple virtual NICs per VM
• Support for 4 virtual SCSI controller per VM
• Integration of VHD manipulation tools

With this beta Microsoft is providing support for Windows Server 2003 and 2008 guest OS, as well as Novell Linux guests (thanks to the special agreement the two companies have on interoperability).

Once again Hyper-V is directly included into Windows Server 2008 code, this time inside the Release Candidate 1 (Enterprise Edition, 64bit only).

Enlightments for Linux guest OS instead are available through a separate beta program on Connect.

virtualization.info: Microsoft launches Hyper-V beta 1

written by dcaddick

So while attending Citrix’s iForum I had the opportunity to examine
XenServer in more detail at one of the booths and I was pleasantly surprised as to the level of detail and how it appeared to be pretty straight forward. However the main issue would appear to be that there is no equivalent to VMware’s Workstation that makes it possible to run Demo’s and the like directly from a Laptop.

So in chatting to one of the freshly minted "Citrix" Xen Tech’s looking after the booth he did confirm that there is currently no "Workstation" alternative, however one of the Citrix SE’s that I chatted to did mention that the alternative at the moment (leaving room for a Workstation edition soon no doubt?) is to either use a separate Laptop that has Xen Server installed or they use Virtual PC as a host for the Xen Server.

So seeing as I received a XenExpress Demo in the goodies bag I have taken the liberty of installing Xen on a VM inside VMware Workstation 6, and even though Xen insists on being installed on x64 hardware it was pretty easy - I just selected Other Linux 2.6.x Kernel 64-bit and away we went - the only other caveats that I discovered (without reading any of the docs) was it really wanted to see a min. of 16Gb of HDD and at least  1Gb of RAM, but other than that it was a piece of cake.

Once the Server has been built it will return with the IP address listed in the console, at this point you simply need to install the Console and then point it at the Server’s IP address and you are good to go?

I would suggest that looking through the install screenshot’s that choosing RedHat would be equally valid?

I’m sure this would install just as easily on Virtual PC or Virtual Server, but the main issue will be the extra resources needed to run a Virtual Host as well as Xen before actually being in the position to run anything meaningful?

written by dcaddick