How to enable SSO for View 5.1
• Enable “log in as current user” Client GPO policy
• Edit “Servers Trusted For delegation”
By default, this feature is turned off until you provide a list of View Connection Servers that can authenticate with the “log in as current user.“

Legacy View Clients prior to 5.0 (4.6 and previous versions) are not compatible with View 5.1 Connection Server. Don’t do the upgrade and then have none of your users able to connect.

VMware ThinApp

· A ThinApp which includes the .NET Framework generates the message: Event ID: 1101 “.NET Runtime Optimization Service (clr_optimization_version) – 1>Failed to compile:” (2018794)

· Running a ThinApp application fails with the error: License problem: Unable to validate your license (2019985)

VMware View

· Unable to install VMware View Composer 2.7 with Oracle ODBC connectio

· Persona Management fails when Novell Secure Login is installed

· Attempting to view persistent disks fails with the error: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException

Windows Firewall with Advanced Security must be enabled on security server and View Connection Server hosts.By default, IPsec rules govern connections between security server and View Connection Server and require Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to be enabled.

* Best choice: Set Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to on before you install the View servers. Make sure it’s on for any active profiles; better still, set it to on for all profiles.
* Alternative: Before you install security servers, open View Administrator and set the Global Setting, Use IPsec for Security Server Connections, to no (not recommended).

I had wriiten a post, #VDI Tip 69: Use QofS – UCS and VMware View 5 but it’s misleading. The premise of using QofS is still a good and should be done. Since VM-FEX is dependent on the number of PCI-devices that your server can handle. Since you can only have 32 PCI-devices per server and some are taken up my various functions, the Max is really 30 desktops. The report mentions 30 desktops being used for testing but never declared it as a limiting factor. I declare this report as Bogus!

If you want to run QofS with VDI you will need a Nexus 1000v or use the virtual distributed switch(vDS) and run the QofS from the vDS. If your running VDI with 30 VM’s or less per server, you work for a hardware vendor

Why are you monitoring your desktops? I thought VDI was all about your users and their applications. Xangati brings an industry first for VDI, monitoring based on End-User Experience (EUX)\User Profiles. The newest release of the Xangati Managemsent Dashboard (XMD) Suite 5.0 integrates with VMware and Citrix connection brokers. In Xangati like fashion this is all done agent-less. For a good little discussion on agent vs agentless check this discussion out. I agree with the Deltona on 2nd comment, agents should be avoided at all cost.

Drill down for a Session. You can see what is running on desktop and compare against memory, CPU, disk latency and the network throughput

PCoIP Session that is tied to the desktop from the 1st Chart. I started Windows Media Player. You can see the audio in the PCoIP stream.

The User Profile Monitoring allows sanity, in the insanity that sometimes can result in the deployment of non-persistent/stateless desktops. As the user’s machines get destroyed after they get log out or get recomposed, their performance profile with remain. Having a problem on a desktop and then finding out about it 30 minutes later to find out there is no user on the desktop, or there is no desktop or the user is now in a different pool can make a person’s head spin.

The ability to have recorded events that gives visibility into all the layers of the stack really is powerful. You can visually see what the desktop is doing, what applications are running, what resources they are being consumed and how the display protocol is performing. Below are some graphs of a desktop. You can bring up the performance charts side by side and visually see the impact on one another. Pictures don’t really do it justice, to see it in full effect you really need a demo. The demo’s can be found at http://www.youtube.com/embed/Uk-Nw4oQ-58?rel=0

The Xangati Management Dashboard (XMD) along with the User Profiling added multiple vCenter support (Up to 8 vCenters) & best practice thresholds integrated from VMware. The multiple vCenter support is key to have a holistic VDI environment. You need to have the VDI Pods and Management Pods under the same view. If you don’t monitor the brokers and can’t log in, not much point monitoring the desktops!

I like the best practice thresholds because they are adjustable and I don’t have to configure it to get it going. XMD can take a up to two weeks profiling your environment before it will alert on problems that are out of normal range. The best practices can help point out errors during that time or if you decided to ignore an issue and it has now become the “norm”.

Automated performance profiling techniques with best practice thresholds

XMD also released Capacity Management into the Suite. I haven’t played around with it much but it looks like ok. I would give it any awards but all the information is there. It’s text heavy but your alerts are sitting there. I think they need capacity management to compete with the “check-lists” of other products. If Xangati can get IOPS and Network capacity management added it would be a big plus. Teaming up with Login VSI to keep the max thresholds for IOPS and network would be great for enterprise deployments. Xangati does have release schedule for the Capacity Managemen:
Phase I (Now)
Classic capacity trend management
Be forewarned about hitting capacity ceiling across all data centers
Find spare capacity/capacity hogs
Phase II (2nd Half 2012)
Live problem analytics informing capacity planning

It past releases there was the annoyance of a manual process to update the VDI dashboard with Clients and VDI Desktops. This is all automatic now, you can configure rules to include what you want to be added to the dashboard. Great to see this huge housekeeping task off the books.

The update will go a long way in VDI environment. I think the proof for its real time ability is the fact the VMware is running it it’s R + D. I’ve seen Xangati reports a couple time in some recent whitepapers.

The UI is coming along but the meat and potatoes are being served, come get it!

Whiptail launched “INVICTA” today and put on the big boy pants and lost the lizard and have a fresh new look. INVICTA is really a silicon router that allows there all SSD arrays now called ACCELA form a pool of storage, working as one unit. Today you can add up to 6 nodes with INVICTA, 72 TB of NAND flash, sustained bandwidth beyond 6 GB/s and a sustained IOPS beyond 600,000. Whiptail uses all standard MLC based flash so the price point is good and the SSD life span is really amazing. I have heard over 2 PB hitting an INVICTA setup and only have 2% wear on the drives.

For more information: Whiptail Press Release

VMware View
• After upgrading View Connection Server, a blank grey web page is displayed for the View Administrator console (2018751)
• VMware View Persona Management fails and data does not sync (2019247)
• VMware View Transfer Server fails to publish Local Mode image (2019448)

Socialcast

• How to decline or ignore invites to a group in Socialcast (2019339)

Disclaimer: One is included and one will cost you money. List your goals for Persona Management before even looking at a product.


Ease of Administration – Winner: VMware

I would give a slight edge to View Persona for Ease of Administration but this is because of lack of other settings and filters offered. Out of the box, View Persona was one GPO that needs to get configured and you are ready to go. ProfileUnity, you have go thru a web interference that generates a ini file and then place the new ini file where your desktops will pick up the settings upon logon. Both pieces of software offered ways to view the overall configuration.

Integration (Infrastructure required) – Winner: ProfileUnity

Both solutions require little infrastructure to use the product. View Persona installs the software via the VMware View agent and you need to configure a Group Policy for it to run.

ProfileUnity needs a file share to store the executable and configuration files and a small appliance to create the configuration files. Once the Group Policy is applied to the target desktops, a small program is copied to the machine and the program exe is added to the userint in the registry – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

I think where ProfileUnity wins is if you’re going to be migrating users from XP to Win7. The overall setup doesn’t require any additional work other than connecting the appropriate Group Polices to where the physical desktops are residing in Active Directory. View Persona can migrate profiles from XP to Win7 but you have to build your own scripts and install the appropriate standalone Persona software. To keep your migration in a consistent matter you also have to build your own XML based template. With no GUI this could be a real pain in the backside for a lot of customers. It also make the process very maintainable.

Granular control (choose what settings are included/exclude from profile) –
Winner: ProfileUnity

Both can exclude files but only ProfieUnity can include\exclude registry keys. If you use ProfileUnity, lots of setting like Office Options, Printers (not the drivers), IE settings and ini files and so can be managed with filters. Some of the options with filters include:

- View Client Name

- IP address

- Computer Name

- User

- Logon server

Lots of the settings pervious mentioned could be managed with Group Policy preferences in windows without the use of filters.

ThinApp Management – Winner:ProfileUnity

ProfileUnity can deploy ThinApp packages and can also inventory the applications. View Persona offers no options. To deploy applications with a pure VMware View Solution you would have to use the Settings from the Admin Console on the View brokers. If the future state is to deploy packages with Horizon Application Manager then I would argue it doesn’t really matter and we should go with VMware View Persona.

Advanced Functionality – Winner:ProfileUnity

Migration of XP to Windows 7 was mentioned under Integration but I would like to add some additional points. The View solution is a onetime deal. You convert the profile and then you can start using it for Widnows 7. If the users decides to do work where their XP profile, any new files/changes will be lost unless we do the necessary scripting or make use of redirection. Redirection will only work for users in the same site at the datacentre, this is because if the network speeds are slow the whole desktop will grind to a halt.

ProfileUnity also offers throttling as the profiles are being converted/copied to the profile repository. Based on the desktop type XP or Win7 different files can be excluded with GUI Liquidware provides, with View Persona you have to build your own XML file.

ProfileUnity also offers FlexApp that helps to deal with user installed apps. The user does need admin rights for it to run and you also have to redirect the App Data folder. While the feature will help tackle some hard use cases it won’t represent the vast majority of apps that will be ThinApped.

Summary

ProfileUnity is great but you need someone to really understand the windows desktop to take advantage. The migration and saleability are proven as it’s been on the market for awhile for user migrations. Its compression and decompression for floating pools will help to speed up log on times, using a persistent disk offers no benefits. View Persona doesn’t have Admin policies or is context aware.

View Persona offers a Keep It Simple Stupid method. The View Persona is really roaming profile acceleration. With a Persistent disk model, View Persona has great value as it can cache the profile for fast login times. It also only downloads to the virtual desktop what it needs so floating pool logons times are also fast. I think View Persona will meet 70% of the uses cases out in the wild today.

If you don’t a lot of the features of ProfileUnity so I would argue that we should go with included free View Persona. Also I would bet some further Persona, Octopus, Horizon App Manager must be coming. Switching between them will be a painful event down the road but would argue it would be easier going from View Persona to ProfileUnity than the reverse.

Whatever you pick, train the helpdesk where they can search for files and address quick problems for your end users.

This is guest post from a co-worker, Brent Robin. Good find if you run into the problem.

1) Go to the vsphere vCenter where the vm is located and login to the VM via the console.

2) Login into the VM locally as administrator only.

3) Uninstall the View Agent. Reboot the VM.

4) Log back into the VM as the local Administrator and follow these directions as per this link > http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2002765

5) Disable any TP Autoconnect services associated to Thinprint.

6) Disable the antivirus scanner if applicable.

7) Install the View Agent ver that is applicable and reboot the VM.

Check the View Administrator console to make sure the Status shows “Available”.

9) Have user log back into their VM to ensure its stable.