Tag: VMware (Page 1 of 3)

VDI – Adding new life to aging desktops

April 11, 2014 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Around 5 years of age, desktop computers may begin to lack the processing power required to meet the ever-growing demands of operating systems and applications. By this point, many people are looking to swap out desktops. With Windows XP finally reaching it’s final end-of-support date, a lot of organizations are finding themselves with a large number of desktops that are unable to upgrade to Windows 7, due to the age of the hardware.

This was the situation for one of my first VDI projects. Almost 4 years ago, a school district was facing a required hardware refresh to move to Windows 7. This was a requirement for some of their curriculum, and they had thousands of desktops that were over 7 years old and could not be upgraded. However, using VMware View as a VDI solution, they were able to repurpose those old PCs as VDI end points. Their preferred endpoint is a Teradici-based zero client, as they are easier to manage and offer improved management. However, the plan was to use zero clients for all new purchases and to replace the existing desktops through attrition.

They were early adopters in education, and had a very savvy IT group that was up for the challenge. Today, I received a report from this customer that wanted to show off how VDI was allowing them to reach outrageous lifespans on their old PCs. When I saw these numbers, I just had to share them. These are the numbers that make VDI work, and why I love working with VDI technologies.

With over 5,000 desktops in the district, 57% are between 6 and 9 years old. Many of these do not meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7, yet they run it on a daily basis. But what’s more impressive is the fact that 32% of their desktops are over 10 years old and still in use to serve up Windows 7 desktops on a daily basis.

Wow, talk about return on investment! Our initial ROI analysis assumed that almost all of these desktops would have already been upgraded to zero clients by now. Ever year they are able to delay that, they are leaving money in the budget for other projects.

A strategy that was meant to delay desktop replacements for a year, to offset the costs of the initial VDI environment, has paid off better than we could have imagined. We have a happy customer, and their technology department has been able to improve the educational tools within their district while lowering costs. #winning

VDC-OS: Is it finally here?

September 20, 2013 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

VMware first announced its concept of the virtual data center operating system (VDC-OS) at VMworld 2008. Paul Maritz, VMware Inc.’s CEO at the time, took the stage and began to share his vision of a software-defined data center. Maritz is no longer in the driver’s seat, but this destination of a virtual data center operating system and the software-defined data center is finally coming into view.

At VMworld 2013, the concept of a VDC OS took two big steps forward. Learn more about this in my latest TechTarget article “Not lost, just recalculating: VMware’s route to a VDC-OS has been long“, then come back here and leave a comment.

The Changing Hypervisor Role

June 20, 2013 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Not all hypervisors have reached a level of parity in features, functionality and performance (regardless of what some marketing campaigns might say). However, the virtualization heavyweights are beginning to see real competition, and they realize that the gaps between the leading hypervisors are closing quickly. Given these narrowing feature gaps, how will we compare hypervisors in the future?

As the hypervisor battle evens out, I foresee a kind of stalemate. Vendors will struggle to differentiate their products from the competition, and the short attention span of IT pros will move to areas that provide greater value.

What can this mean for your organization and your long-term IT strategies? For more on this topic, read my TechTarget article “As feature gaps narrow, how will we compare hypervisors in the future?“.

Software Defined Networking: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

May 25, 2013 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

There is a lot of talk about the software-defined data center lately, though the shift from hardware to software has been going on since the first logical partitions appeared in mainframe computing. Surprisingly, this shift continues to sneak up on people. When that happens, there can be power struggles and confusion as to who’s responsible for what. Many technology disciplines — networking teams, for example — still see themselves as focused on managing hardware rather than software and fail to see that virtualization has moved us beyond these distinctions.

What a networking device does, it’s core functionality, has been abstracted and is taking a new form…but will network administrators embrace this change? I go into more detail on this topic in my latest TechTarget article “Virtualization widens schism between server and networking teams“. Please take a minute to read that, then come back here and tell me what you think.

Virtualization Paying Off?

January 25, 2013 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Several years ago, server virtualization rolled into the data center with all of the outrageous promises and unbelievable claims of a sideshow barker. Experts and vendors claimed it was going to improve server efficiency, shrink your infrastructure, slash bloated power bills, make cumbersome administrative tasks disappear and cure the common cold. The sales pitch was smooth and we all bought in, but has virtualization fulfilled the promises?

Did your infrastructure shrink when you implemented virtualization?

I want to hear more from you about this. Take a minute to read my TechTarget article “Virtualization improved server efficiency, but did it meet the hype?“, then come back here and contribute to the conversation.

Software-Defined Data Center

October 25, 2012 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

When you think about a data center, you likely imagine a large building with diesel generators. Inside, you probably picture racks full of servers and networking equipment, raised floors, cable trays and well-positioned ventilation. After all the hours that I have spent in data centers, thoughts like this actually make me feel cold.

So, what truly defines the physical data center? Is it really defined by what we physically see when we step inside? Thousands of data centers may use the same network switches, but any two are rarely the same.

Purpose-built hardware provides a way to execute code-and-relay data. What makes it unique is software or the device configuration. Every data center has a core router, but the configuration of that device is what makes the router unique. The physical device is simply a conduit for executing the function, as defined by the software. Although the physical aspects of a data center have not changed much, the amount of end-user systems that directly touch the components has decreased dramatically.

Virtualization changed the way we defined the data center. The data center is no longer just a room of hardware, but a room of meta data about applications and services. To read more on this shift in data center thinking, please read my TechTarget article “How the software-defined data center changes the virtualization game“, then come back here and leave a comment to tell me what you think.

Multiple Hypervisors Ahead: Proceed with Caution

July 2, 2012 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Multi-hypervisor management tools are great for common provisioning and monitoring tasks, but they fall flat when it comes to deeper functionality, which provide the most value.

Looking past the feature parity and marketing hype in the hypervisor market, there are compelling reasons to deploy a heterogeneous virtualization environment (i.e., reducing costs, improving compatibility with certain applications, avoiding vendor lock-in). Do you keep fighting it off? Do you concede and draw lines of delineation between the hypervisors? Do you throw your hands up and simply let them all in?

The answer certainly depends on your skillsets, needs and tolerance for pain. But if you’re looking for an easy way out through a multi-hypervisor management tool, you may be disappointed.

For more on this topic, check out my TechTarget article at “Proceed with caution: Multi-hypervisor management tools“, then come back here and leave a comment.

VMWorld 2012 Voting

June 6, 2012 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

It is that time again, and I am asking that you take a minute to vote on my submissions to VMWorld 2012. This year, I am focusing on End User Computing/VDI topics. I have worked on a number of VDI projects over the last year, and wanted to share some of those experiences with the community. In particular, I wanted to focus on VDI in education. Having worked on both commercial and education implementations of virtual desktop environments, there are key differentiators that can seriously impact the success of VDI in educational deployments.

My first session is “Tyler ISD: One Year Later” (session 2812). Tyler Independent School District is a large K-12 school district in East Texas, and a well respected leader in educational technology. John Orbaugh, the Tyler ISD Director of Technology, serves on a number of technology boards and committees, as well as presenting at conferences and other technology events. Just over a year ago, Tyler began deploying Phase One of a very aggressive VDI project. In Phase One, 2,500 VMware View seats were deployed on a VCE Vblock. Over the last school year, some conditions changed, software conflicts were discovered and rapid growth led to performance concerns. In this session, John and I will discuss these issues, their impact, how they were addressed, and how they impact future phases of their VDI initiative that will take their user count from 2,500 to over 15,000. This is a great session for anyone thinking about or preparing to deploy VDI within an educational environment.

My second session is “VDI in Education” (session 2872). In this session, Chris Reed and I will discuss the many nuances involved in designing and deploying VDI within an educational environment. Chris and I have each worked on a number of VDI project in both commercial and educational environments. For this session, we will focus on how educational deployments differ from commercial deployments, and how even higher education may differ from a K-12 deployment. This will address all aspects of the project lifecycle from technology selection, to budgeting and funding considerations, through to technical design and final implementation. Each step along the way has unique challenges when applied to educational institutions, and knowing how to effectively account for these challenges can improve the effectiveness of your future deployments.

Another session that I would recommend is Steve Kaplan’s session “Virtual Desktops: The Gateway to the Cloud” (session 1446). Steve is a very gifted speaker and is extremely knowledgeable. Steve has authored several books and speaks at large conferences and technology events all over the United States.

How To Vote:
To vote, go to: http://www.vmworld.com/www.vmworld.com/cfp.jspa. You will have the option to sign in either using an existing VMWorld account or to create a new VMWorld account.

Once signed in, click on the “Filter Options” button above the sessions on the right-hand side. Simply type the word “vaughn” into the “Keywords” field and click on the Submit button. There you will find my sessions (#2812 and #2872). Please click on the “thumbs up” icon to register a vote for these sessions.

While you are there, I would also recommend the sessions with Chad Sakac of EMC and Vaughn Stewart of NetApp. I am in the vExpert program with both Chad and Vaughn, they are not only experts in storage but also excellent presenters. You leave one of their sessions entertained, well informed, and almost unaware of the fact that they work for competing storage vendors.

After that, go back to the filter options and type “Kaplan” into the Keyword field to find Steve Kaplan’s session and vote for that as well. In fact, you can type “Presidio” into the Keyword field and find sessions from myself, Steve Kaplan and some of our other colleagues at Presidio. Your votes are greatly appreciated, and I will see you at VMWorld!

VMware View client for the iPhone

December 30, 2011 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Disclaimer: I am an avid VMware user and I work from a VMware View 5 desktop on a regular basis.

With that being said, I am still disappointed in VMware’s lack of a View Client for the iPhone. They have created a client for the iPad, with full PCoIP support. In fact, this is a very impressive client with creative solutions to the “touchscreen to mouse” problems when using an OS like Windows XP or Windows 7 that was not created for use on a touchscreen device. Using gestures and even a virtual trackpad, navigating a Windows desktop in this client is pretty intuitive.

VMware has also released a similar client for Android, working on both Android tablets and phones. However, the iPad client WILL NOT WORK ON THE IPHONE! This is very frustrating. As I ask around within VMware, I regularly hear that there is no interest in the end-user community for an iPhone client. On that point, I have to disagree. I am not only an end-user that would love to have this client, but I regularly work with customers that are also asking for this feature. Look at almost any blog post written on the topic, and the comments will be full of people asking for VMware to provide an iPhone client.

With as much discussion as I see and hear for this, it escapes me why VMware thinks there is no interest. Is the iPhone the ideal format for accessing a VDI desktop, no. However, if you want “anywhere, anytime” access to your desktop, your smartphone is the one device you always have with you. I currently have to leave RDP enabled on my VDI desktop, which prohibits me from using some advanced PCoIP features. However, I do this to support the WYSE Pocket Cloud app on my iPhone, as that is the only way to access my desktop in a pinch. On several occasions, I have had to resort to this method for fulfilling quick requests or fixing issues prior to performing a demo.

Even if I am an anomaly, and no one else would ever use this feature, I am still surprised that VMware has not placed a higher priority on it. If nothing else, I would have thought this would be a marketing priority. Even if no one will use it, this is an item that VMware needs on the menu.

If you agree, or disagree, let me know. Hopefully, VMware is listening and will make the iPhone View client an early 2012 gift.

Dr. John Rocks

July 24, 2011 / Mark Vaughn / 0 Comments

Today, I wanted to step away from a technical post to wish John Troyer a happy birthday. In fact, John is the friend that inspired me to first start blogging. In 2009, I received an email from John Troyer that informed me I had won a vExpert award from VMware. This was a new program that VMware was starting, and John Troyer was at the helm. That year, at VMWorld 2009, John organized some events for us and held a vExpert forum. There, he had Jason Boche and Steve Kaplan speak about their experiences in blogging, and I decided to start my own. That turned in to me writing for Tech Target, and eventually led to me leaving my employer of 12 years to work with Steve Kaplan at INX.

Over the last three years, I have really enjoyed getting to know John better. Not only in the vExpert program, but simply spending time with John at VMware events, communicating on twitter and listening to him host the weekly “VMware Communities Roundtable” podcast. Through each of these efforts, John has led out in supporting VMware and virtual technologies through social media. John’s LinkedIn profile describes him as “Online evangelist and enterprise community builder at VMware”, and that only touches on his talents and work. A little more digging will tell you that John played a role in developing the first internet browser for the Blackberry and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry.

When Christopher Kusek came up with the idea to share a few thoughts about John for his birthday, I was more than glad to join in. John, thank you for all of your work in promoting virtualization and technology, and for creating outlets for us geeks to exchange ideas. Your tireless efforts continue to add value to each of the programs that you work with, and we greatly appreciate what you do.

Here is a quick “Thank You” video:

More videos are also available at: http://www.youtube.com/user/DrJohnRocks