The Move to Virtual Desktops – Part 2: Pilot Plan and Design

If you read Part 1 then you know the importance of the Assessment Phase of any Virtual Desktop engagement. The next step is the Pilot plan and design, a good consultant will ensure that they capture what it is you hope to accomplish by making the move to VDI.

Pilot Plan:

The assessment phase will help to identify the best use cases, the selection then comes down to what you are comfortable with, and what departments are willing to jump on the pilot bandwagon. The consultant should then determine the master image size based on assessment findings, taking an average of disk size, cpu, and memory. Any applications that are determined to be part of the master image, and any unique configuration changes should also be documented. User workshops should be performed to determine how they use their current environment, questions about desktop and machine customization, work habits, and current performance acceptance will be asked to determine what should be incorporated in the build. This will also help to identify use cases that may have been missed or overlooked in the assessment phase.

Design Phase:

Now there is a plan and the consultant will begin putting together the design, they will not begin installing software or carving up LUNs. A pilot design should contain: storage sizing, network layout (ExternalInternal Access Plan, VLAN mapping, Firewall Configuration Changes, DHCP Scopes, DNS names), topography design for the VDI environment, host specifications, master image design specifications, application virtualization candidates for the pilot, GPO and OU changes, Pool names and user entitlements. Finally a proper design should include a risk assessment and a work breakdown structure containing high-level task as well as estimated time to complete each milestone.

Build Phase: 

After all of the paper engineering and data collection is done we are at last at the build phase the consultant will rack and stack hardware, perform all necessary cabling, configurations and begin the installation of software. Once the VDI infrastructure is built out they will begin on the desktop image itself. Depending on the Plan and Design there may be multiple desktop images to create, several test deployments will then be performed to ensure that everything is working as it should. Pools will then be created and deployed. Application virtualization if specified in the SOW, Plan and Design, will be done toward the end of the build phase and prior to end user testing. 
Next Up … Part 3: Pilot Testing and User Acceptance 
On Deck … Part 4: Production Design and Deployment

The Move to Virtual Desktops: Part 1

The move to virtual desktops from physical is not one made on the ROI number alone. There has to be a reason a root case study that drives the decision. For many it’s the idea that man hours will be saved on patching, still others it’s the goal to standardize the enterprise. But regardless of the initial premise the question remains does it make sense and will it work for the environment.

The Assessment:

Every Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) engagement needs to have an assessment phase as the first step. Whether it’s pre or post sales it has to happen. How else will you know if making the investment for a full blown deployment even makes sense. Maybe you have 1,000 employees who all work in PhotoShop all day long, on high end workstations. Just because a slick salesperson in a nice business suit told you the benefits of VDI doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. Those 1000 employees are not going to be happy with a VDI solution that is “affordable” you will need to spring for larger servers than you would if you only had employees who work on the web and with email all day long. The use case of standardization here doesn’t apply but maybe you don’t realize that until you have the assessment done.

What to look for in an assessment? 

I like to ensure that I provide data for what machines make good candidates, and which ones don’t for virtualizing. I also like to have the justifications for both classifications, sometimes in an assessment a machine will show with High CPU utilization through out the day, which may red flag it as a bad candidate, but when you dig a little deeper all that CPU is going towards a bad install of Anti-virus. Other times you will see a user has a machine that is far under powered for the tasks they perform. Other useful information I like to provide is Disk utilization to help calculate the necessary IOPs or Disk ReadsWrites. IOPs are more crucial to a VDI than the servers that host it. Look at user data, how large are profiles, and what applications are used the most frequently. These items will help to determine what profile management method should be used, and what applications to target for virtualization. The aggregate of this data will help to determine the size and scope of any pilot, as well as what the “Golden” Image will look like.

All in all an assessment done right is worth the cost, it may just save you from betting the farm on a solution that doesn’t fit your enterprise.

Coming Soon: Part 2 – Pilot Plan and Design 

File Sharing in the Cloud: BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud)?

Virtual file shares and collaboration seem to be the rage in IT sector right now. Rightfully so, how else will we share all the documents and pictures that we create? Or centrally collaborate and track the version of the document that the whole team is working on? Sure, SharePoint has been around and is getting better, E-room is an option but can be somewhat cumbersome to manage. But users want the ability to open their files in alternate browsers not just IE, and they want to open them on different devices (tablets, phones, Macs, and Linux machines). 
Mozy has a solution, there is Box.com, and Microsoft SkyDrive, don’t forget iCloud and we have all heard of Dropbox. While all of these options are cloud based they are all public cloud hosted, which presents security questions of who owns the files and who really knows what is being shared about your content. These questions and the proliferation of corporate private clouds are what is driving VMware’s Project Octopus. I will be testing the Beta release in June, which means we are still a little far out from the Gold release, but the market is looking in that direction, and not just VMware.
How are you currently sharing files in your organization?