Citrix VDI in a box demo day

[jamesfed]

Hi all,

 

There has been a lot of talk on here about Citrix VDI in a box (formally Kaviza) in the past few weeks and using my experience of it I have tried to help anyone with any questions they have.

In the past we have however run a ‘demo day’ here in Abingdon (Oxfordshire) for a small number of schools and I was wondering if people would be interested in me getting hold of a few of our contacts and arranging another one?

We are hoping to expand our VDI grid in the next few weeks using a second server which will be using SSDs instead of HDDs however until I get it working I wouldn’t want to hold any presentation.

That pretty much rules out doing anything this holiday but how would people feel about us holding it during term time or waiting to the June Holiday? (4th – 8th June).

 

As far as I can tell the best way to go would be-

Live Demos (as many as possible)

Get a thin client vendor on site (should be able to do)

Get a Citrix guy on site (should be able to do)

Get a VAR on site (might be able to do)

Maybe a little VDI licencing workshop (would need someone who knows someone to make this happen)

 

We could probably accommodate up to 20 people in our meeting room for presentations and I think a program from 10am – 3pm should work well.

 

So what do we all think?

Edited April 2, 2012 by jamesfed

[jamesfed]

Lunch and App-V included as well

[glennda]

Perhaps talk with @Dos_Box about doing something at the conference? As it is that week? Although he might be booked up!

[jamesfed]

Perhaps talk with @Dos_Box about doing something at the conference? As it is that week? Although he might be booked up!

 

I think hands on demos of a production enviroment are going to be the key of it all - and I don't think I could up root a DL385 for a few days

 

It is an idea though

[nadeem]

I'd be interested in going, my NM has a pilot Kaviza system at the moment

[danbee]

I'd be interested too.

[jamesfed]

Good to hear guys - any views of term time/non term time?

[danbee]

Non term time would be best for us (probably 6th-8th June)

[nadeem]

I don't mind timewise

[jamesfed]

Little bit of a bump - I am hoping to go ahead with this on Wednesday 6th June 2012 starting around 10. Have confirmed that I can get someone from both Citrix and 10zig on site.

 

Also for anyone that is intrested do have a look at this RAID Cache and VDI | my world of IT

[carvjo]

Hi James - I would be interested - thanks..

 

John

[gshaw]

Are these server-grade SSDs you're putting in there?

 

Every time I get a sales call regarding VDI I always maintain that the Kaviza model + SSDs is what I'm waiting for. Really can't see how paying out for a SAN + bundles of fast server hard drives is in any way efficient but pay-as-you-grow and super fast SSD provisioning... now I'm listening

 

Do you still need Kaviza-specific thin clients or can you use more generic ones now it supports HDX natively?

 

I reckon this could be a good solution for our back office desktops so keeping a very close eye on the technology as it matures...

Edited April 12, 2012 by gshaw

[jamesfed]

Are these server-grade SSDs you're putting in there?

 

Every time I get a sales call regarding VDI I always maintain that the Kaviza model + SSDs is what I'm waiting for. Really can't see how paying out for a SAN + bundles of fast server hard drives is in any way efficient but pay-as-you-grow and super fast SSD provisioning... now I'm listening

 

Do you still need Kaviza-specific thin clients or can you use more generic ones now it supports HDX natively?

 

I reckon this could be a good solution for our back office desktops so keeping a very close eye on the technology as it matures...

 

They are what you might call 'workstation grade' but even at £400 they could be condiered as semi expendable after a few years hammering.

 

Kaviza supported all thin clients that did HDX/Citrix connections you just didn't get some of the features (mainly error messages should anything go wrong).

 

Although we haven't gone to deployment yet the demos we have done have worked out amazingly well (will put a video up soon showing just how fast it is).

 

If you are intrested in coming you are more than welcome - if I can get the permission of those present I might do a video recoard of each of the presentations as well.

[gshaw]

I guess if you make an n+1 redundant grid you could get away with one node going down if the drive packs up - I'm guessing the Gold images are replicated across nodes anyway (as are any "permanent" VMs?)

 

Will see if I can get up to you that day as it's one of the first places I've seen going down the VDI route I think is the best value \ performance as it stands

[jamesfed]

Yep and no reason not to get 2 and put them in software RAID 1 (naturally double the price though).

 

Golden images are replicated but permanent VMs aren’t - then again you should be able to put in place roaming profiles/dedicated backups (through DPM ect) for those if seriously needed.

[gshaw]

Does it have the feature to put permanent VMs on a separate storage pool to Golden images \ disposable VMs? Just reading an oldish link (6 months ago) where it was saying everything goes into the same storage.

 

Ideally you'd have Gold images and the throwaway VMs on the SSD then the permanent ones (or difference disk data depending on how Kaviza does it) on standard HDDs to give the capacity required.

 

Just had a look at HP official server HDDs... wow and ouch spring to mind!!!

[jamesfed]

Not that I'm aware - VDI-in-a-Box is very much a point and shoot style of VDI where everything is very very simple, if you want the more advanced features then that is what XD is for (ultimatly Citrix want to have a clear divide between the products).

 

Capacity isn't a great problem - you can easily fit 30-40 VMs on a 256GB SSD card

 

Yep - have to be 15k SAS as well to get any real speed!

[jamesfed]

Another teaser for us all - SSD VDI Application Load Times | my world of IT

[CyberNerd]

Not that I'm aware - VDI-in-a-Box is very much a point and shoot style of VDI where everything is very very simple, if you want the more advanced features then that is what XD is for (ultimatly Citrix want to have a clear divide between the products).

 

Capacity isn't a great problem - you can easily fit 30-40 VMs on a 256GB SSD card

 

Yep - have to be 15k SAS as well to get any real speed!

 

better still would be to mount the golden image into ram and have all machines boot from that. RAM is faster than SSD's. a KVM machine only holds changes, so you 256GB SSD would be good for about 500 virtual machines.

[jamesfed]

better still would be to mount the golden image into ram and have all machines boot from that. RAM is faster than SSD's. a KVM machine only holds changes, so you 256GB SSD would be good for about 500 virtual machines.

 

Oh dear the KVM guy is back.... no offense and its not that you are wrong but I'm happy with simplicity (and we have already had this discussion over which is simpler and it comes down to personal reasons).

[CyberNerd]

Oh dear the KVM guy is back.... no offense and its not that you are wrong but I'm happy with simplicity (and we have already had this discussion over which is simpler and it comes down to personal reasons).

 

oh yeah, i forgot - you have your head in the sand still.

[jamesfed]

oh yeah, i forgot - you have your head in the sand still.

 

:D and happy

 

(Yes I'm not taking you seriously hehehe)

 

Either way guys lets keep on topic - thread is for anyone who wants to see a live demo of VDI and a free lunch.

Edited April 12, 2012 by jamesfed

[CyberNerd]

I was sort of on-topic with using memory for speed. presumably you can do this with xen, it is a linux/bsd/solaris tech after all.

[jamesfed]

Sorry that earlier chat about speed was even off topic but I can live with a little.

 

The strict point of this topic is who wants to see VDI in action?

[unmode]

I'd be very interested in seeing your demo. And also your lunch.