funscott

Thought I would add a little update. Running Hyperv on 2012r2 datacentre with 2012 standard r2 hosting scvmm 2012 r2 (sql 2012 r2) on a R910. this is running xendesktop 7.1 and i have a windows 7 pro 64bit guest vm (2gb 2cpu). at the moment this is hosted on our SAN and averaging 1600 iops from the guest vm (the san isnt used for vdi mainly storage) and the client device is a xenith pro 2 (dell wyse). where to start we are unable to test atlantis ilio diskless at the moment as their 2012 version isnt avaiable (fingers crossed should get a copy soon) however had plenty of time to play about with the zero client and have the following findings good points setup fairly simple bootup time from cold around 5 seconds when on standby 3 seconds. we have also found normal domain logins (before using citrix profile managment) to be far faster than logging onto a production desktop (even with a ssd disk). bad points no flash redirect (no zero client supports this) youtube etc very watchable in normal / second screen size (wouldnt know it was not using gpu to render). full screen is unacceptable dell wyse support. one of the main reasons i would not buy this device in bulk. will not even tell you what the latest firmware version is without a support contract (do give 90 days software downlaod if you register the device) im not the only one bitching about their aftersales.. waiting on delivery of a trial axel client (will get back to you mat with the results) we have also tested the web reciever which works very well and can see it being very good for users who have their own devices (in the future) so where does this leave us? very interested in the ilio software, dave will probably have more to say about this as hes got a vmware version which he is testing and seeing good gains in performance. the main drawback for us is the lack of flash redirect on the zero cleint which works great for everything else we are looking for. so the way forward is probably going to be to put xendesktop on hold / use as remote access until nvidia vgpu grid becomes available (new tech very limited devices supported at the moment) but will be the future of vdi installs.

just had a quick look. we basically buy additional licenses.

off the top of my head we needed to buy additional office licences for the number of potential pupils accessing remotley. for us we only allow 6th form so the licences are not for every pupil.

not sure about the core cals but should be covered for office. we have additional licences for app-v for remote access via UAG /TS.MS were happo with our licences when we had our last meeting

power outage isnt an issue as we had a planned outage which lasted 8 hours and our UPS still had plenty left before we had to think about shutting down any servers. session work lost would be very little as most users save to the san so only open docs would be lost.

wont be needing that. back end will be resilient. if a failure does happen user disconnects and forced to start a new session. not the end of the world.

wont be using the SAN when we have the ILIO software as we are doing a disk-less pooled vdi. you are using your local 10 disks for in place persistent which we dont need. the SAN will only be used for profile storage.

To sum up. we are running a POC with the following hardware Dell r910 (32 core @2.0ghz) 256gb ram (ex lease 4.5k) running 2012 datacenter R2 within the Hyperv we are running 2012 standard r2 with scvmm 2012 r2 / xendesktop 7.1 to utilize RAM we will be using atlantis ILIO (not got that far yet dave) any storage we need at the moment (VHD / Hyperv file) are hung off a HP eva 4400 (48 x 15k fiber channel disk) we can get 3 x r910 for under 20k anticipating a maximum 350 concurrent users between the cluster . we will utilize the POC server but upgrade to 512gb RAM on each server. a fourth box may be purchased if required. we are also in the process of deploying 10gb backbone with 1gb to the desktop (procurve 2920s)

time will tell. almost got the POC installed. so far not difficult just time consuming. also noet when I say its a school its an international boarding school so have alot of foreign students (60%) who require remote access over holiday periods etc.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.atlantiscomputing.com/downloads/DisklessVDI_Solution_Brief_Citrix.pdf&sa=U&ei=tODWUpvgM6X17AaP8IDIBg&ved=0CA4QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNE__0MsQphREjDI6tnB_oxr30LuqQ

4 -5 year cycle. 100 - 110 PCs per year and 10 laptops. I agree with you about laptops, pain in the neck. dell wyse xenith pro 2 (zero client not thin client) I will be starting the POC in a couple of weeks s will update how we are getting on with it but if all goes well feel free to come take a look.

dont worry our POC will be 6 months minimum with staff having access to zero clients throughout the school. in different locations / uses. we are at a cross roads. do we want to continue spending 60k a year on PCs or look for a more efficient technology which give the same / better performance with the bonus of vendor neutral access and more flexability. centralized management and potential power saving costs. the POC will cost about 5k (got a great deal on a used R910 for testing) We wont be getting sacked if it all goes wrong as we arent jumping in with both feet and spending 100k+. ps we ruled out vdiinabox as it is a good idea but the IOPS were very limiting and we viewed a full production setup.

We have a hp eva4400 (fiber channel disk 15k disk x 48) we will be using Dell r910 in a cluster using hyperv (initial 2) increasing to 3 in year 3 server specs will be quad 8 core (32 cores) 512gb ram 10gb nics the SAN will be used for CSV but the desktop will be pooled running in ram so no IOPS to worry about netowrk is being upgraded to 10gb, comes down to end user experience, zero clients instead of thin clients (doesnt look good), TS old tech limited end user device access (published through UAG) we require vendor neutral access. it also comes down to how our POC delivers if its not as good or better than our current end user experience it will be getting canned.

I think i have read through your experiences of VDI before. im guessing a SAN based solution with expensive disk with low IOPS. the atlantis ram disk takes away IOPS and disk costs (we have a SAN) but would never consider VDI with a SAN as the IOPS are jsut too low for the amount you spend.

i agree initial costs are higher (about £65 per box) however I would expect a 50 -60% drop in electricity costs (17w vs 30 -40w) life expectancy of vdi client an extra 2 -3 years so purchase costs drop off dramatically after 5 years (from 60k per year to around 15 -20k) saving in staff costs (support staff time to fix hdd etc) flexability for users, internal / external access (with netscaler) end device is irrelevant so enhances end user experience (happy customers = happy IT) we have also made a saving on potential server hardware (3k) so overall slightly less than £65 per box we are a private boarding school so remote /external access is important. I see this fitting very well within education, fits ours anyway as we have very little locally installed applications (we use APPV for 95%) printing solution also works as we use virtual printers (with papercut) so dont need to worry about geographical location of device