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Vmware View is the virtual desktop infrastructure offering from Vmware. The current version is 4.5.

The object of virtualising my desktop include

• Replace outdated unreliable hardware
• Increase overall system performance
• Increase overall system performance
• Reduce ongoing Power consumption and Cooling requirements
• Built a “Green IT” focused IT environment
• Reduce time & costs associated with purchase / management and support Desktop PC’s

Effectively, I am able to achieve many, if not all, of these goals by turning my user workstations into virtual machines! By replacing my client workstation with thin clients, I can extend the life of the hardware or even re-purpose the old hardware I have.

VMware View is well suited to large environments where traditional Desktop imaging such as Ghost, are no longer viable due to numerous restraints. It simplifies management of desktops and enables quick and easy deployment of new applications.

A VMware view “Thin provisioned” virtual machine performance is higher than a standard virtual machine as the snapshot of the master image will remain in the SAN’s cache due to its high utilization. This speed’s up performance as all requests are returned by cache and don’t need to access the physical disk which generates I/O load on the SAN.

The ability to utilize existing desktops and/or thin clients means a migration to VMware View is quick and easy. Once the older desktops are replaced with Thin Clients the lifespan of the equipment dramatically increases as there are no moving parts. The cost saving of a VMware View environment also extends to power savings as a typical Thin Clients uses far less power than a desktop PC.

A VMware capacity planner audit of the existing desktop pc’s will be required to get an accurate number of required ESX hosts for the VMware view environment. As a guide typically you’ll see ~50 medium use virtual desktops per HP DL380 (or equivalent) ESX Host. Depending on the number of concurrent users and applications used this number can vary.

Although additional ESX hosts will be required if VMware View was utilized across the organisation the SAN disks and configuration is designed to support a full VMware View environment.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the technology underlying View is remarkably simple. At its core there is my existing virtual infrastructure running Vmware ESX, some shared storage and a few minor network tweaks. After that, all I need are:

• VMware View manager “Connection Server”
  The server used to connect the VMware View Client to the virtual desktops entitled to the user/s
• VMware View manager “Security Server”
  A server to be placed in the DMZ, for remote users to connect to for secure access to the VMware view environment
• Virtual Desktops
  A Virtual machine running a Desktop operating system with VMware View Agent installed to enable all VMware View features.

As you can see below:

It shows the “Fat Client”, “Thin client” and “Diskless PC’s” connected directly to the View manager server while within the Local area network or Private -Area network.

The example also shows a “Mobile / Remote user” connecting securely via a View Manager Security server in the DMZ and through the Connection server to the centralized virtual desktops.

And that’s about it! The security server acts as a front end for my clients from external sources, thereby avoiding potentially dangerous access directly to the Connection Server (or Broker) that controls the connection to the virtual machines.

There is, of course, more to it than this. However, for the moment, the basic structure is a good starting point.

And of course, all the machines required for VDI virtualise brilliantly!