Friday, January 23, 2009

VMware view findings

In continuation to one of my earlier posts here:
http://rjalan.blogspot.com/2009/01/vmware-vdi-vs-citrix-xendesktop.html

We concluded the following for Vmware view:

Pros:

1. Connection Server that can be placed in DMZ a good add on. Opens up desktops just using https on the front end.
2. View Manager with View composer –
a. Save space for OS images as it references master image
b. Makes it easier to update all the client desktops using recomposing and updating only master image.
c. New desktop provision is very easy and quick.
3. Single sign on works well. Supposed to work with tokens also.

Cons:

1. All the local LAN connections pass through View Manager all the time, so it’s a thick connection broker.
2. All the secure connections for DMZ connection server flow through this server as well. This is obvious though because all the RDPs are connected to https through this for end users. But that demands a server that can handle all these requests simultaneously.
3. Multimedia is not any better than normal RDP.
4. No real settings for bandwidth control for RDP. This might be a bandwidth hog depending on your needs. Through active directory group policy, we was able to make following changes:
a. End client(initiator) user can get these settings if in Active Directory: color depth, desktop background, themes, cursor shadow, compression. But in case, end user is connecting from a home computer etc., this settings can not be enforced.
b. For VM desktop, only 2 settings: Desktop background and color depth. These don’t make any major difference in the bandwidth utilization.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The View management web console seems quite slow and clunky. The logs are not so great (mostly Java error messages that are not easy to understand). This is a shame as the rest of the console is very informative and fairly intuitive. The vCenter console is very very good - I have no negative comments really.

The operational side of vmware view is definately good overall thought, IMO.

I'll stick some comments on the Citrix post when you create it.

Thanks!