Thin Clients, VDI and Linux integration from the front lines....

Hi All,

Just a note regarding an issue I had to help resolve a little while back?

Issue:
We had a pre-sealed image of an XPe intended for a customer, who wanted to join it to the domain, come through and during testing at our location and on site for the customer it was found that it simply refused to get it's time in sync 

Research:
What we able to narrow down to is that the Registry Entry for:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters was listed as Type = NoSync and what was really needed to be changed to NT5DS.

What we were also able to identify is that while we are quite certain that any *Local* user on an XPe device will always get “access denied” when trying to run NET TIME as they are not a valid domain user – what can be done though is run the w32tm /resync command (if the module/executable is available? AND ONLY if the time is within the default 5 minute max…) *OR* alternatively simply restart the Windows Time Service. Both of these commands can be run without issue using Local credentials.

Looking deeper in to why the W32Time Type was incorrect we managed to come up with this little gem from Microsoft:

Registry entries for the W32Time service and within this we found the following:

Type : REG_SZ
Used to control how a computer synchronizes.
Nt5DS = synchronize to domain hierarchy [default]
NTP = synchronize to manually configured source
NoSync = do not synchronize time
The Nt5DS setting may not use a manual configured source.
Note When you join a Microsoft Windows Server 2003-based computer to a domain, the computer may not synchronize its time setting with the time setting of the domain controller if the Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server check box in the Date and Time Properties dialog box is not selected. The default option (NTP) for Windows Server 2003 workgroup computers is disabled if the Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server check box is not selected. When you join the computer to a domain that has this setting, the default synchronization type (Nt5DS) for computers that are joined to a domain is not set and the time service does not synchronize from the domain hierarchy.

I have highlighted the interesting section in red. After further testing we found that the default image had this check box unchecked, however, once this was checked before joining the domain then the NT5DS setting would be in place immediately after the reboot following the Joining to the Domain and as a consequence the device would time sync correctly as soon as it was booted.

From what we can see this is an issue that is not restricted to purely XPe but XP as well and hopefully thi info might be useful to others?

So I have been very quiet of late and there really is no excuse, I guess I just needed a bit of a break?

But as we look around the Global Markets this morning I can barely believe the amount of the drop on Wall St. overnight - the Dow Jones being down some 7+% doesn't even do it justice - looking at how the individual sectors have fared makes it look even worse?

Energy and Financial's are both down close to 9%

Scary stuff, and from the sounds of there's very little end in sight and we could be riding this for some time yet?

At least here in Australia (if we believe our Govt.?) we are well positioned with very little debt and current accounts that are in surplus, along with a current base rate of 6.0% there is at least some room to manoeuvre, where as in the US now down to 1.5% it is beginning to look like there is no room left?

Download the Default image for the HP Mobile Thin Client - 2533t

Run the exe and when prompted - choose to create a bootable USB - select the correct drive corresponding to your USB Stick

When complete simply delete the *.ibr file in the root

Congratulations you now have a WinPE bootable USB Stick

Look under the IBRPE folder and there is a thinstate.cmd batch file that is called automatically by the Autoexec hidden in the boot.wim. At this point you can simply modify the thinstate.cmd to pause, and break out with a <CNTRL>+<C>, or you can start adding what you want.

So far I have added Process Explorer, a folder of imaging tools (RDeploy, Ghost and ImageX), a folder of Utilities, etc. I have also "plundered" my old PEBuilder folder for add ins that look useful - like PENETCFG? :-)

Regedit, Notepad and Taskmgr work fine too...  but I'm sure you can find loads of other things to add to it?

Given that Hyper-V has now just been released as RTM it’s likely that more people are looking at the product and quite possibly for the first time so this sort of information might be very useful? 

10 commonly asked questions or issues seen during Hyper-V beta

With the RTM release of Hyper-V just around the corner, I thought it would be a good idea to re-visit some of the top things we have seen customers encounter when installing and configuring Hyper-V for the first time and give pointers to resources we have available to eliminate those when you start rolling this out in production for the first time. I have taken the liberty of linking many of these questions/issues to blogs written by our program managers on the virtualization team. We did a previous post on their sites but I thought this would serve as a quick reference and a pointer to them at the same time.

1. You don't have mouse functionality in your VM. One of the most commonly asked questions during the beta, internally and externally had to do with lack of mouse support in a guest when its running. One of the main reasons we saw this happening was that people were remoted into the parent and then controlling the guest from there, that wont work in Hyper-V. More information about best practices can be found here:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/23/controlling-vms-under-hyper-v-without-the-mouse.aspx

2. Hyper-V wont install. Another common question had to do with Hyper-V not installing at all. People would add the role and either would get errors post installation, prior to installation, etc. So, to revisit the core requirements for the Hyper-V role to be installed and functional on your machine, see the release notes once we RTM. Top issues here though were folks not enabling Virtualization and DEP in their system BIOS, not shutting down the parent completely at the end of installation but rebooting the parent instead, and not adding the proper entries to the BCD store on a Core installation (hint: rebooting twice takes care of this in Core).

3. Import isn't working within Hyper-V for your Virtual Server VMs. Another common question is what the Import Virtual Machine button does within the Hyper-V console. Many people, myself included early on, thought that it was there to import a .vhd from a Virtual Server installation. It's not. It's there to import an exported Hyper-V virtual machine. The proper way to import a previously used Virtual Server .vhd file is to create a new virtual machine and use the existing hard drive function during setup.

4. Hyper-V clustering: Clustering Hyper-V installations is new and different in Windows 2008. Rather than re-inventing the wheel here I strongly encourage you all to use the excellent whitepaper thats out on the external Microsoft site:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CD828712-8D1E-45D1-A290-7EDADF1E4E9C&displaylang=en

5. Snapshotting in Hyper-V. Snapshotting confuses a lot of people because they liken them to un-do disks in Virtual Server. They aren't the same thing. Excellent references below to how snapshotting works in Hyper-V and how to get the undo functionality that you're used to are linked below.

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2008/05/15/getting-undo-functionality-with-hyper-v-snapshots.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2008/04/26/virtual-machine-snapshots-with-hyper-v.aspx

6. Virtual Networks. Additionally virtual networking has been totally revamped in Hyper-V and many dont understand the purpose of the individual networking options within the console. Linkage to a great article on them is below:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/06/16/how-does-basic-networking-work-in-hyper-v.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/06/17/hyper-v-what-are-the-uses-for-different-types-of-virtual-networks.aspx

7. Using Hyper-V in Windows Server Core. Server Core is the new command line only installation option and its perfect for Hyper-V. For many people it can be hard to navigate and install new roles however. Below is a good link on installing Hyper-V in a Server Core environment.

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/30/how-to-add-the-hyper-v-role-to-a-windows-server-2008-server-core-machine.aspx

8. Remote Management. Managing Hyper-V installations, be they GUI or Server Core, is always a concern. An excellent two part article on this is located here:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/28/part-1-hyper-v-remote-management-you-do-not-have-the-requested-permission-to-complete-this-task-contact-the-administrator-of-the-authorization-policy-for-the-computer-computername.aspx

and

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/28/part-2-hyper-v-remote-management-you-do-not-have-the-requested-permission-to-complete-this-task-contact-the-administrator-of-the-authorization-policy-for-the-computer-computername.aspx

9. Issues deploying virtual machines within a virtualized environment. I have seen this a lot internally, you have a RID/WDS server in a VM that you've used forever in Virtual Server. You decide to move that installation to Hyper-V and now you cant deploy new children VMs in Hyper-V. The problem here lies in the fact that you need to use the legacy network adapter rather than the synthetic device for the child VM you are trying to deploy to. We dont support PXE boot on the synthetic NIC in Hyper-V. You can add a Legacy NIC in the Add Hardware section of the Virtual Machine Settings.

10. One other virtualized hardware issue we have seen is SCSI boot. Or more specifically, the lack of it. We no longer support booting from the virtualized SCSI controller in Hyper-V. You can still use the SCSI controller for storage drives and you can utilize iSCSI or SAN storage as well, you just cant boot SCSI anymore.

Author: Joseph Conway
Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

Ask the Core Team : 10 commonly asked questions or issues seen during Hyper-V beta

So this mornings news from Alessandro is the release of Hyper-V - Download a trial here.

I have also included at the bottom of this post a number of links that Justin Zarb helped collate regarding where to find all kinds of info relating to Hyper-V

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0

Thursday, June 26, 2008   |   0 Comments   |  

After over three years of development (the product was originally announced at WinHEC 2005 conference) Microsoft finally releases today its first bare-metal virtualization platform: Hyper-V.
During this very long process the product was delayed, changed name, and lost some planned key features.

Unlike Virtual Server and Virtual PC, Hyper-V is a type-1 virtual machine monitor (aka hypervisor) which features an architecture very similar to the one used by Xen and its commercial derivatives.
This allows a direct comparison with platforms like Citrix XenServer, Virtual Iron, the upcoming Sun xVM Server and obviously with VMware ESX.

Unlike the latter, Hyper-V adopts a microkernel developed from scratch (so it's not the Windows kernel) which is less than 1MB in size and delegates most of the tasks to a so called Parent Partition.
Depending on the configuration you adopted, the parent partition automatically loads a full copy of Windows Server 2008 or the new Windows Server 2008 Core.

Being a first generation product, Hyper-V cannot really compete with the above in features, but it clearly offers a performance boost (up to +107% in case of disk I/O activity) and some much deserved improvements over Virtual Server 2005 R2:

• Support for 32bit and 64bit virtual machines
• Support for up to 4 virtual CPU per VM (the actual number depends on the guest OS)
• Support for up to 64GB RAM per VM
• Support for the Windows 2008/2003/2000, Windows XP/Vista and Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux guest operating systems
• Quick Migration (the capability to suspend, migrate and resume a VM from one host to another)
• Automatic patching through Windows Update and WSUS

……

Microsoft Hyper-V is fully integrated with Windows Server 2008 64bit so any download of the OS includes it. Download a trial here.
For those customers already using the beta or the release candidate of Hyper-V, the product will be updated through the Windows Update service beginning July 8.

To demonstrate how much the company bets on this new product, Microsoft is internally adopting Hyper-V since a while and already migrated inside its virtual machines all the web front-ends that serve TechNet and MSDN websites.

Now the customers wait for the upcoming System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, currently in beta, to centrally manage Hyper-V (along with Virtual Server and VMware ESX), and MAP 3.1, in beta as well, to perform accurate capacity planning.

Release: Microsoft Hyper-V 1.0 | virtualization.info

Where should I look for Hyper-V Information?

So your looking for information on Hyper-V and struggling for where to look! So I wanted to get a nice bit of compiled information that Jeff did....

Websites

Microsoft Virtualization Home Page
Virtualization Case Studies
Virtualization Solution Accelerators
Windows Server 2008 Virtualization & Consolidation:
Hyper-V FAQ
Optimized Desktop Infrastructure (VDI and much more):
Virtualization TechCenter:
How to Install Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V RC
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Performance Tuning Guide
MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V
MSDN & TechNet Powered by Hyper-V Whitepaper

Blogs:

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/
http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/
http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualworld/
http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/
http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/
http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes/

Webcasts:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032368894&CountryCode=US
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032372420&CountryCode=US

A few weeks back I was asked to setup a demo Server for the Citrix Synergy event here in Sydney that was to be XenApp 5.0 64bit (Delaware – Release Review) on a Server 2008 64bit installed on a DL680 Blade Server with 32Gb of RAM. Now it would have been nice to have had some time to really put this unit under pressure and see what sort of load it could handle but unfortunately I didn’t get the time for that.

However, seeing as some of you might be thinking of doing something similar I thought it worth sharing my experiences, as hopefully this might at least save you some time? 

Please be aware that these issues were discovered installing the “Release Preview” ONLY and they should be resolved when the RTM code of XenApp 5.0 (Delaware) is released.

• Sun Java Runtime 1.5.0_11 (Update 11) does not appear to be recognized if x64 is installed? Wizard installation routine appears to be only checking for x86 install ONLY?
  
• The Wizard installation routine can be somewhat annoying because it would appear to scan for prerequisites at initialization (and then keeps quiet about it) but if things are missing it only informs you when you hit the snag some way through? This then requires you to cancel setup entirely and restart installation to get past “check/error” message…….
  
• I did not read through all the prerequisites (show me an Admin who would? ;-)) and yet it would appear to only mention .NET 3.0 is a prerequisite when .NET 3.5 is also required?
  
• When the installation of the management consoles started I kept getting an error:
  
  
  
  Eventually I just cancelled this piece and let everything continue from here – I was unable to find the prerequisite component, and didn’t need Password Manager anyway…  ;-) (NOTE: this component was not in the Support Folder)
  
• I have found what I believe is correct file at:
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=DE37BFE4-7A5A-4767-BBE1-267418E0F1E7&displaylang=en but now that I review this I think this is not correct……
  
• Installing Licensing Server on the x64 appears to “break“ WI, so this was removed and placed on a std. Server 2003 – see error below
  
  
  
• Installed .NET 3.0 via Roles Console before rebooting and trying to install .NET 3.5
• Funnily enough the system insists on adding .NET 3.0 through the Roles and yet you can start 3.5 via the executable....
  
• I had to revisit IIS about 4 times to add additional functionality and then restart installation again…  very annoying, but ultimately my own fault for not reading the install guide? Here are some examples of what you’ll need to remember to install?
  
• 
  
• 
  
• And I did like the look of Server 2008’s IIS Manager – quite flash ;-)
  
• 

While the deployment we were assisting with today was maybe not that large even by local standards the issue was something that comes up on a some what regular basis.

A customer wants to have a number of Thin Clients imaged to their specifications and then drop-shipped to various locations ready to go. Part of this involves creating and applying Asset Tags to the devices – a small thing to be sure – but for the poor folks in charge of keeping track of the devices this was vital.

The issue was that part of the FBReseal (First Boot Reseal) process renames the devices based on a process that combines the MAC address and the serial number and then comes up with a random name, and of course that was not making things that easy for the “Asset Taggers” ;-)

So we were testing the imaging process at the Integrators site using Altiris as the deployment mechanism and trying to figure out how we might be able to achieve something that would leave everybody happy and we discovered “COMPNAME.EXE”

My hats off to Oli at Willowhayes.co.uk as this is a great tool that does exactly what we were after, but it clearly has some great functions that make it really well suited for RIS with references to UUID and the ability to create and reference fake UUID’s when needed.

It is so easy because you can easily see the info it can pull out via the summary switch (examples below) and then reference them via the template function – so in our specific case we simply called a job that ran “COMPNAME.EXE /c HP-?s” and this then appended the serial number after the HP- prefix.

Now it was possible for the customer to receive a spreadsheet of all the devices, including a listing of the specific Computer Names so that Asset Tags can be printed and applied ahead of delivery.

Summary switch provides the following info:
Mainboard manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
          model        : 30C8
          serial       :
Chassis   manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
          model        : Notebook
          serial       : 2CEXXXXH29
System    manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
          model        : HP Compaq 2710p (#ABG)
          serial       : 2CE8060H29
Ethernet address       : 00:1F:3B:09:XX:XX
IP address             : 192.168.0.4
NetBIOS name           : xxxxxxxxxxx
DNS Host name          : xxxxxxxxxxx
System UUID            : 21FFBB999ADCXXXX111XXX8410012529

Switch Examples are:
?u = System UUID                        ?U = Fake UUID (24 zeros plus MAC).
?G = If System UUID is FFFF... or 0000... or null it uses ?U, otherwise ?u.
?i, ?j, ?k, ?l            = 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th octets of IP (decimal).
?I, ?J, ?K, ?L            = 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th octets of IP (hex).
?d = Hostname found by reverse DNS lookup of IP address.
?m = First MAC address.                 ?e = Existing NetBIOS computer name.
?D = day    ?M = month    ?Y = year
?1, ?2, ?3, ..., ?0       = 1, 2, 3, ..., 10 random alphanumeric characters.

COMPNAME /c acme-?s   Changes computer name to "acme-ABCDEF" where ABCDEF is the system serial number.

Well as far as I am aware, XPe as it stands to day will be available through till sometime in 2010, but it seems more news is getting out about is’s possible Vista based replacement? My personal view is that MS should take a deep hard look at the *LACK* of take up and interest in Vista before heading down this path anytime soon – but that doesn’t mean they won’t try regardless.

Now of particular note from the details below from Mary Jo Foley is the indication of the size of the OS? XPe may have a *core* size of 40Mb but it is typically 350Mb or so when deployed - does that mean that with a core of 300Mb for Quebec that the typical load will be around 2.5Gb and larger? If this is the case then it’s just as well that Flash manufacturers are able to keep making larger and larger memory modules?

But, really…. activation?? for an embedded OS – give me a break!!!  That is unless MS are going to repeal the restriction that they have always had with the embedded OS in that they have always insisted that you are NOT able to install any of the Office products locally?

Who know’s? is it that far fetched? Thin Clients are getting more powerful CPU’s, RAM is pretty cheap, Flash sizes are going up and the price is coming down and yet here is an OS that is cut down to what we’d probably want Windows 7 to be? It also has (should have?) either EWF (Enhanced Write Filter) or the File Based Write Filter to maintain it’s integrity?

Interesting times ahead? :-)

Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ due in 2010

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:23 am

Although it hasn’t said much about its plans for a Vista-based successor to its Windows XP-based  embedded operating system, Microsoft already is working on one.

Microsoft released during the first week of June a new test build of its latest Windows XP-based embedded operating system, known as “Windows Embedded Standard 2009,” the final version of which is slated to ship by the end of 2008.

However, Microsoft also is readying the 2010 successor to this product — another Windows Embedded release codenamed “Quebec.” Unlike the 2009 release of Windows Embedded, the Quebec product will make use of a number of features that are part of Windows Vista.

Microsoft is on tap to share some information about the Vista-based embedded release at its TechEd Developers Conference this week in Orlando. A first widescale Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of Quebec is due out next year.

Microsoft’s Windows Embedded family of products, which Microsoft sells to device makers, is designed to power thin client terminals, point-of-service terminals, gaming devices, medical-imaging systems, DVRs and industrial-automation systems, among other products. Windows Embedded is not at the core of cell phones or ultra-low-cost PCs (ULPCs), however. Windows Mobile phones currently are built on top of a Windows CE-based core and ULPCs run full-fledged Windows. (Microsoft has OK’d ULPC makers shipping Windows XP on their systems through 2010.)

The forthcoming Quebec embedded release will include BitLocker drive encryption, Windows Firewall, Windows Defender, Address-Space Load Randomization — and on the memory-management front, support for SuperFetch, ReadyBoost and Dynamic System Address Space. On certain devices, the Quebec release will also provide as optional components Aero user-interface, Windows Media Player 11 and various Internet Explorer 7 features. Unlike Microsoft’s XP-based embedded releases, which are 32-bit only, Quebec will support both 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x64 processors.

Not surprisingly, support for all these features comes at a cost — size. According to a slide deck available to TechEd attendees, while Windows XP Embedded core’s minimum image size is around 40MB, according to a slide deck to be presented at TechEd on June 6, Quebec’s core is expected be around 300MB — not counting all the optional add-ons like Media Player, IE 7, etc.

The other cost is Quebec will require product activation; XP Embedded does not. The Quebec release will require basic retail activation or OEM activation. There will be a default evaluation product key that will allow the Quebec image to run for 30 days without activation.

Windows Embedded ‘Quebec’ due in 2010 | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

So if you have a look at the MSTSC.EXE file that starts the RDP session and use the /? to call further info from the component you get something very much like this:

But if you dig a just a touch deeper you will find that the MS Terminal Services Client or RDP Client as it is more commonly known draws the config information for most of its settings from the simple DEFAULT.RDP file that will typically be saved in the Users profile. (see example below)

So if you want to make changes to the way it behaves then it is fairly straightforward to make the changes in the GUI of the Client and then use the “Save As…” command from within the GUI – but what happens if you’d like to replicate this as standard behavior across multiple devices?

Search in the target computer to find the default.rdp file? (they should be hiding in each users profile) This is the settings that are used when the RDP Client is used – so open default.rdp in notepad or similar and you will find it is pretty straightforward to read?

Here in this example I have set the local C,D and E drives to be visible:

But at the same time some of these settings are pretty easy to guess at and start modifying with a reasonable degree of being able to accurately guess what they will change? I’ve highlighted some of the pretty obvious ones?

++++Example++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
screen mode id:i:2
desktopwidth:i:1280
desktopheight:i:800
session bpp:i:32     <<< Colour depth
winposstr:s:0,3,0,0,800,600
full address:s:
compression:i:1
keyboardhook:i:2    <<<Keyboard Shortcuts
audiomode:i:0   <<<Sound
redirectprinters:i:1   <<<attach local printers? 1 is on
redirectcomports:i:0
redirectsmartcards:i:0
redirectclipboard:i:1
redirectposdevices:i:0
drivestoredirect:s:C:;D:;E:;
displayconnectionbar:i:1
autoreconnection enabled:i:1
authentication level:i:0
prompt for credentials:i:0
negotiate security layer:i:1
remoteapplicationmode:i:0
alternate shell:s:
shell working directory:s:
disable wallpaper:i:1    <<<part of controlling “the experience”
disable full window drag:i:1
allow desktop composition:i:0
allow font smoothing:i:0
disable menu anims:i:1
disable themes:i:0
disable cursor setting:i:0
bitmapcachepersistenable:i:1
gatewayhostname:s:      <<<Part of the TS Gateway from here down
gatewayusagemethod:i:0
gatewaycredentialssource:i:4
gatewayprofileusagemethod:i:0
++++Example++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If this is the case then make the changes to the user's default.rdp – then use the “save as”... then test Test, and then replicate to the same location on all devices?

I have an old blog site at www.geekswithblogs.net/wallabyfan as well as the new one at www.techagility.info and things have been very quiet for the last three weeks or so as I have been under something of a cloud. It would appear that at some stage I may have inadvertently upset someone with one of my posts – and rather than approach me to discuss this the complaint has been forwarded in to local HP management here in Sydney.

I still have no details what so ever as to what the issue is (or was?) as no details have been forthcoming – however for the record I have updated my Disclaimer as detailed below:

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. The opinions expressed within are my own and should not be attributed to any other Individual, Company or the one I work for.

I just happen to be a classic techie who is passionate about getting things to work as they should do (and are sometimes advertised and marketed as being able to?) and when I can I drop notes here to help others falling in to the same traps that I have fallen in to.

If this has helped then please pass it on - if you feel that I have commented in error or disagree then please feel free to discuss with me either publically or privately?

Cheers,
Dave

Please respect this Disclaimer for what it is?

I do not, nor never have, or intended to claim that my opinions expressed here are anything to do with anyone else, or any other company.

As much as I may express an opinion here in public, it is public much in the way that you might have a discussion over a glass of wine with friends and family at the end of dinner, and as such please feel free to launch in with your own “take” on the matter at hand, just as you would at dinner?

Thanks,
Dave

Reap the rewards of the open-source community courtesy of Douglas Toombs from Windows IT Pro Magazine

Find your free tools:
"LocatePC"
"OCS Inventory NG" 
"PRTG" 
"SIW" 
"SyncBack" 
"TrueCrypt" 
"WinDirStat" 
"Wink"
"BareTail" 
"Ethereal" 
"FileZilla" 
"NeWT" 
"Ngrep" 
"OpenSSH" 
"WinDump" 
"WinPcap" 
"Winfingerprint"
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"DriveImage XML" 
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25 Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

My only disappointment is that we are currently in the middle of moving our current Solutions Centre from one Office location to the other so it'll be some while before I get a chance to test this.

It certainly looks quite impressive and it does have some lofty aims, but from a brief look through as well as their well deserved reputation based on Flex Profiles I'm sure this will stand up to it's promises.

Test Scenario’s
With login VSI you can compare many different scenarios:
• VDI vs. SBC
• VMware, XenServer or Hyper-V running virtual desktops or Terminal/Citrix Servers
• Virtualized XP desktops versus virtualized Vista Desktops
• Performance impact of application streaming technologies
• Impact of (different) virus scanners
• Performance impact of tuning parameters
• Different VDI platforms
• Different Storage platforms
• Impact of changes or updates like service packs or security fixes
• Hardware differences
• x64 vs. 32 bits
• Etc…

I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who does have the facility to test?

Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

Monday, May 12, 2008   |   0 Comments   |  

The consulting firm Login Consultants just opened the beta program of the first benchmarking tool for presentation virtualization: Login Virtual Session Index (VSI).

The product will measures the performance of a remote desktop session served by a Microsoft Terminal Services  / Citrix XenApp server or a VDI virtual machine.

To run the tool it's required to have a 4 tiers infrastructure: a domain controller for the authentication a file server for logging user sessions, a server to host the TS/XenApp/VDI service and a workstation to launch the user sessions.

The firm is also working to introduce support for application streaming.

Enroll for the beta here.

virtualization.info: Login Consultants develop presentation virtualization benchmarking tool

So here in Australia we might be one of the first countries to have the iPhone unlocked and provided by two Carriers? (Optus and Vodafone) BUT - only if you are prepared to wait until the end of the year? Please.....  anyone I know who is seriously interested in the phone has already arranged one from elsewhere.

BTW, a colleague recently found out how delicate the glass screen is, OUCH!!

So I would have provided more of a quote for this story but it appears that MISaustralia.com has come up with a mechanism where when you highlight a section of text it then drops every second character ....  :-)

Optus confirms iPhone plans

MISaustralia.com - Optus confirms iPhone plans

So along with Alessandro I'm curious as to why the name ThinApp has been chosen as it does have more than a passing resemblance to Citrix's new XenApp?

I wonder if this is any indication of the coming marketing campaigns in the push for customers attention in the Desktop Virtualization market? ;-)

VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

In January 2008 VMware, a hardware virtualization company, acquired an application virtualization startup called Thinstall.
The plan is to use the Thinstall technology to stream virtualized applications on the virtual desktops that VMware spawns through its connection broker: the Virtual Desktop Manager (VDM).

So fare VMware has been pretty fast in rebranding the Thinstall Application Virtualization Suite: the beta program for the new version is open since end of February and the testers can already download the beta 2.
The final version of the product, temporarily called Project North Star, is expected for the H2 2008.

The only information missing so far was the final name that VMware wants to use.
Now Micheal Keen, Director and Senior Solutions Architect in the Enterprise Architecture group at Alliance Technologies, reveals that the final name is ThinApp.

Duncan Epping further validates the news reporting that a former Thinstall employee confirmed.

The choice is interesting considering that Citrix just renamed its Presentation Server product in XenApp.

virtualization.info: VMware ThinApp is the final name for Thinstall technology

I am sure this is not really what VMware had in mind when they were touting VMware OnDemand? I'm guessing they had more of an idea that it would combine some of the benefits of ACE with ESX? ;-)

I have just got back from some training in Houston and while listening to a question from a colleague from the UK where he asked if "VDI was going to be able to use the full suite of Hypervisor functionality like vMotion..."  and that got me thinking...

Some of the Conventional Wisdom around the place holds that VDI by itself will likely not be able to cover all of any one customers needs and most will more than likely need to look at quite possibly a number of different approaches to cover ALL employees and ALL Applications.

So with this in mind I'd be interested in your thoughts on the following idea?

Just a few thoughts around VDI??

Let's say that we stock a couple of decent servers with loads of resources and allows us to run quite a few VDI instances? OK? So one of the possible issues with the classic VDI so far is that if a user places a bit too much pressure on the resources then it has the potential to impact on all other users, being as it is a shared resource? (This is still one of the classic gotcha's in Terminal Server and Citrix PS - the session is sticky and it stays with the same server unless a logout/login occurs)

So one idea I'm kicking around is the possibility that if a user started something like a 120Mb Excel spreadsheet that might consume quite a bit of CPU then would it be possible to use the vMotion to transfer him to a BladePC, if they started 3 or 4 of them (or they needed more resources?) then transfer them to a BladeWS.....?

Seamlessly!! with the user completely unaware that this has happened!!

Now the fundamentals of vMotion (or XenMotion for that matter?) requires shared boot storage - BUT I don't think it needs to be NFS or iSCSI, etc. - the Citrix Provisioning Server or OS Streaming method like Neoware IM would probably work just as well in this scenario? As this then leaves the Virtual HardDisk/Storage in a common area accessible by the Vitrual Desktops regardless of whether they are running on VDI's, the BladePC's or the BladeWS's.

The other point is the similarity of CPU would possibly cause an issue, and this probably extends beyond just Intel/AMD? This appears to be a fundamental of vMotion/XenMotion? So this might not fly today, but it is possible that with improvements in the Hypervisors this issue might be overcome at some stage soon?

Anyway, what do you think of the *idea/concept*? As a user requires more CPU and resources they might be able to be transferred from shared resources (VDI on ESX) to individual resources (BladePC) and then high powered resources (BladeWS) - once the high intensity workload has finished then the user would be transferred seamlessly back through the stack to a VDI instance on the ESX server.

Please bear in mind that this is only a concept at the moment and there are clearly problems and issues to be overcome - but the main reason for this post is to ask if you think it has legs? What do you think?

Clearly the ESX/Hypervisor would need to be able to run on hardware outside of it’s current Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) but with Xen this might not be such an issue?

Is wonder if this is where XenDesktop is headed? ;-)