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All things related to Virtualisation
What is Diskless VDI?
Diskless Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is the concept of using local server memory in combination with storage optimization software to store virtual desktop images instead of shared SAN/NAS or local SAS/SSD storage.
By storing virtual desktop images on the local memory of the hypervisor where the desktops execute, response time are faster than even the most expensive local SSD drives (MLC or SLC), cost less when combined with Atlantis ILIO, and increase reliability.
With existing VDI architectures, virtual desktop images are stored on either shared SAN/NAS storage or local SSD disks, which are costly, have limited IOPS for write-intensive VDI workloads, can have a limited lifespan and consume more power than memory.
Benefits
- Software only – Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI is a purpose built storage layer to run virtual desktops with just CPU and RAM and no other storage or SSDs. Scale-out VDI infrastructure with just servers and software.
- Amazing user experience – 300+ IOPS/user* – faster than PC user experience even with iPads.
- CAPEX below $200/user – infrastructure cost under £125 per desktop including the server hardware, RAM and Atlantis ILIO.
- Lower OPEX – Enable lower operating expenses by eliminating rack space, power consumption, cooling and repair costs, and daily operational tasks of maintaining disk-based storage.
- Automated multi-rack deployment – Automatically install and configure ILIO on hundreds of servers across dozens of racks. Creates and registers NFS data stores that are ready to use by the VDI broker to complete the provisioning process.
Cut VDI CAPEX by 50-75%
http://www.atlantiscomputing.com/products/atlantis-ilio/
Cut VDI CAPEX by 50-75%
- Use Less Storage—cut the amount of VDI storage required by up to 90%
- Scale VDI Storage—support 5 to 10 times the number of desktops on the same storage with equal or better performance
- Use Any Storage —use lower cost SAN, NAS and Local Disk (SATA, SAS, SSD)
Boost VDI Performance
- Desktop Performance—make desktop boot, login, and application startup perform faster
- Accelerate Application Virtualization—accelerate virtualized applications for VMware ThinApp, Microsoft App-V, and Citrix XenApp App Streaming to improve logon times for non-persistent desktops and launch times for virtualized applications
Inline Deduplication
Atlantis ILIO transparently offloads write operations before they reach the storage fabric.
- VDI Storage IOPS Offload—up to 90% reduction in IOPS load on storage infrastructure
- VDI Storage Capacity Reduction—up to 95 % reduction in disk storage capacity requirements
- VDI Latency—accelerates VDI performance by eliminating disk write latency
Windows NTFS Protocol Layer Processing
- Hyper-efficient IO characterization—instantly characterizes IO based on Windows NTFS file system characteristics
- Faster IO Processing—real-time IO processing locally from memory
- IO Optimization—re-sequences read/write operations from small random IO to large sequential
Integrates with Leading VDI Solutions
- Certified Interoperable—VMware View Technology Alliance Partner and Citrix Ready Partner
- Leverages Existing Infrastructure—VDI brokers, application virtualization, profile virtualization, and image layering tools
- No Desktop Changes—doesn’t require an agent or any change to the desktop image
- Deployed Using Open Virtualization Format (OVF)—easily installed in 8 minutes as an .OVF virtual appliance
vSphere 5.1 vMotion Deepdive.
A big change in vSphere 5.1 is the vMotion capabilities, where there is no need for shared storage between ESX hosts for Virtual Machines to migrate to and from. In previous versions of vSphere there was a requirement of shared storage.
See this in depth article on vSphere 5.1 vMotion to get a better understanding. http://frankdenneman.nl/vmotion/vsphere-5-1-vmotion-deepdive/
VMware vSphere 5.1 released
WHATS NEW in VMware vSphere 5.1
vSphere 5.1 is VMware’s latest release of its industry-leading virtualization platform. This new release contains the following new features and enhancements:
Key changes:-
1) vRAM has been killed. vSphere is again licensed per CPU just as it was before vSphere 5.0. The licensing whitepaper is here.
2) Enhanced vMotion allows you to combine a vMotion and Storage vMotion into a single operation, without shared storage.
3) vSphere replication has been decoupled from SRM, and released as an available feature of every vSphere license from Essentials Plus through Enterprise Plus
4) New VMware vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1 for SMBs
5) New backup solution named vSphere Data Protection replacing VDR.
Compute
• Larger virtual machines – Virtual machines can grow two times larger than in any previous release to support even the most advanced applications. Virtual machines can now have up to 64 virtual CPUs (vCPUs) and 1TB of virtual RAM (vRAM).
• New virtual machine format – New features in the virtual machine format (version 9) in vSphere 5.1 include support for larger virtual machines, CPU performance counters and virtual shared graphics acceleration designed for enhanced performance.
Storage
• vSphere 5.1 introduces Flexible Space Efficiency (Flex-SE), a disk format to achieve the right balance of space efficiency and I/O throughput. This balance can be managed throughout the life cycle of a VM, from storage allocation (controlling the allocation block size) to how the blocks are managed after they are allocated (deleted blocks can be reclaimed). This feature enables the user to determine the right level of storage efficiency for a deployment. For example, you can use Flex-SE to optimize storage efficiency for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).
This feature will reclaim deleted storage in thin provisioned disk. Before vSphere 5.1 it was not possible to use the storage capacity freed when files are deleted inside the guest operating system.
• VMware increased the support for in guest clustering. In previous versions the support was limited to maximum 2 nodes running as a VM. Now support for up to 5 node Microsoft cluster using the Node Majority Model.
• vSphere 5,1 now supports a Storage vMotion up to 4 parallel disk migrations per operation. Support for 16 Gbps Fiber Channel has been added.
Support for boot from Software Fiber Channel over Ethernet ( FCoE ).
• Storage I/O Control (SIOC)
vSphere 5.1 improves SIOC functionality by automatically computing the best latency threshold for a datastore in lieu of using a default or user selected value. This latency threshold is determined by modeling, when 90% of the throughput value is achieved.
• vSphere 5.1 enables more granular latency measurement for I/O load balancing called “VMobservedLatency”. This is achieved by measuring the I/O request-response time between a VM and the datastore. In vSphere 5.0, latency was measured as theI/O request-response time between the host and the datastore.
• Advanced I/O Device Management
vSphere 5.1 introduces new commands for troubleshooting I/O adapters and storage fabrics. This enables diagnosis and querying of FC, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) adapters, providing statistical information that allows the administrator
to identify issues along the entire storage chain from the HBA to the ESXi, fabric and storage port.
Network
•vSphere Distributed Switch – Enhancements such as
Network Health Check, Configuration Backup and Restore, Roll Back and Recovery, and Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) support and deliver more enterprise-class networking functionality and a more robust foundation for cloud computing.
• Single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) support
– Support for SR-IOV optimizes performance for sophisticated applications.
Availability
• vSphere vMotion® – Leverage the advantages of vMotion (zero-downtime migration) without the need for shared storage configurations. This new vMotion capability applies to the entire network.
• vSphere Data Protection – Simple and cost effective backup and recovery for virtual machines. vSphere Data Protection is a newly architected solution based EMC Avamar technology that allows admins to back up virtual machine data to disk without the need of agents and with built-in deduplication. This feature replaces the vSphere Data Recovery product available with previous releases of vSphere.
• vSphere Replication (separated from SRM) – vSphere Replication enables efficient array-agnostic replication of virtual machine data over the LAN or WAN. vSphere Replication simplifies management enabling replication at the virtual machine level and enables RPOs as low as 15 minutes.
• Zero-downtime upgrade for VMware Tools – After you upgrade to the VMware Tools available with version 5.1, no reboots will be required for subsequent VMware Tools upgrades.
Security
• VMware vShield Endpoint™ – Delivers a proven endpoint security solution to any workload with an approach that is simplified, efficient, and cloud-aware. vShield Endpoint enables 3rd party endpoint security solutions to eliminate the agent footprint from the virtual machines, offload intelligence to a security virtual appliance, and run scans with minimal impact.
Automation
• vSphere Storage DRS™ and Profile-Driven Storage
– New integration with VMware vCloud® Director™ enables further storage efficiencies and automation in a private cloud environment.
• vSphere Auto Deploy™ – Two new methods for deploying new vSphere hosts to an environment make the Auto Deploy process more highly available then ever before. Management (with vCenter Server)
• vSphere Web Client –The vSphere Web Client is now the core administrative interface for vSphere. This new flexible, robust interface simplifies vSphere control through shortcut navigation, custom tagging, enhanced scalability, and the ability to manage from anywhere with Internet Explorer or Firefox-enabled devices.
• vCenter Single Sign-On – Dramatically simplify vSphere admin- istration by allowing users to log in once to access all instances or layers of vCenter without the need for further authentication.
• vCenter Orchestrator – Orchestrator simplifies installation and configuration of the powerful workflow engine in vCenter Server. Newly designed workflows enhance ease of use, and can also be launched directly from the new vSphere Web Client.
Free virtual machine backup
Veeam Backup Free Edition for VMware and Hyper-V
Veeam offers a free version of its award-winning Veeam Backup & Replication™ software. The
free version, Veeam Backup™ Free Edition, provides a subset of the functionality in the full (paid)
editions of Veeam Backup & Replication.
The free and full editions use the same download and install, with functionality controlled by the
presence of absence of a license key.
The software operates in free mode when no license key is present, or when an expired
license key is present. There is no limit on the number of hosts, sockets or virtual
machines (VMs).
The full editions require a valid (unexpired) license key, and are limited to the number of
host CPU sockets specified in the license key for each hypervisor (VMware or Hyper-V)
http://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html
vSphere 5.0 Hardening Guide – Official Release
This is the official release of the vSphere 5.0 Security Hardening Guide, v1.0. The format of this guide has changed from previous versions. The guide is being released as a Excel spreadsheet only. The guideline metadata from earlier guides has been greatly expanded and standardized. CLI commands for assessment and remediation of the guidelines is included for the vCLI, ESXi Shell, and PowerCLI. For additional information, please see the Intro tab of the spreadsheet.
VMware Forum 2012 Presentations
Download all the presentations – VMware Forum 2012 Manchester.
VMware Forum 2012 Keynote – Joe Baguley
Advanced Management – The Road Ahead
Business Critical Applications in the Virtual Environment
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery in Virtual and Cloud EnvironmentsBuilding and Running your Private Cloud
Why VMware is the Only real Cloud Choice
Wembley Suite – VMware Horizon and the View Family V1.2
VMware EUC Vision Journey Presentation
Service Provider Partner session on the move to Hybrid Cloud
Server and Desktop Virtualisation
New to Virtualization_v4 1115_1200
Management in the Virtual Environment
Hybrid Clouds_Mgmt and Services
VMware Welcomes Wanova to the EUC Family
VMware Welcomes Wanova to the EUC Family – Office of the CTO | Office of the CTO.
Wanova Mirage is an innovative image replication and layering technology that combines sophisticated, layered image management with client-side execution and persistent caching. It was designed to centralize the management of desktop images in the data center and to deliver those images efficiently to physical Windows systems for a native user experience, as well as to virtual machines for execution.
VMware can leverage Wanova’s replication technology to allow disk images to be replicated to VDI host servers meaning you wouldn’t need centralized SAN storage for VDI.
VMware vSphere 5 Memory Management and Monitoring diagram
The VMware vSphere 5 Memory Management and Monitoring diagram provides a comprehensive look into the ESXi memory management mechanisms and reclamation methods. This diagram also provides the relevant monitoring components in vCenter Server and the troubleshooting tools like ESXTOP.
VMware KB: VMware vSphere 5 Memory Management and Monitoring diagram.
