VMWare 4 rant...

[tpunx99GSX]

Tom, I spoke to my coworker this morning about this. We are running View 4.0. We have a WYSE terminal that supports PCOIP and works great but the HP one uses RDP. The problem is that the "view open client" is only currently built to run RDP on linux, it's basically a live CD that loads linux and allows you to connect to a virtual desktop, and the HP client is a custom linux build. The portal uses the same View agent as the VMware View Client, PCOIP works great, so my only guess is you're doing it wrong. ;)

Since the teachers are all remote how are they connected to the network? He said that every piece of documentation he has read specifically uses a replica server in the DMZ. I don't know if that relates to the VPN issue you are describing or what.

But seriously, if you want to speak to my coworker I can surely ask him, or if you're in the University area maybe stop by and check out what we have set up.

Currently they are using a Cisco VPN Client that is having issues with Disconnects. Hence one reason why we want to get away from vpn altogether.
Some issues we think relates to the slow performance of VMWare:
Network bandwidth (they have 2 t-1s so this should be the case, all teachers are using the VPN constantly so this may be causing excessive network bandwidth loss).
Perhaps a misconfiguration. I dont think this is it because the vmware system is pretty straight forward.

From what we had gathered is that the VMWare View Client is not NAT Aware therefore we would need some kind of VPN connection. We spoke with VMware regarding this, and they acknowledged this as an issue and that it would be corrected in 2010 with the next build. (Freakin annoying).

Overall we would like to just strip the current Toshiba laptops down to barebones OS and run the virtual desktops. Which can solve many issues with this client.

Luckly this is not in a full operational stage, this is just a proof of concept. Not so luckly the POC Term is reaching its end, so we need to get a solution in place soon to hopefully secure the sale of this concept.

The hardware itself are two very beefy servers with 64 gb of ram each, tons of storage, and 4 processors each. So i think hardware is out of the question of blame. Its running a linux background with windows as the server managers.
On the vmware side:
Server Software: VMWare ESX Server with Virtual Center Server
Desktop Software: VMware View 4.0

On the Citrix side:
Server Software: VMWare ESX Server with Virtual Center server
Desktop: Xen Desktop

The XenDesktop peice is still working better than the VMWare side. Will end up trying to get Flash to run locally and use more of the local resources to get this peice running faster.

I may want to talk to your guy to pick his brain on this a bit.
Thanks
Tom

[tpunx99GSX]

Fair enough. I've never had huge issues with roaming profiles in Active Directory, but then again I've never dealt with them on a large scale. Max I've supported has been 40 locally with 15 coming in over RDP.

Roaming Profiles in theory are a great thing. But in reality SUCK ASS. We have a smaller client with only 4-6 people in their office. The CEOs laptop got dropped and went kaput, She had over 26 gb in photos in her profile, damn near halted all network traffic in their office when she signed into the new computer, and was taking over 2 hours to load the profile. So i ended up taking her off roaming profiles and loaded it up manually.

[Matt D.]

We use Cisco VPN as well, disconnects are not at an issue at all. We have 7 T1s that are bundled. He said that the replica server is able to use NAT if you don't want it in the DMZ, so I still don't see how VPN is an issue.

The bad part about Citrix is once you have Xendesktop, if you want to virtualize applications then you need the Xenapp piece, which involves an entirely different licensing structure. With VMware all that stuff is included.

Don't quote me directly, just responding with what he's told me to the best of my memory. I will PM you his email address and you can pick his brain.

[tpunx99GSX]

We use Cisco VPN as well, disconnects are not at an issue at all. We have 7 T1s that are bundled. He said that the replica server is able to use NAT if you don't want it in the DMZ, so I still don't see how VPN is an issue.

The bad part about Citrix is once you have Xendesktop, if you want to virtualize applications then you need the Xenapp piece, which involves an entirely different licensing structure. With VMware all that stuff is included.

Don't quote me directly, just responding with what he's told me to the best of my memory. I will PM you his email address and you can pick his brain.

Yeah the servers are in the DMZ, We have the Xenapp peice. :)\
I emailed him, Thanks again for the help Matt.

[cmspaz]

Roaming Profiles in theory are a great thing. But in reality SUCK ASS. We have a smaller client with only 4-6 people in their office. The CEOs laptop got dropped and went kaput, She had over 26 gb in photos in her profile, damn near halted all network traffic in their office when she signed into the new computer, and was taking over 2 hours to load the profile. So i ended up taking her off roaming profiles and loaded it up manually.
What business do personal photos have on her work laptop? ;)

Yes, I'm one of those admins. She wants a personal computer, she can buy her own personal computer. I strongly disagree with personal machines being work machines as well as the reverse. She wants to have stuff like that on her laptop, she can keep it in a separate profile or not save to the server. If she needs to be on the server, she can buy a second laptop for personal use. Just causes problems on the daily, and huge (possibly compromising) issues when something goes wrong. It's just not a good practice.

But I'm not disagreeing on transferring them to new machines being a hassle, it definitely sucks.

[tpunx99GSX]

What business do personal photos have on her work laptop? ;)

Yes, I'm one of those admins. She wants a personal computer, she can buy her own personal computer. I strongly disagree with personal machines being work machines as well as the reverse. She wants to have stuff like that on her laptop, she can keep it in a separate profile or not save to the server. If she needs to be on the server, she can buy a second laptop for personal use. Just causes problems on the daily, and huge (possibly compromising) issues when something goes wrong. It's just not a good practice.

But I'm not disagreeing on transferring them to new machines being a hassle, it definitely sucks.

Regardless of whether your one of those admins or not. its the CEO of the company. They ultimatly decide if you have a job or not, so therefore i really dont GAF what she has on her laptop, she signs the checks.
Secondly, The pictures and videos are from her trips to India and paris, which is where her products are made. She travels the world finding good products to put her name on. and therefore needs to have the pictures of the manufacturing process on the server and backed up.
I would however LOVE to see a video of you Telling the CEO of the company you work for that he cannot have any personal information and pictures on his computer, then you being escorted out of the building. :)

[Matt D.]

Regardless of whether your one of those admins or not. its the CEO of the company. They ultimatly decide if you have a job or not, so therefore i really dont GAF what she has on her laptop, she signs the checks.
Secondly, The pictures and videos are from her trips to India and paris, which is where her products are made. She travels the world finding good products to put her name on. and therefore needs to have the pictures of the manufacturing process on the server and backed up.
I would however LOVE to see a video of you Telling the CEO of the company you work for that he cannot have any personal information and pictures on his computer, then you being escorted out of the building. :)
I am one of those IT guys, but you don't fuck with the jeebus. :) I put the fear of god in people so they don't make mistakes like that, but I don't flat out tell someone that they shouldn't have done it and I'm not going to help.