When migrating towards a VDI environment you really have to re-think your entire architecture. Servers, hypervisor, storage, application delivery, network, and everything in between. Simple things like anti-virus can wreck havoc and cause massive I/O storms that bring your VDI environment to its knees. One aspect that I hadn't thought...
Update: VMware released the GA version of 5.0Â and you can download it here.A few days ago VMware released a significant update to their standalone converter utility, Converter 5.0 beta (download here). One of the cool new features is the ability to re-align partitions. By default Windows Server 2003 and Windows...
During a VDI pilot you really need to gather some real-world stats on how your client VMs are performing. People generally underestimate the workload VDI can put on a SAN. Thankfully if you are using vSphere 4.x, you can easily pull the stats with a short PowerShell script. I took...
According to Citrix, the number one mistake people make when deploying VDI is not sizing their storage properly for performance. However, calculating a target IOPS for your environment is far from easy and you really need to understand VDI, its unique workloads, and your storage subsystem. There are many blogs...
Finally, Microsoft has released their Threats and Countermeasures guide for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. It is a very lengthy document going into gory details on hundreds of security settings, mostly covered by GPOs. It's a great resource for understanding WHY Microsoft recommends a certain setting, and understanding implications...
During the testing process of Citrix XenDesktop 5, we were using the built-in SQL express database so we can do a quick lab setup. Of course a production deployment would use a full blown SQL 2008 R2 enterprise edition instance with database mirroring. During the XenDesktop 5 SP1 upgrade process,...
So here's an official video from Microsoft showcasing a preview of their new Windows 8 GUI. All I can say is wow...is it different! Built from the ground up for touch..looks pretty darn cool.You can watch the HD video here. It will be exciting to see more information about Windows...
Yippee..a free tool from VMware! This nice little tool runs compliance scans against vSphere hosts and compares the results to the VMware Hardening Guidelines. Almost a year ago I wrote a short blog announcing their hardening guide here. Since then, VMware released a hardening guide for vSphere 4.1, which you...
A couple of weeks ago Citrix released XenDesktop 5.0 SP1, which fixes a number of bugs. Last week I attended Citrix Synergy 2011, and talked to an employee about SP1. He said that the service pack fixes many more bugs than the short list included in the release notes. In...
This session was presented by two non-Microsoft speakers: Benny Tritsch from AppSense and Shawn Bass from Syn-Net. After seeing their extensive testing methodology and the presentation of the results, I feel confident that the results are accurate and as neutral as one could get. The whole session was presenting the...
One of the objectives for SM 2012 is to deliver IT as a Service (ITaaS). ITaaS objectives are to reduce costs, increase service levels, faster time to delivery, provide more data, more transparency, and increased compliance. Implementation components include automation, standardization, self-service, and compliance. The deployment of these components are...
This session went into great gory depth on how RemoteFX works, and the hardware requirements. What is RemoteFX? RemoteFX is a new technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 7 SP1 that when combined with a VDI environment allows efficient host-side rendering of graphics and multimedia. It requires...