VMware what?

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

Background: Small investment company.

CTO Partner: I have a special project for you, so I need you to have VMware VCP 5.0 certification ASAP!

Me: Sure! (Thinking that he wants in-house server consolidation...The company pays for the class, materials and exam...So why not?)

Months later...This last Friday.

Me: Well, now I'm a VMware Certified Professional. What is this project?

CTO Partner: The company partners all want to use iPads like their laptops!

Me: Wait. What?

(CTO Partner shows me a VMware View Client for iPad youtube video.)

Me: I'll get back to you.

So the presumption was that the VCP certification would also include training in deploying VMware View and VMware ThinApps.

The "special project" was imagined that the company partners would be marching around the office halls poking and prodding their iPad 2's (and, most likely, all iPad 3's by April) virtual Windows desktops.

On Monday, I have the joy of informing the CTO Partner that I will need a couple more months to learn how to deploy the in-house VMware View/ThinApp environment that he originally expected.

It's not a "That's a firin'" event...But I definitely need to manage and better define the CTO Partner's expectations about his "special project."

Blargh.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Best of luck. I have a desktop View thin client at work (end-user end) and it is not bad, but there are a few eccentricities. The most jarring one so far is the way the remote system volume resets itself on each reconnect. I'm in a cube farm with headphones, and 2% volume is sufficient; 100% is beyond ridiculous into dangerous. (The people maintaining my local install have asked me to keep notes, which I trust are filtering through to somewhere that they will eventually be useful.)

[jecook]

Hmmm... I'll take a look at that little glitch on our proof of concept rig to see if that's an issue with View 5.0. We are pondering getting the business to sign off on us swapping computers for thin clients for a good chunk of the back office staff, and maybe some of the front-of-house folks as well. We've got a proof of concept environment built and are just waiting to show it to management.

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

Where the hell are you getting your View 5.0 introduction/training other than that hideous VMware document repository?

The only third-party book on VMware View 5.0 I managed to find was a book that won't be released until April:

http://www.amazon.com/VMware-View-Desktop-Virtualization-Solutions/dp/1849681120/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331622060&sr=1-1

[jecook]

We built our environment largely according to the 5.0 administration guide and a few other whitepapers floating around:

On video performance for a view desktop and thin clients connected by a high-bandwidth network:
http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=2395

Best practices:
http://www.slideshare.net/VMwarePR/vmware-view-pcoip-performance-best-practices

Optimization guide, includes a few scripts to run on the gold image before sealing it:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/view/VMware-View-5-PCoIP-Network-Optimization-Guide.pdf

While VMware's documentation is... not all that great, the admin guide for 5.0 does have at least a framework for building a master image that's mostly useful. (the optimization guide is an excellent one to read after going through the admin guide; it gives you all the shortcuts and 'here's how to do it for the impatient' crap.)

Most of my build experience came from being *the* owner of the master desktop images until I moved from the support team over to our networks team. I've also built a goodly number of the VM servers that we ran on as well. My co-worker, who built our POC infrastructure and also the devlopment and production clusters, did the same thing at his last place of employment. It's not perfect- we can't get SSO working properly, the thin clients are being stupid in regards to some of the peripherals we are looking at using, but we think it might have some traction, so we are going to see what the business and support groups want to do with it.

I'll see about posting my experience with building/promoting the proof of concept environment to reality if the business goes for it. Worst case, we use the thin clients we bought for kiosks or something. :)

[jecook]

Oh, the admin guide I've been running with.
http://pubs.vmware.com/view-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/view-50-administration.pdf

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

I actually just recently downloaded that, but haven't had a chance to look at it.

Thanks for the other links and hints as well. You've been quite helpful.

Cheers!

[jecook]

You've been quite helpful.

I know. I blame the moon, or the new meds that Herr Doktor put me on.

[biggeek.livejournal.com]

After a cursory inspection of those whitepapers, I have decided to become a cowboy instead.

...Or an astronaut.

...Or a princess.

[tullamoredew.livejournal.com]

guess vtax is not an issue