During the past few months I have spend a considerable amount of time looking at various storage related topics. Among others I discussed Web Scale technology as part of converged and software defined architectures, with Nutanix being one of the main vendors, next I also took a, somewhat, deeper dive into the wondrous world of IOPS where I talked about some of their characteristics and ways to potentially enhance performance and the end user experience, which are still two of the main concerns when dealing with these bad boys. Throughout this article I want to take a closer look at some of the differences between block vs file level storage, the accompanying file systems, the different protocols used, potential block sizes and some of the characteristics of VMware VMFS in particular.
How to: Rebooting your XenDesktop 7.x application servers.
Sounds easy enough right? Rebooting your XenDesktop Site’s application servers. When your Site isn’t that big and you don’t have a few hundred machines running or you have to deal with 24/7 shifts and so on, it can be fairly straightforward. I don’t want to spend to much time on why we would want, or need, to reboot our machines on a weekly or perhaps daily basis etc. a lot of factors come into play and there’s really no ‘one size fits all’. You could be using App-V or Citrix provisioning Services for example, both caching data which you would like to clear from time to time. Or perhaps the underlying Windows OS, when physically installed, might need a refresh every once in awhile, which we all know it does! Fact of the matter is, reboots are a given and need to be thought trough to keep operations running as smooth as possible. Make sure to finish the article, there is a question on the Citrix build-in reboot tooling, maybe you can help me out!
The ultimate IOPS cheat sheet!
Lately I’ve seen a lot of talk about IOPS, we need as many as possible and as such we are constantly on the look out for new ways to boost performance. No matter what kind of infrastructure we build, virtual or physical, or what ever products we use, in the end it all comes down to the end user experience. Topics often relate to flash like storage solutions, converged infrastructures, Citrix provisioning services, Machine Creation Services, or a combination of the above.
Apple MacBooks in the (Windows) Enterprise, do they mix and match?!
Just over three months ago I purchased my first Apple computer, a MacBook Air 13.3 Inch to be exact, and to go short, I love it! Sure, after working with Windows for over 14 years, I needed a few weeks to adjust, who wouldn’t. Although I now use it on a daily basis I haven’t really dug that deep into OS X, I mean, it all just works, so why would I? Lately I’ve been spending some more time on how Apple, and OS X in particular, actually works, what’s the magic behind it all? Closely related, enterprise readiness is another subject that drew my attention. During my visit at Citrix Summit in January I also attended a session named ‘Bring Your Own Mac’ a way to allow MacBook’s onto your private (Active Directory) domain, without compromising security, centralised management and.. the ability to use Windows applications!
Last week Nutanix opened their Dutch HQ and I was there, here are my thoughts.
Last week, Wednesday the 19th of February 2014 to be exact, I was invited for the ‘grand’ opening of the new Dutch Nutanix headquarters in Hoofddorp, near Amsterdam. Before the partner reception took off and everybody arrived we had a private get together which lasted around an hour and a half or so. Of course I wasn’t alone, a group of 10 to 12 technicians, bloggers and pre-sales engineers (Nutanix employees excluded) gathered to hear what Dheeraj Pandey (founder and CEO), Howard Ting (Vice President of product and marketing) and Mark Fisher (senior director, demand generation marketing) had to say. It turned out to be a very interesting and informative conversation.
XenDesktop Single User Server VDI
Using the Server VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) feature in XenDesktop 7 allows you to deliver a desktop from a server Operating System for a single user on a one to one basis. Now if you’re not quite sure what to make of this think back to Amazon’s big DaaS announcement just a few weeks ago. Remember how they got away with true one on one VDI based machines in the cloud? We all know that client based Operating System VDI’s aren’t allowed due to Microsoft’s, still limited, licensing structure, so how did they manage to get around this? Well, using the Server VDI feature is one way of doing it. I’ll try and provide you with, not only information on the Server VDI feature itself, but some general background information as well.
How to… Install and configure your Host Infrastructure
Just a quick note I’d like to share with you all. During the setup of my XenDesktop 7 lab environment not to long ago I ran into an error (because I wasn’t paying attention) when configuring my Host Infrastructure, which, in my case is Microsoft’s Hyper-V. While were on the subject I’ll fisrt start by explaining and showing you the concept behind the Host Infrastructure which is often used in combination with either Machine Creation Services and or Citrix Provisioning Services. Of course, ‘normal’ provisioned virtual machines can be hosted on there as well.
DaaS has grown up… Has it?
Amazon WorkSpaces. Fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud. Amazon WorkSpaces allows customers to easily provision cloud-based desktops that allow end-users to access the documents, applications and resources they need with the device of their choice, including laptops, iPad, Kindle Fire, or Android tablets. As stated by Amazon. However, when we look under the hood, it’s still good old Windows Server 2008 R2 (with a Windows 7 user experience) serving us our desktops. Old news, is it?
VDI, storage and the IOPS that come with it. Part 1 & 2.
This article was originally written as a guest blogger for intense School IT educational services. One of the topics I’d like to discuss throughout this article is VDI and some of the common issues we (might) run into when it comes to storage, IOPS and image management. At the same time I’d also like to point out some possibilities, or better said, technologies, we have at our disposal in addressing these issues and talk a bit more on IOPS, block vs file level storage and image management. During part one I’ll primarily focus on VDI in general, describing its use and some of the common pitfalls we might encounter with part two primarily focusing on some real world solutions.
A closer look at the Cloud, based on Server 2012 R2
This article was originally written as a guest blogger for intense School IT educational services. Let’s continue where we left off. Windows server 2012 R2 has been available as a tech preview download as of June 2013 and was officially released on October 18, 2013, together with Windows 8.1. It’s now more enterprise-class, application-focused and cloud-oriented than ever. High-performance multi-tenant storage, software-defined networking, and multiple VDI and RDP enhancements are some of the new and improved technologies that have been included in the R2 release.