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View Environment Upgrade
System Overview
Architectural Overview
Rollout Methodology
Advantages of View
Benefits
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What is View?
View is a centralized environment where desktops are hosted.
Rather than running one OS on a local machine, it’s now running in
a virtual machine at the data center.
In short the desktop or laptop OS has been shifted to the data
center and is being accessed remotely.
Move OS to DC
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Tell Me More About View
View is an enterprise-class, product-ready desktop solution
• Stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Industry Standard – “VDI”
• Processing power securely located at remote back-end data center
• Offers superior solution: Agility-Performance-Transparency
• Reduced capital expenditures
• Decreased operational expense
• Lower technical support needs
• Business continuity
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What are the Benefits of View?
Advantages
• Easier to maintain from a central place
• Automatic backup
• Fast log-on time
• Always up to date regarding security and patches
• Upgrades are done in the background
• Provisioning is in minutes rather than hours
• Use of fault-tolerant systems in the data center
Business Agility and Acceleration
• Cloning
• Virtual mobility
• Flexible upgrades
• Centralized platform management
• Enterprise-wide configuration consistency
• Reliability and longevity
• Each VM (View desktop) is mapped to an individual user and client device
User Benefits
• Ease, performance, security, access and transparency during upgrades
• Broad range of devices
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View Implementation Methodology at a Glance
Socialized the technology within the department
• Determined engagement directors per business unit (BU)
Divided user base into four sets of users
• Pilot
• C-Staff
• Managers
• Community
Send questionnaires to pilot users
Determine use cases per BU based on job function (create user profiles)
Determine candidates for thin clients (such as contractors)
Finalized list of apps. per BU
Created pools where necessary
Agreed to timeline
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The Two Types of VMs
Two types of VMs exist on View
Linked clones
Everyone uses the same OS image, and applications are centrally managed.
No admin. rights are provided to the users.
Stability and storage savings are the primary advantages.
Designed for the majority of task and knowledge users.
Individual applications can be added as Thin App packages.
VMs are recomposed every month (all changes are wiped out, OS patched and
enhanced, new apps).
Full Virtual Machines
Each user works on a full copy of the OS with full admin rights.
It’s equivalent to having a regular PC.
Advantages are having control; disadvantages are that patching, upgrading and client
management is up to the user.
Designed mainly for power users.
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View Architecture - Clusters
What is a Cluster?
A cluster is a group of hosts. When you add a
host to a cluster, the host's resources become
part of the cluster's resources. The cluster
manages the resources and of all hosts within it.
Clusters enable the VMware High Availability
(HA) and VMware Distributed Resource
Scheduler (DRS) solutions.
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View Architecture - Hosts
What is a Host?
A host is a computer that uses virtualization
software, such as an ESX Server, to run virtual
machines (Win7 Desktops).
Hosts provide the CPU and memory resources
that virtual machines use and give virtual
machines access to storage and network
connectivity.
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View Architecture - Pools
There are currently eight major VM pools in production
Pools can have the following options:
• Automated, manual, individual
• Dedicated, floating
• Linked clone, full clone
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View Architecture – Virtual Machines
• Windows XP SP3 (32 Bit)
• 1 vCPU
• 1GB RAM *
• 20GB OS Drive
• 10GB User Data Disk
• My Documents folder redirected to user’s
Home Directory (H: Drive)
• VMware Standard Apps:
• Office 2007 Pro Plus SP2
• Firefox 3.6
• Adobe Reader
• 7-Zip
• McAfee VirusScan 8.7i with Anti Spyware
The typical Virtual Machine has the following specifications:
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For More Information
Guy de Meester, IT Director, Global Client Services &
International - gdemeester@vmware.com
Marie O’Leary, Sr. Project Manager, IT Operations: Layer 3
End-user Computing - moleary@vmware.com
