Wednesday, March 21, 2012

XenDesktop 5.6 Personal vDisk Feature Overview

What is Citrix Personal Vdisk?
  • Persistant personalization of user profile and applications., including user installed and entitlement based apps
  • Compatible with PCCLM and Application Virtualization solutions such as SCCM, App-V and Xenapp.
  • 100% persistence with VDI pooled Storage management
  • Near Zero management overhead.

 

VDI Desktop Models - Pooled Desktops
Disadvantages -
1. No personalization.
2. Poor user acceptance.
3. Limited scope/User base.
Advantages 
1. Reduced storage requirements.
2. Centralized management.
3. Uptime predictability.


VDI Desktop Models - Assigned Desktops (Unique VM for each user)
Disadvantages 
1. Increased storage
2. High per user cost
3. Increased management overhead.
4. Complex and unique base images.
Advantages -
1. Highly personalized for users
2. Increased user acceptance


Citrix Personal Vdisk
  • Enterprise Scope
  • Highly Personalized for users
  • Increase User acceptance.
  • Reduced Infrastructure requirements
  • Centralized Management
  • Uptime and Predictability.
Delivering and Managing the PvD Desktop
1. Common Base Setup, Install OS, Common Apps, and VDA in Base VM.
a. Install OS, Common Apps and VDA in base VM.
b. Create VM pool and entitle.
2. User Access
a. Login through Xendesktop client.
b. PVD assigned on first login
c. Locally administered dept apps.
d. User Installed Apps
e. Streamed Apps
3. Image Update
Update Base VM without affecting any user personalization.
 
PvD Disk Characteristics
1. May be attached to any storage targets defined in the hypervisor
a. Thin provisioning is supported for those hypervisors that support it.
b. Can be located on same as VM or different(IOPS split among locations)
2. Default size and location selected in Desktop Studio catalog creation
a. or PVS Xendesktop setup wizard if PVS is use.
b. PvD disk can be resized(more on this shortly)
Citrix Profile Management 
  • PvD works with Profile Management Solutions
  • PvD can be used as a simple profile management solution itself(For simple environments with single desktops)
  • PVD + Citrix Profile Manager(UPM) makes a powerful combination allowing customers to have roaming profiles and persistent personalization.

Business Value - More Users
  • 100% persistent personalization
  • Expand beyond task workers to knowledge workers
  • Support entitlement-based applications. 
Reduce Costs 
  • Reduce per-user cost by leveraging existing VDI investment.
  • Reduce infrastructure expenditures
  • Leverage existing knowledge, resources, tools.
More Quickly
  • Evolve toward full VDI deployments vs rip & replace.
  • Quickly increase scope of VDI footprint