David Ziembicki on Infrastructure Architecture : Citrix

TechReady9 Day 4 and 5 Wrap-up

davidzi — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:46:22 GMT

Day 4 and 5 of TechReady were action packed, I didn’t even have time to post yesterday. I skipped the first session timeslot on Thurs to prepare for the double session I was presenting with Citrix. The double session format basically allocates two sessions (3 hours) to one topic letting you get into a lot more detail. The session went very well and the feedback surveys so far have been very positive. We spent the first half of the session describing the Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution and its components. The second half was filled with demos of the solution with different types of clients accessing VDI sessions and walkthroughs of the administrator consoles.

After my session and some internal meetings, I attended a session on Microsoft’s Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit. I haven’t had much time to explore this yet but will be focusing on that a lot in the next couple months. For an example of a hosting partner using this solution, check out MaximumASP.com and their MaxV solution.

Finally on Day 4 I attended a session on the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) improvements in Windows Server 2008 R2, particularly the built-in VDI solution. I’ve been so focused on the Microsoft+Citrix solution that I haven’t had time to dig into the Microsoft in-box solution. This is being positioned toward branch and or lower complexity environments while the Microsoft+Citrix solution is targeted toward large or higher complexity implementations. The improvements to RDP and Hyper-V are the real enablers for the VDI scenarios in R2.

Day 5 opened with multiple demos of Office 2010 and Office Web Applications which are really going to open up completely new scenarios for rich collaboration. Next was a keynote from my favorite Microsoft executive, Bob Muglia, head of the Server and Tools Business. Bob covered improvements in Windows, Hyper-V, SharePoint, SQL. The thing TechReady is best for is stepping back and seeing the scope of this release of software we are going to have this year and the solid advancement in capability and features on almost all fronts simultaneously.

After taking care of some logistical items, I attended a session on Hyper-V security. Not much new info in that one, basically there is good security guidance for Hyper-V in the Windows Server 2008 Security Guide as well as the Hyper-V Resource kit. Finally, I attended a session on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 branch office infrastructure. This covered the new Branch Cache feature which can substantially reduce bandwidth utilization in branches by caching content as well as other new features and improvements to SMB, DFS, etc.

All in all, TechReady9 was a great time. I’ve still got a list of sessions that I want to see that is longer than the list of sessions that I actually saw! I’m glad they were all recorded…

Tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be teaching a 2-day VDI class along with some MCS and Citrix colleagues. Should be a good class, the students will learn about and set up the entire Microsoft+Citrix VDI solution over the course of the two days. Then finally on Monday I will head home after almost two and half weeks on the mothership!

TechReady9 Day 3 Wrap-up

davidzi — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:22:11 GMT

Day 3 kicked off with a keynote by Ray Ozzie and several very cool demos on UI futures, what’s coming across some of the Bing features, and some stuff MSR is working on. There was also a good discussion of how concepts move from MSR, to Labs, then into the product groups.

Next up was a very entertaining session with Jeff Woolsey, the Hyper-V program manager and president of the “virtualization nation”. This session dealt point by point with the FUD put out there by the competition. Aside from the entertainment, it was actually quite valuable because we get hit with some of these outlandish claims by customers all the time who’ve drank the cool-aid of the other guys.

Next up was a session on Terminal Services, which is being re-branded as Remote Desktop Services (RDS). Most of the new features in R2 were discussed (RDP 7, multi-monitor support, VDI) with some cool demos. One showed a six monitor setup over RDP with full multi-monitor support (I use three at home…)

After lunch was a session on the next version of OCS. Voice and PBX replacement are the key themes of this release, beyond that I can’t say much about the content.

In the afternoon I attended a session on VDI using the Microsoft and Citrix solution. This was an intro session to the deep dive that I’m doing today with the RDS PM and some Citrix colleagues. Good session, some good demos of the combined functionality that the two companies provide and how the solution is more fully featured and less expensive than the competition.

The day wrapped up in the evening with “Ask the Experts” which is an event where all the presenters and product group folks are stationed at tables in main dining area and the Techready attendees can come in and ask questions, network, etc. It’s a great opportunity to meet folks from the product groups as well as others you may not have seen in a while. Every year I bump into people I haven’t seen in years or who have recently joined Microsoft that I worked with before. This year was no different.

Day 4 should be action packed, I present during the 10:15 timeslot on VDI.

Head-to-Head: Workflow Studio vs PowerShell for Automation

davidzi — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:07:11 GMT

Here’s an interesting and slightly amusing mock debate between Brandon Shell and Jason Conger on Citrix’s Workflow Studio vs PowerShell for automation. If you aren’t familiar with it, here is the description of what Workflow Studio is:

“Citrix Workflow Studio™ is an infrastructure process automation platform that enables you to transform your datacenter into a dynamic delivery center.”

“Built on top of Windows PowerShell™ and Windows Workflow Foundation, Workflow Studio provides an easy-to-use, graphical interface for workflow composition that virtually eliminates scripting. Workflow Studio acts as the glue across the IT infrastructure allowing administrators to easily tie technology components together via workflows.”

The debate is amusing because in reality both guys understand that each has its place, one is a foundational component of the other, and the combination of the two can be extremely powerful. The core of the “debate” is one’s definition of automation: execution of atomic tasks with as little effort/code as possible (basic PowerShell) or event/workflow driven execution of multiple tasks with associated logic (advanced PowerShell and/or Workflow Studio). The first is an enabler for the latter.

It’s been my opinion since Exchange 2007 and Virtual Machine Manager 2007 committed entirely to PowerShell and with the PowerShell team’s continued focus on simplicity and consistency, that this was the tipping point that was going to enable real automation and orchestration of IT infrastructures. Now with partners (Citrix) and competitors (VMware) alike building on and/or leveraging PowerShell, we’re going to see significant advancements in the state of the art this year.

Published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal

davidzi — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:28:40 GMT

I was able to get a small commentary on desktop virtualization and VDI published in the Microsoft Architecture Journal. It’s based on the work I’ve been doing around creating a VDI offering to augment Microsoft’s server virtualization offerings. For a slightly expanded version of my thoughts on this topic, see this post. As with server virtualization, desktop virtualization makes sense in a lot of cases but not all. I outline a simple framework for for choosing the optimum mix of solutions for your user base.

Finding the Hidden Costs of VDI

davidzi — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:01:10 GMT

Brian Madden has an excellent post up today called The hidden costs of VDI. I’ve been working nearly full time the last two months helping to put together a Microsoft Services offering around desktop virtualization in general and VDI in particular so have spent a lot of time looking into both the technical and business considerations that must be taken into account. I’d summarize his post in three points:

TCO models, like statistics, can be made to tell any story you or a vendor wants
Cost models typically assume full replacement of legacy systems to show maximum benefit but his rarely occurs due to technical, political, or other unforeseen reasons
Since VDI is relatively new (compared to traditional desktops and Terminal Services/Citrix Server-based Computing), there are a lot of technical and compatibility issues and considerations that are not well understood outside a small group of experts

As a well known fan and expert on Server Based Computing (SBC), i.e. Terminal Services or Citrix Presentation Server/XenApp, Brian prefaced the article by saying that he likes VDI “where it make sense”. He correctly points out that nearly all vendors and TCO models show that Server Based Computing still provides the lowest TCO due to its high user density but that there are limitations which make other approaches such as VDI relevant.

That is where I’ll jump in with my thoughts because I completely agree with those statements and it has been the foundation of the offering I have been working on. It starts with the notion of flexible desktop computing and desktop optimization that Microsoft has been talking about for some time now. An overview of this approach is presented in this whitepaper. To summarize, there are a variety of ways that a desktop computing environment can be delivered to users ranging from traditional desktops, to server based computing, to VDI, with a multitude of variations in between with the addition of virtualization at the layers illustrated below:

Rather than selecting a one-size-fits-all solution, virtualization provides architects a new, more flexible set of choices that can be combined to optimize the cost and user experience of the desktop infrastructure. The following four steps lead to an optimized solution:

Define User Types: Analyze your user base and define categories such as Mobile Workers, Information Workers, Task Workers, etc. and the percent distribution of users among them. The requirements of these user types will be utilized to select the appropriate mix of enabling technologies.

Define Desktop Architecture Patterns: Each architecture pattern should consist of a device type (thin client, PC, etc) and choice of:

OS execution (Local, Desktop Virtualization, or Server Based Computing)
App execution (Local, Application Virtualization, or Application Remoting)
Display (Local or Presentation Virtualization)

For each pattern, determine which user types it can be applied to. For example, with mobile or potentially disconnected users, presentation virtualization alone would not be applicable as it requires a network connection. Power users may require a full workstation environment for resource intensive applications but may be able to leverage application virtualization for others. These are just a few examples where different user groups have different requirements.

Determine TCO for each Architecture Pattern: Use a recognized TCO model to determine the TCO for each pattern. Minor adjustments to these models can be made to account for specific technology differences but most include TCO values for PCs, PCs with virtualized apps, VDI, and TS/Citrix thin client scenarios. Be wary of vendor provided TCO models. To Brian’s points, be sure to gain a full and complete understanding of the chosen TCO model and what does and does not include. Consistent application of the model across the different architecture patterns is critical for relevant comparisons.

Model Desktop Optimization Scenarios: With the above data, appropriate architecture patterns can be selected for each user type by choosing the lowest TCO architecture pattern that still meets user requirements. By varying the user distribution and selected architecture patterns, an optimized mix can be determined. It is tempting to simply choose the lowest TCO architecture pattern for all users but this can be very dangerous in that it will typically impact your high value, power users the most if their requirements are not accounted for.

A one-size-fits-all approach would result in either a large number of PCs if not using virtualization, a large number of servers if virtualizing everything, or failure to meet power user needs if using only server based computing. An optimized solution is one which utilizes the right mix of technologies to provide the required functionality for each user type at the lowest average TCO. Combined with a unified management system that handles physical and virtual resources across devices, operating systems, and applications, substantial cost savings can be realized.

As I mentioned at the top, a lot of the concepts in addition to very detailed architecture and implementation guidance are part of the Microsoft Services Core IO offerings. For the last two years, in addition to my customer work I have been deeply involved in the creation of the Server Virtualization with Advanced Management (SVAM) offering. The work I mentioned above around VDI architecture will complement that and be available later this summer. Finally, specific to desktop imaging, deployment, and optimization, there is also the Desktop Optimization using Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office System (DOVO) offering. Taken together in concert with the underlying product suites, these illustrate Microsoft’s “desktop to datacenter” solutions and how to plan, design, and implement them.

Are Solid State Drives in your Windows 7 Future?

davidzi — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:15:13 GMT

The E7 blog has an interesting article on SSD performance and optimizations made in Windows 7 to take advantage of them. The E7 post also links to an in depth AnandTech article that goes into more detail on SSD’s and has some benchmark comparisons between various drives. I’m definitely planning to get an SSD drive when I get my new laptop in a couple months. I’ll likely be getting one of the large workstation class laptops like the Dell M6400 or the Lenovo W700. The only thing that might make me wait longer is if we get a release schedule from Intel on their Clarksdale mobile processors which are basically mobile Nehalems for laptops. I’m leaning toward the M6400 since it has dual internal hard drive bays and supports up to 16GB of RAM which is insane for a laptop. With the two drive bays I figure I’ll run an 80GB SSD for the OS and get a large 7200 RPM SATA for the other bay. I’ll go with 8GB of RAM initially for budget purposes and expand next year when the prices come down. I’ll be dual booting (or booting from VHD) between Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. With the OS and Apps on an SSD that setup should really fly.

A new scenario that may be interesting (and demo a good chunk of our virtualization and VDI capability would be to set up a full Windows Server 2008 R2 / VMM 2008 R2 infrastructure on this machine. Basically run 2 – 3 VMs for the infrastructure to present a Windows 7 VDI client virtual machine. Then from the physical OS use Remote Desktop Services to access the Windows 7 VM. With Aero remoting I should get a near desktop like experience.

Back to SSDs, in addition to desktop/laptop scenarios, I’m hearing more and more about them in enterprise storage scenarios. A lot of the big vendors have really evolved their architectures over the last five years to take advantage of and virtualize different tiers of disk architectures and SSD are getting slotted in as the next tier closest to the cache in a lot of cases. From a virtualization perspective this will be interesting as I think SSD’s will be an enabler for somewhat better density and a lot better performance. Since I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with Hyper-V and Citrix’s Provisioning Server, I’m especially interested in seeing how VDI performance on pooled (shared virtual disk) scenarios is improved using Windows 7 VMs and SSDs on the Provisioning Server.