virtualboy

For those of you not familiar with the IPD Guides, they aim to provide a couple of key benefits:

• Help to define the technical decision flow through the planning process.
• List the decisions to be made and the commonly available options to be considered.
• Relate the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
• Frame decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape

The IPD Guides are growing fast, and as always, you can find all the IPD Guides here.

This particular IPD guide is focused on helping to plan for a Dynamic Data Center.

If you’re a bit unsure about what a DDC actually is, it’s a combination of automation, control, and resource management software with a well-defined topology of virtualization, servers, storage, and networking hardware. The flexibility that this model provides is changing the business landscape by presenting new ways to develop, deliver, deploy, and manage applications and IT infrastructures. The resulting benefits are many, such as the ability to scale as needed, be more responsive to changing market conditions, and provide an opportunity for IT to align deliverables with the organization’s business requirements.

The principles guiding the development of a DDC include:

• Adopt a service centric approach. A platform exists to host services and should have service management principles applied. With this approach, business units can directly request a certain service, either new or from a catalog, without having to worry about such low-level considerations as networking, storage, and servers that are provided by the platform.
• Enable agility. A Dynamic Data Center allows the organization to rapidly deploy new services and scale existing services up or down based on demand.
• Provide utility. A Dynamic Data Center provides dial-tone class reliability. As more services are deployed into the infrastructure, its reliability becomes critical. In a Dynamic Data Center, business units can expect their services to be resilient, standard, and predictable, without needing to understand the underlying data center components.
• Maximize efficiency. Most day-to-day activities in the Dynamic Data Center are automated in order to provide a high-degree of platform self-management—for example, deployment and provisioning of services and increasing/reducing capacity based on demand.
• Cost transparency. Each service delivered by the Dynamic Data Center can have consumption-based pricing applied to its cost model. This enables business units to obtain a clear and predictable cost associated with the service. The business and IT are then empowered to make trade-off decisions (for example, comparing the cost and quality of internal service versus external).

Using this guide, IT professionals can plan and design an on-premises Dynamic Data Center infrastructure that is designed for ease of manageability, being confident that critical phases are not omitted from the plan, that the components work together efficiently, and that a solid foundation is established for future expansion.

Grab the guide, in it’s current beta state, from here.

If you’re not a subscriber to the TechNet newsletter, it’s actually a pretty good bi-weekly resource on Microsoft technologies, events, user groups, blogs, videos and more.  In this issue however, yours truly was asked to prepare an article on Desktop Virtualisation, to which I obliged.  I thought I’d include the article here, below, for those of you who aren’t subscribers.  Admittedly, in the article, I couldn’t go into the detail I would have liked to have gone to due to a slightly restrictive word count, but hopefully the article highlights the messages I’ve been trying to get across over the last few weeks around choices in a desktop strategy.

So, without further adieu…

With the launch of Windows 7, more and more organisations are weighing up their options for their desktop strategy going forward, with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI, becoming an attractive option with popularity growing almost daily. The question however, still remains. Is VDI the answer to your desktop problems? Certain vendors would lead you to believe that it is, yet, if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, every problem is going to look like a nail. Microsoft, with Partners such as Citrix, Quest and Ericom to name but a few, take a different approach, with Microsoft in particular focusing on the 'Optimised Desktop' as a starting point for discussion. An optimised desktop to me, may look very different to you, so it's incredibly important to perform a thorough assessment of your users, and business requirements, before deciding on a particular solution to optimise your desktops.

To help with the assessment, Microsoft has developed an IPD Guide known as Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios, which aims to segregate users into categories, based on their usage patterns and business requirements. These categories include Office, Mobile, Task, Home, and Contract Worker, with each having different needs to perform their role effectively. Now, there is no perfect description that will be applicable 100% of the time, but it's a great starting point. Take me as an example. I'm on the road a great deal, so the things that are important to me, to do my job effectively, include streamlined access to my corporate data, combined with local access when on the road. Security of data, both locally, and on removable devices, but also applications being provided locally, that can be used when I'm not connected to the internal network. I'm sure I'm not alone with that description, so you'll agree that a Virtual Desktop, in a datacenter, isn't the ideal solution for me, as I can't always guarantee a network connection, so to be productive, an offline solution, utilising in-box features of Windows 7, like DirectAccess, BranchCache and BitLocker, with App-V for streamlined applications offers me the best solution.

If on the other hand, I fell into the Task Worker category, perhaps in a Call-Center, or Warehouse type environment, a session-based experience (TS or RDS) would offer me the simplest, most cost effective way of working effectively. Task Workers by nature, don't need to be installing, configuring, tweaking or modifying an OS, so a well-managed session-based environment is ideal, and will allow the organisation to provide users with a working environment at a higher density than an equivalent VDI rollout, with a strong ROI to boot, with simpler licensing, and storage requirements.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't designed to dismiss VDI as 'the way to go', as for certain segments of the organisation, it could be perfect. It allows users to retain their power user status, with a rich, true desktop environment, plus overcomes barriers where certain applications won't run in a session-based environment. It can also bring a very dynamic edge to desktop delivery, enabling an agile infrastructure that can adapt to change quickly. The key thing to think about is, ensure you perform a thorough assessment, and don't simply move your current desktop problems into the datacenter, but instead, use this as an opportunity to optimise, with the right technologies, for the right user, to enable them to do their job more effectively. That answer may or may not be VDI.

With Windows 7, the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack, and Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, the options around the Optimised Desktop have never been greater, so I encourage you to make use of the tools and resources available, and ensure your desktop of the future is the right one for your business.

As always, feedback welcome, and if you’re not a subscriber to the newsletter, you can change that here.

Presented by Kenon Owens

Monday, March 29th 2010 – 16:00-17:00 GMT

As Organizations begin to see the Value of Virtualization and adopt different Virtualization Technologies, they may want to know what’s next? Who can help me realize the benefits of virtualization today, and prepare me to leverage my existing investments into the future? Learn how the Integrated Virtualization Solutions Microsoft delivers today can help you realize the Better Value, Improved Availability, and Business Agility that Virtualization provides, and can help you prepare for the future. Whether you are concerned with ensuring the Services you provide in the datacenter can achieve the levels you promise, or that you can deliver the access to these Services for your customers, be they internal or external, come learn how Microsoft gives you a variety of choices in how to leverage virtualization from the Desktop and Datacenter, to the Cloud.

Register here.

If you’re around on the 12th April 2010, and you’re interested in learning a bit about Microsoft Virtualisation technologies, plus, have a chat over a brew with me, then this could be the “Virtualisation Summit for you!”

Looking at virtualization but unsure about your options? Thinking about Windows 7 migration? Interested in VDI and server virtualization? Want to save on costs but wondering about ROI? Have more questions than answers on the topic?

This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the key products & technologies enabling seamless physical and virtual management, interoperable tools, and cost-savings & value. Microsoft Virtualization provides a completely virtualized infrastructure for your organisation, from the datacenter to desktop to the cloud.

Please mark your calendar for Microsoft Virtualization Summit on Monday 12 April 2010 in London. Join us and interact live with Microsoft, key partnerships and early adopter customers in this informative event near you.

For more information, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/en/us/virtualization-summit.aspx

In terms of agenda:

08.30AM – 09.30AM - Registration
09.30AM – 10.30AM - Session 1: Virtualization 360 – Datacenter to the Desktop to the Cloud
10.30AM – 11.30PM - Session 2: Next Generation Optimised Desktop
11.30PM – 12.00PM - Break
12.00PM – 13.00PM - Session 3: Implementing a Comprehensive VDI Solution
13.00PM – 14.00PM - Lunch
14.00PM – 15.00PM - Session 4: Physical to Virtual Management with System Center
15.00PM – 15.30PM - Break
15.30PM – 16.30PM - Session 5: Deploying Business Critical Workloads and Applications
16:30PM – 17.30PM - Session 6: Building a Foundation for Your Private Cloud
17.30PM – 18.30PM - Networking & Close

I’ll be delivering the pre-lunch session, on Implementing a Comprehensive VDI Solution, highlighting some key improvements around Microsoft VDI with Remote Desktop Services, and how this is licensed, and then moving on to looking at 3rd Parties such as Citrix, Quest and Ericom to name but a few, provide value on top.

If you’re interested, I’d recommend you register, as it could be a very valuable day indeed.

If you’ve been reading this blog over the last few weeks, you’ll have noticed a continued theme around the Optimised Desktop.  The reason for this, as you can appreciate I’m sure, is that more and more organisations are weighing up their options when it comes to future desktop strategy, with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) being one option available.

I’ll be the first to admit that our messaging around VDI isn’t the simplest, and licensing around VDI get’s even more complex, however, fear not, 2 upcoming Academy Live sessions aim to change that.

Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization: How To Present To Your Customers

Presented by Niamh Coleman, Aanal Bhatt and Dai Vu

Thursday, March 4th 2010 – 17:00 – 18:00 GMT

Companies today face many challenges in response to evolving end user needs, economic uncertainty, and compliance requirements.  With Microsoft Virtualization your customers can address these challenges via the essential capabilities that Microsoft delivers. In many cases, companies may already own the technologies required for a virtualization strategy and can leverage that existing investment.  Through Microsoft Virtualization solutions and Integrated Management your customers have the visibility into your environment, while increasing your capability to respond to the ever changing business requirements. Learn how Microsoft Desktop Virtualization can help with their Access, Data Security, and Compliance concerns while also providing Anywhere Access for Users. Learn about the Breadth of the Solutions Microsoft Provides on the Desktop from User State Virtualization, to Application Virtualization and OS Virtualization.

Register here.

Desktop Virtualization Licensing:  A Detailed Look at VECD and VDI Suite Licensing

Presented by Max Herrmann and Balagopalan Nikhil

Thursday, March 25th 2010 – 17:00 – 18:00 GMT

With organizations increasingly looking to deploy VDI within their environments, IT needs to understand how to license out their virtual environments in order to be fully compliant. However, Microsoft licensing for VDI can be confusing for some organizations to completely understand and still remains the largest area of escalations that the product teams receive. This session is designed to go over the different components of the Microsoft VDI stack, and understand the VECD and VDI suites licensing models and use rights.

Register here.

Admittedly, a little late notice, but it’s only just landed in my inbox!

The Client Management Bootcamp is a 4-day technical Instructor Led Training designed to enable System Center, Windows Client, MDOP, and Desktop Deployment SI partners to deliver successful POCs based on top customer scenarios around client management. The course coverage includes Optimized Desktop architecture, deploying and managing Windows 7 and Office 2010 in the enterprise.

In terms of agenda, it looks pretty darn useful actually, and if I could clear my schedule, I’d go myself!!

• Module 1 - Introduction to the System Center Client Management Suite
• Core IO Framework
• Methodologies for IT service management: Overview of System Center products:
• Scenarios for Client Management
• Module 2 - Overview of Client Virtualization
• Microsoft Application Virtualization(App-V)
• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization(MED-V)
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Virtual Machine Manager
• Solving problems around app compatibility, scenarios
• Managing the Virtual Client with System Center (App V, MED V, etc)
• Module 3 - Optimized Client Architecture and Planning
• Revisit Core IO
• Windows Optimized Desktop Solution Accelerator
• Framework for data collection–what questions to ask the customer, analyzing data and proposing solutions
• Module 4 - Operating System Deployment
• Operating System Deployment process
• Tools for OS Deployment
• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit(MDT)2008 Update 1
• Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Beta
• OS Deployment in System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2
• Key Windows 7 features; enabling BitLocker, AppLocker, using BranchCache for deployment
• In place data migration using USMT Tool
• Hands on Labs: Deployment Scenario 1– Deploying Windows 7 using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 and System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• Module 5 - Application Deployment
• Application Lifecycle Management
• Managing applications lifecycle using System Center
• Hands on Labs: Deployment Scenario 2– Deploying Office 14 using System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• Module 6 - Management and Optimization of Windows 7
• Overview of Incident and Knowledge Management
• Patch Management
• Desired Configuration Management
• Remote Desktop and Remote Assistance
• Audit Collection System
• Monitoring
• Backup
• Hands on Labs: Management and Optimization of Win7
• Module 7 - Management and Optimization of Applications
• Patch Management
• Desired Configuration Management (integrate auto ticketing with Service Manager)
• Adding and Removing Application Features
• Monitoring
• Backup
• Hands on Labs: Management and Optimization of Microsoft Office 2010
• Module 8 - How to Deliver a Client Management Suite Proof of Concept
• Identifying Customer Needs
• Types of Activities
• Delivering a Client Management Suite Proof of Concept
• Module 9 - How System Center Service Manager implements MOF and ITIL processes
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Change Management
• Configuration Management
• Service Desk Function
• Module 10 - Integration with other System Center Products
• Integrating Service Manager with System Center Configuration Manager
• Integrating Service Manager with System Center Operations Manager
• Hands-on Labs: Configuring the connector to System Center Configuration Manager
• Module 11 - Change Management
• Creating Standard change requests from Self service portal
• Adding users to population group
• Integrating with Configuration Manager to perform deployment
• Hands-on Labs: Change Management
• Module 12 - Incident Management
• Creating an incident using Incident Management portal
• Detecting non-compliant software with Desired Configuration Management
• Hands-on Labs: Incident Management
• Module 13 - Authoring in Service Manager

As I said earlier, it’s over 4 days, and is located in London.  It's on the 23rd March, and you’ll need to register via the usual Partner channels.  Do you know what the best bit of it all is?  It’s subsidised down to just £250 per delegate.  Bargain! :)

It’s hard to believe I’ve used the word ‘plethora’ in the title of a post 3 times in the last 3 months!  I need to start broadening my vocabulary!

Anyway, I blogged about the RC release of App-V 4.6 way back in November, and have been using it in my demos since then, however as of yesterday, the final release of App-V 4.6 has launched, as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) 2010.

In terms of getting hold of the bits, from the MDOP blog:

• App-V 4.6 can be accessed immediately via MDOP 2010. Existing MDOP customers can download MDOP 2010 at the Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS).  For evaluation, MDOP 2010 can be downloaded from MSDN and TechNet.
• App-V 4.6 for RDS (formerly App-V for Terminal Services) can be downloaded immediately here.

So, what’s new in 4.6?

• x64 Support: Both x64 Client and Server OS’s can now have App-V applications streamed to them.  This is particularly important for Remote Desktop Services environments, as this platform is x64 only.
• Increased Language Support: Currently available in 13 languages, with an additional 11 coming in April.
• Better Integration with SCCM R2 SP2: Deliver applications faster, without having to wait for policy refresh
• Reduced SAN Storage in VDI: Shared Cache of App-V Applications means a reduced footprint of apps within the VDI environment
• Office 2010 Optimisation: Deliver Office 2010 out to users faster than traditional methods, plus run versions side by side to ease learning and adoption
• Integrate with Windows 7 Features: Integrates seamlessly with BranchCache, AppLocker and BitLockerToGo.

There’s even more info on the MDOP blog.

Enough about what’s new in App-V 4.6 – let’s move on to the resources that can help accelerate your knowledge around the technologies.  Brace yourself here, there’s a fair few on offer!

1) IPD Guide

The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides help, as the name suggests, to plan the rollout of a particular technology, and the App-V IPD guide has just been updated to reflect the changes and improvements in 4.6.  It helps to streamline to planning process by:

• Defining the technical decision flow through the planning process.
• Listing the decisions to be made and the commonly available options and considerations.
• Relating the decisions and options to the business in terms of cost, complexity, and other characteristics.
• Framing decisions in terms of additional questions to the business to ensure a comprehensive alignment with the appropriate business landscape.

This specific IPD guide provides actionable guidance for planning your application virtualization infrastructure. With App-V, your organization can respond to the complex challenge of managing applications. This guide simplifies your App-V planning process; updates now include support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, including such features as BranchCache; support for 64-bit clients; and server-sizing data. Strategically planning your infrastructure can help you avoid problems before they begin, allowing you to save time and money.

Grab the IPD Guide here.

2) Virtual Labs

<cheesy salesman voice> Don’t have the kit to try this out?  Don’t want to set it up for yourself?  Today is your lucky day! </cheesy salesman voice>

The Windows 7 Virtual Labs are designed to let you work through a script, in your own time, to configure a certain area of technology.  The App-V labs are listed with the Windows 7 labs as they all form part of this Optimised Desktop.  From an App-V perspective, there are a couple of full labs (90 minutes), and a couple of express labs, which are shorter in duration (30 mins).  Here are the full labs:

• TechNet Virtual Lab: Learning App-V Basics
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Learning App-V Intermediate Skills
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Learning to Configure App-V for Standalone Client Mode
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Implementing XenDesktop 4.0 on Hyper-V R2
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows 7: Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 and Windows 7
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows 7: Getting Started with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows 7: Mitigating Application Issues Using Shims
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows 7: Zero Touch Installation Using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 and System Center Configuration Manager
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows 7: Introduction to Deploying Windows 7 Using the Windows Automated Installation Kit

and the express labs:

• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: AppLocker
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: BitLocker
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: BranchCache
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Microsoft Application Virtualization (APP-V)
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V)
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Problem Steps Recorder
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Search Federation
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: User Account Control
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Windows Troubleshooting Packs
• TechNet Virtual Lab Express: Windows 7: Modifying Windows 7 Operating Systems with DISM

They’re all free to use, and run in the browser, but you’ll need to enable some relevant browser plug-ins to make it work.  You can download the manual from the top right of the screen, and interact with the lab in the center, like so:

The manual will guide you through what steps you should take, and explain the scenario in more detail.  Definitely worth a look if you’re interested in brushing up on a few new areas without having to sit down and configure everything.for…

3) Videos

If the labs aren’t your cup of tea, and you’d prefer to break out the popcorn and watch a video, this next set of resources could be right up your street, and with this number of videos on offer, it’s going to be a long street:

• Advanced Sequencing with Microsoft App-V
• App-V Configuration Options
• App-V with AppLocker Executable Rules
• App-V with AppLocker Windows Installer Rules
• Create a Virtual Application Using the App-V Sequencer
• Deprovision a Virtual Application
• Launch a Virtual Application and Review Client Configuration
• Publish a Virtual Application Using Full Infrastructure Mode
• Run Microsoft Office in an App-V Virtualized Environment
• Update a Virtual Application Using App-V
• Updating and Upgrading a Sequenced Application Using App-V
• Use App-V Metering to Manage Application Licenses
• Use Dynamic Suiting to Create a Plug-in Dependency for Virtual Applications

These are just the videos for App-V – if you head on over to this page, there are videos for the whole MDOP suite!

4) Documentation

OK, so it’s the least exciting, but equally useful!

• App-V Datasheet
• Sequencing Office 2010 with App-V Datasheet
• App-V 4.6 FAQ
• Sequencing Office 2010 with App-V FAQ
• Application Publication and Client Interaction
• App-V Sequencing Guide
• App-V & SCCM 2007 R2
• Sequencing Office 2010 Recipe

That’s all for now, and there are some more bits in the works that we’ll reveal over coming weeks and months, so stay tuned, and enjoy the stuff above!

Following on from yesterday, Iftekhar, a fellow Partner Technology Advisor and blogger, got in touch and pointed me to another ‘Optimised Desktop’ resource.

This video is 15 minutes long in total, but gives a pretty nice, integrated story across different platforms.  If you’re looking for the detail, make the video full screen and you’ll see it in all it’s glory.  Quite a good one in my opinion.

I mentioned in my previous post, there are a number of choices available to customers around their desktop strategy going forward, but where do you start?  Well, here’s a few resources to get you going on the journey.  Now, admittedly, these are cut and pasted from various Microsoft websites, yet I always adhere to the belief that “you don’t know, what you don’t know”, so if you don’t know this info exists, you’ll never find it!

The Vision of the Optimised Desktop - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/default.aspx

People are the most important resource in any organisation. The role of technology is to unlock their potential. The Optimised Desktop is about empowering your people to be more productive with a flexible technology infrastructure, while providing the IT department the needed level of control, manageability, and security. Learn more about five scenarios for enabling workers to be successful in their jobs with Microsoft desktop solutions, or read the Optimised Desktop eBook

Balancing the Needs of End Users and IT - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/desktop/default.aspx

Organisations look to their people to drive business success, and to the information technology (IT) department to build and manage an infrastructure that supports and enables people to be successful in their jobs. Often, these expectations create a natural tension between end users, who want the flexibility to support a dynamic work environment, and an IT department that needs greater control and manageability.

The solution to this challenge is an "Optimised Desktop" infrastructure. An Optimized Desktop describes a state in which your organisation has attained the right balance in its desktop infrastructure - empowering employees with the flexibility they need to be productive, while providing IT the necessary level of control, manageability, and security

Ease Desktop Management with Microsoft Solutions - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/management/default.aspx

Managing desktops across an enterprise is often time-consuming, complex, and costly. IT organizations face difficult PC manageability tasks on a daily basis. The Windows 7 operating system, Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), and System Center provide you with the infrastructure to enable business agility for end users in addition to increased control, streamlined management, and cost reduction for IT.

How Desktop Virtualisation Transforms your Business - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/default.aspx

Now more than ever, organisations are looking to increase business flexibility while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for their desktop infrastructure. Microsoft Desktop Virtualisation solutions provide IT managers with flexible desktop management options, from deploying virtual applications to gaining efficiencies with centralised and diskless PCs.

So, some great resources there, however, if I had to choose one, above all the others, based on my experience, I would point you to the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios.  In a nutshell, Microsoft has identified 5 common scenarios, or, types of users, that exist within organisations.  These are, Office, Mobile, Task, Contract and Home.  Each have their own methods of working effectively, and require different tools based on their scenario.  Each also require a different level of user experience.  Some may require a rich, graphical OS environment, with local access to data, whereas others may require a very traditional, locked down, low-graphics type environment, for entering customer related information into a CRM system for example.  Taking these scenarios, you can start to map these scenarios, on to the most optimal (in most cases) technologies that would meet their requirements.  Take me for example.  I’m a mobile worker, on the road a great deal.  I can’t always guarantee an internet connection, and if I could, I couldn’t guarantee the quality of that connection.  Would a remote working environment be ideal for me?  No chance.  That would actually have a detrimental effect on my working capabilities.  A Windows 7 laptop, with locally installed apps, or App-V delivered apps, combined with some of the inbox features like DirectAccess and BitLocker, would give me a greater level of productivity.  Once you’ve watched the videos, Microsoft also provide a tool, in the form of the Windows Optimised Desktop Scenarios, on which to work with a customer, or your business teams internally, to help define the different types of users in the environment.  You can read more about WODS here.

OK, bit more dramatic than it actually is, but never mind!  There’s lots of industry buzz at the moment around ‘VDI’, or, to elaborate, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, yet is it the right solution for everyone?  Well, there are plenty of benefits to virtualising your desktop OS’s, however it isn’t always the right solution for all types of users.  Some virtualisation vendors would lead you to believe this is the case, yet when all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, all problems do tend to look like nails.

Windows 7 is almost acting as a catalyst right now.  A catalyst for businesses to assess, and define their desktop strategy going forward.  For many, Windows 7 (or a Windows 7-like-experience, (more on this later!)) is the next logical step, but the aspect that’s generating the most head-scratching, is just how we deliver this experience.

So, if you read between the lines above, what I’m getting at is, there is choice.  Choice around the OS we receive.  Choice about how we receive it.  Choice about how we manage and deliver applications and profiles as part of this service.  The key word, time and time again, is choice, which can be a good thing, but also a bad thing.  Choice can lead to confusion, confusion leads to management difficulties, and ultimately, no clear strategy or decision. That is, unless, choice is understood clearly.

On the 18th March, at 5pm GMT Microsoft, along with industry experts and IT leaders, will be delivering a Desktop Virtualisation hour, trying to articulate the choices customers have, for their desktop strategy going forward.  I don’t envy the presenters here, as I regularly talk about our all-up Optimised Desktop strategy, and it takes a good few hours to deliver in such a way that confusion is at a minimum (but that could just be my lack of clarity!)

If you’re interested in understanding the choices you have in front of you, or, frankly, you think the numbers just don’t add up for VDI, you may find this session useful.

Click the picture above to register, or alternatively, click here to save the date to your calendar.

First look of Windows Phone 7 for me, and I' have to say, I’m impressed!

Very Zune HD-like.  Very nice indeed.  Hopefully the community will rally around Windows Phone 7 and build some half decent apps for it!

You just couldn’t write this script!  Yesterday, I blogged about a new whitepaper which discusses the performance improvements of RDP7 over previous versions, and the kinds of factors you can expect to encounter that can impact the user experience using RDP7 and RDS.  In that blog post, I also noted the number of requests for sizing guidance around the solution, specifically stating it was coming soon.  Well, I didn’t think it would be this soon!

“The Remote Desktop Session Host (RD Session Host) role service lets multiple concurrent users run Windows-based applications on a remote computer running Windows Server 2008 R2. This white paper is intended as a guide for capacity planning of RD Session Host in Windows Server 2008 R2. It describes the most relevant factors that influence the capacity of a given deployment, methodologies to evaluate capacity for specific deployments, and a set of experimental results for different combinations of usage scenarios and hardware configurations.”

Definitely worth a read if you’re thinking about sizing RDS, including if you’re thinking of sizing it up on a Hyper-V platform.  You can grab the document, here. 

Hat-tip to the RDS Team Blog for this one.

One of the biggest requests I’m hearing around RDS in 2008 R2 and Windows 7, is for RDP performance information and benchmarks.  For those interested, it’s a close call on requests for this information, or for RDS Sizing guidance.  The sizing guidance is coming soon, trust me!

So, back to the RDP Performance Improvements, to quote the RDS Team…

“As with Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2, virtual machine-based desktop virtualization faces increasing performance challenges when enterprises attempt to use this technology to support a globally distributed workforce. A key consideration of performance relates to Remote Desktop protocol efficiency which continues to present an issue for bandwidth constrained environments. This limitation can manifest itself by limiting the number of users who can access virtualized desktops (user density) over available bandwidth, and with a degraded user experience. Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 7.0, similar to previous RDP versions, provides a competitive experience for low bandwidth (e.g. 56 Kbps) connections. After bandwidth requirements, network latency is the second fundamental challenge for customers and partners that wish to deploy virtualized desktops for a broad range of end-users and applications”

Very true indeed.  If you’d have said, 18 months ago, you can play a rich multimedia video over RDP, and it wouldn’t be jerky, out of sync etc, people would have laughed at you, yet that laughter would have been mostly based on older iterations of RDP, and it’s traditional, functional use within an infrastructure.  Fast forward to now, with RDP7, that kind of experience is a reality, but would I expect that level of rich experience over all connectivity types, fast and slow?  No, inevitably not.  As you’d expect, the experience would degrade, especially over the WAN, which could, as the paragraph above suggests, degrade the experience for others too.  Therefore, understanding the RDP protocol in the latest release is pivotal when evaluating an RDS infrastructure.

So, back to the whitepaper…

“With the release of the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 operating systems, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is more feature rich, enabling new presentation and remote-oriented functionality such as accelerated bitmap rendering, multi-media redirection streaming, and network topology awareness. As these features become integrated in the enterprise environment, it is important to analyze and understand their impact on your current network infrastructure and the end-user experience. This paper details the various RDP features and the potential improvements to usability and quality of the end-user remoting experience, as well as system deployment metrics. To test the impact of different features and compare RDP 7.0 to the previous RDP 6.1 version, we performed a variety of tests by using automated and simulation tools to demonstrate the user scenarios outlined in this white paper. These tests are broken down into two broad groups: a set that simulated a user working with actual Microsoft® Office applications at realistic speeds, and a set of multi-media scenarios that simulated a rich media environment commonly expected by today’s and tomorrow’s users.

To test the impact of different features and compare RDP 7.0 to the previous RDP 6.1 version, we performed a variety of tests by using automated and simulation tools to demonstrate the user scenarios outlined in this white paper. These tests are broken down into two broad groups: a set that simulated a user working with actual Microsoft® Office applications at realistic speeds, and a set of multi-media scenarios that simulated a rich media environment commonly expected by today’s and tomorrow’s users. In addition, some of the scenarios have been run at increased network latencies to demonstrate the viability of using RDP in distributed environments, such as in Branch offices or telecommuting scenarios where broadband capabilities exist”

There’s actually some very useful information in the whitepaper, particularly around what tweaks you could make to your user experience to optimise the bandwidth utilisation.  One thing I found useful, is the frame-rate achieved with Silverlight content, versus Flash, at different colour levels:

I really didn’t know that!

This, and other useful bits of info, are available in the whitepaper.  Check it out now!

If you have a look around the web (using your favourite Bing search engine), for virtualising/virtualizing SAP, you’ll find a lot of links for virtualising that workload on VMware, but what about Hyper-V?  Do SAP support Hyper-V as a platform?  Are there any recommendations if they do?  Yes, and yes, and with the latest announcement, they now support Hyper-V R2 as the virtualisation platform, which brings in significant advantages around Live Migration, Second Level Address Translation (SLAT) support, and improved networking capabilities to name but a few.

Last year, there was a best practices white paper released, which detailed optimum configurations for SAP virtualised on R1 of Hyper-V, so this is still going to be relatively useful for R2, especially when combined with the Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2008 R2 that I blogged about a few weeks back.

If you head on over to the SAP Community, and look at the Virtualisation on Windows page, you’ll see the statement of support front and centre, however one thing to be aware of, is that SAP will support Hyper-V R2 as the platform, but the guest OS that SAP runs on has to be Windows Server 2008, or 2003.

If you’re interested, there’s more guidance here:

• Virtualising SAP applications on Windows
• Support prerequisites for running SAP on virtualised hardware (SAP Note 1409608 - Login Required)
• Virtualisation on Windows: Enhanced Monitoring (SAP Note 1409604 - Login Required)
• SAPOSCOL: Detailed virtualization data (SAP Note 1260719 - Login Required)
• High Availability in Virtual Environment on Windows (SAP Note 13746711409604 - Login Required)
• Hyper-V Configuration Guide (SAP Note 1246467 - Login Required)

If you’re thinking about virtualising SAP, ESX isn’t the only hypervisor in town…

If you’ve been following my coverage of DPM 2010 over the last few months (here, and here), you’ll be pleased to learn that the Release Candidate build has been declared, and released to the web, on the Microsoft Connect website.

If you’re interested in downloading and evaluating this release (which I’d strongly recommend!), you can grab all the bits here.