Great video from Pete Long about VMware View 5 Persona Management. You should also check-out his website at petenetlive.com.
With VMware View 5, VMware introduces View Persona Management. View Persona Management preserves user profiles and dynamically synchronizes them with a remote profile repository. View Persona Management does not require the configuration of Windows roaming profiles, and you can bypass Windows Active Directory in the management of View user profiles. If you already use roaming profiles, Persona Management enhances their functionality.
Persona Management downloads only the files that Windows requires at login, such as user registry files. When the user or application opens other files from the desktop profile folder, these files are copied from the stored user persona to the View desktop. This algorithm provides performance beyond that achieved with Windows roaming profiles.
In addition, View copies recent user profile changes to the desktop profile up to the remote repository every few minutes. The default is every ten minutes, and this time period is configurable.
Virtual machine storage provisioning historically has imposed operational challenges. Monitoring datastore capacity and I/O load has proven to be very difficult and as a result is often neglected. During the provisioning process for virtual machines, virtual disk datastores are often randomly selected, leading to hot spots and over- or underutilized data-stores. Storage DRS is a new feature introduced in VMware vSphere 5.0 that provides smart virtual machine placement and load balancing mechanisms based on I/O and space capacity.
It will help decrease operational effort associated with the provisioning of virtual machines and monitoring of the storage environment. This document presents an overview of best practices for customers considering the implementation of VMware vSphere Storage DRS in combination with advanced storage device features or other VMware products.
Today, Virtualization Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a key initiative for many organizations looking to reduce administrative overhead while providing a more secure, flexible and reliable desktop computing environment for end users. Proper planning and good decision making are required to ensure a successful deployment. Choosing the right virtualization platform to host the virtual desktop implementation is often the first major decision andβ to a large degreeβ can make or break the entire transformation. Important considerations when choosing the best VDI platform include:
Does the platform provide the features, reliability, and high availability to meet the business requirements?
Is the platform reliable and proven?
Does the platform provide a secure foundation for all the virtual desktops?
Can the infrastructure be standardized on the same platform as the existing server virtualization?
How will the choice made today impact future migration to a cloud environment?
How does the VDI platform choice impact options for a VDI solution?
Based on the above criteria, the best choice for most VDI deployments is vSphere because:
vSphere is the leading virtualization platform and provides unbeatable reliability, high availability, business continuity, and fault tolerance.
Customers can standardize on a common cloud infrastructure platform from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud.
VMware View and vSphere integration maximizes the benefits of the leading virtualization platform for VDI.
This paper takes a look at each of these attributes in the context of the unique needs of the VDI market.
This tool is to be used for referencing the VMware vSphere 5 PowerCLI cmdlets. VMware vSphere PowerCLI is a powerful command line tool that lets you automate all aspects of vSphere management, including network, storage, VM, guest OS and more. PowerCLI is distributed as a Windows PowerShell snapin, and includes more than 300 PowerShell cmdlets, along with documentation and samples.
CONFIO SOFTWARE has just released a new
version of their IgniteVM software that is completely free. IgniteFreeVM takes the core feature, multi-layer visibility of databases running on VMware, from application through the storage layer, and makes it available in a free-of-charge tool for unlimited use. It differs from the paid version in a few respects β it does not have the advanced enterprise features such as reporting and alerting, and it is limited to a two hour rolling window, rather than seeing months of history. IgniteFreeVM will be of interest to Oracle and SQL Server DBAs who have databases running on VMware. It will also be useful for VMware administrators who need to ensure success of databases on their platform and want low impact, easily understood views of how the database is using VMware resources.
Now available for FREE, 4.1 HA/DRS and 5.0 Clustering Deepdive Kindle version! Frank and Duncan have written βvSphere 5.0 Clustering Technical Deepdiveβ to give you a better understanding of all the new clustering features vSphere 5.0 offers and how these integrate with each other.
VMware vSphere 5.0 Clustering Technical Deepdive zooms in on three key components of every VMware based infrastructure and is by no means a "how to" guide. It covers the basic steps needed to create a vSphere HA and vSphere DRS cluster and to implement vSphere Storage DRS. Even more important, it explains the concepts and mechanisms behind HA, DRS and Storage DRS which will enable you to make well educated decisions. This book will take you in to the trenches of HA, DRS and Storage DRS and will give you the tools to understand and implement e.g. HA admission control policies, DRS resource pools, Datastore Clusters and resource allocation settings. On top of that each section contains basic design principles that can be used for designing, implementing or improving VMware infrastructures and fundamental supporting features like (Storage) vMotion, Storage I/O Control and much more are described in detail for the very first time.
This book is also the ultimate guide to be prepared for any HA, DRS or Storage DRS related question or case study that might be presented during VMware VCDX, VCP and or VCAP exams.
Coverage includes
HA node types HA isolation detection and response HA admission control VM Monitoring HA and DRS integration DRS imbalance algorithm Resource Pools Impact of reservations and limits CPU Resource Scheduling Memory Scheduler DPM Datastore Clusters Storage DRS algorithm Influencing SDRS recommendations