Plain Virtualization

With Broadcom acquisition of VMware completing in 22nd Nov, there have been lots of assumption made by many sources what will become of the business direction. Here are some of the updates that are publicly announced if you have not catch up on the news. To start with, VMware is now known as VMware by Broadcom and all originally VMware software will remain to be branded under VMware. The first announcement 27th November, Carbon Black is  now  an autonomous unit within Broadcom. In my opinion this is good news. I have seen not much integration on Carbon Black ever since acquired by VMware so with that move, it allows Carbon Black to innovate and do what they do best in Cyber security landscape. Next from the acquisition completion, there are many speculation on after the acquisition what will end up of End User Computing? With the  announcement  on 8th December, The End User Computing (EUC) division will be a diverse business. With that understanding, EUC division wi...

There are all the articles available and most of them are on Horizon View 5.2 with Lync 2013.  However these are still valid there is nothing changes.  One great article which I refer to when doing my Proof of Concept (POC) with my customer is here .  The document that the article refers to is a must read and its pretty clear.  But some confusion that came to my mind when doing so here are some of questions you might have. On the endpoint, it has to be a physical machine running Windows which can be 32 bit or 64 bit.  The LyncVDI plugin needs to be the same bit level as the Office (where Lync is usually installed with) or the Standalone Lync that is installed in the virtual desktop. Note: Do not install Lync Client on the end points where Lync VDI plugin is installed.  And no USB redirection should be done for the camera or audio device which will be used by Lync for video and audio. On the end point, you will need three things: Horizon View Clie...

I was testing out and playing around with ThinApp on my View 5.0.  The great thing about View is you are able to assign ThinApp in their MSI package to the various desktop or pools. However I was curious how can I perform and upgrade when a new version is out e.g. Firefox 7.0.1 to Firefox 8.0? I decide to search around and came across this post in VMware Blog.  It not only allow me to understand how to perform an upgrade over the old MSI, it also help explained the MSIProductCode, MSIUpgradeCode and the MSIProductVersion. The upgrade code is very important especially in my example above.  It will have different MSIProductCode due to the version change however, the MSIUpgradeCode has to be the same in order for View to detect this is an upgrade and to uninstall the previous away when you place a higher version of MSIProductVersion. As the post in the blog mentioned, you can put MSIProductVersion from 1.0 to 2.0.  You can also do incremental from 1.0 to 1.1 as ...

Finally I have save this post as a draft for the longest time exactly a month and finally find some time to do this. Have gone through lots of reading of the deployment of View 5.  It almost similar with View 4.6 except for the Persona Management which I was very keen to try it out. The View Administration for View 5 is a must read to understand the Personal Management and also the VMware View Persona Management Deployment Guide . If  you are already using Roaming Profile, you can carry on using it with Persona Management turn on working together leaving the depository stick with what is already configured in your Roaming Profiles. Persona Management will supercede Roaming Profile if you assign a depository path in the group policy.  Honestly I would like ease of work and administration here and will use everything from Persona Management instead. When doing sizing, if performance is what you are looking for, even with Persona Management or with Roam...

I came across this blog posting on using the variable optimizeFor to be place in which place holder in package.ini.  Is it in [Compression] or is it in [BuildOptions]. From ThinApp 4.6.1 Manual , page 85, as refer to the comments, it clearly stated it can be placed in either place holders.  However the VMware blog itself is stating otherwise that it was an error made and it must be place in [Compression] place holder.  There was no one commenting further. On the launch of ThinApp 4.7, I refer to the ThinApp 4.7 Package.ini Parameters Package guide , on Page 48, the scenario given this time was place it in [BuildOptions] place holder. This got me very curious.  Is this a mistake brought over from 4.6.1 to 4.6.2 and to 4.7 on the document or did the this blog make a mistake? So I decide to run this on thinapp 4.7 and try it out.  The results: OptimizedFor=Memory for both [Compression] and [BuildOptions] as from the windows path I saved in. OptimizeFor...

I did a setup of View 5.0 in my environment and have also use the Persona Management with folder redirection.  This demonstration was purely done on my whitebox and an ISP connection of uplink of up to 2Mbps.  The network speed isn't that great however we are able to see the performance. Android View App to View Manager 5.0 Using the new View App version 1.2 which is no longer in Tech Preview, to test out the connection.  Pretty decent within my network. View Client 5.0 to View Manager 5.0 Using my laptop with a View 5.0 client connecting to the View Manager to test out the connection within my network. View Client 5.0 to Security Server 5.0 Connection was done through my 3G connection.  This is an extreme case not because I use 3G but my ISP uplink is only up to 2Mbps.  At the time of recording, I am also sharing with many people in my neighbourhood so this is not a good example.  However with this extreme measure, we ca...

Recently from my previous post, I have upgraded my home lab to VMware View 5.0. Everytime seems working.  For those who ain't aware, my ISP issue dynamic IP.  In such, I created a domain name from dyndns.org. As to match my external IP to my View Security Server with my external dns name, I would need to use a script which was found from the source below. I did some modification to suit my environment and corrected some mistake.  Below is my script. However in View 5.0, it has to be launch using the View PowerCLI and Add-PSSnapin VMware.View.Broker is no long working anymore. (which it did in View 4.6).  This was documented in VMware KB 1034652 . A quick check with the View PowerCLI properties from Start Menu, I realize it is calling a powershell script from C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\extras\PowerShell\add-snapin.ps1 so in such I added the change in my script as you can see.  This was documented Now my script is running fine again...

I am running vSphere 4.1 in my home lab with View 4.6.  We will be conducting an upgrade of the View to 5.0 which was release. Do not this is my first time doing this upgrade.  Below are the links to download the technical documents on performing the upgrade. The View 5.0 documentation can be found here .  Refer to the View Upgrades document on performing the upgrading.  Make sure all backup are done on the servers/VMs before performing any upgrade. Base on the upgrade document, the process of upgrading is as follows: Connection Server Security Server Transfer Server View Composer View Agent Part 1 In this video, I upgraded the View Manager/Connection server follow by the security server. Make sure you have backup your View Manager configuration and settings. Use the vdmexport.exe utility to back up the View 4.0.x, 4.5.x, or 4.6.x LDAP database. Instructions can be found in the View 4.6 administration guide. Part 2 In part 2, we carry on t...

This is a test on View 4.6 on a laptop via a 3G network on the internet to access the desktop.

Here is a test of the performance using an Android tablet connected in the internal network accessing the Desktop via the Connection server. Apology for the lousy video as I did this using my digital camera in order to see the whole desktop experience on the screen.

The new licensing scheme is used in vSphere 5. Unlike in vSphere 4, where vRAM is not taken into consideration rather the number of cores per socket. Let do a refresh. In vSphere 4, for Enterprise edition is entitled to 6 cores per physical processor per server. For Advanced/Enterprise Plus edition, is entitled to 12 cores per physical processor.  As for the RAM limitation will be 256GB memory per host except Enterprise Plus which is unlimited. An example would be follows: 1 server with 2 physical CPUs, each with 8 cores. This will require 2 x Enterprise Plus license. If you apply 2 x Enterprise instead of Enterprise Plus license, only 6 cores per CPU will be used and 2 cores per CPU left idle. Let's talk about vSphere 5 licensing. Before we begin, vSphere 5 have removed Advanced edition. A customers who is on Advanced Edition on vSphere 4 will be upgrade to vSphere 5 Enterprise. vRAM entitlement is based on an edition per physical CPU (no more limitation of number...