This section provides a high-level overview of the components needed for creating and deploying a VDI environment. Successful deployment requires a deep understanding of the architecture when you are designing the environment.
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere provides a flexible and secure foundation for business agility, with the following benefits for VDI applications:
- Improved appliance management—The vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface provides CPU and memory statistics, network and database statistics, disk space usage, and health data. This reduces reliance on a command-line interface for simple monitoring and operational tasks.
- VMware vCenter Server native high availability—This solution for vCenter Server Appliance consists of active, passive, and witness nodes that are cloned from the existing vCenter Server instance. You can enable, disable, or destroy the vCenter HA cluster at any time. Maintenance mode prevents planned maintenance from causing an unwanted failover. The vCenter Server database uses native PostgreSQL synchronous replication, while key data outside the database uses separate asynchronous file system replication.
- Backup and restore—Native backup and restore for vCenter Server Appliance enables users to back up vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller appliances directly from the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface or API. The backup consists of a set of files that is streamed to a selected storage device using the SCP, HTTP(S), or FTP(S) protocol. This backup fully supports vCenter Server Appliance instances with both embedded and external Platform Services Controller instances.
- VMware vSphere HA support for NVIDIA vGPU-configured VMs—vSphere HA protects VMs with the NVIDIA vGPU shared pass-through device. In the event of a failure, vSphere HA tries to restart the VMs on another host that has an identical NVIDIA vGPU profile. If no available healthy host meets this criterion, the VM fails to power on.
- VMware Log Insight—Provides log management, actionable dashboards, and refined analytics that enable deep operational visibility and faster troubleshooting.
VMware Horizon
The architecture described here is based on VMware Horizon 8, which provides a complete end-to-end solution that delivers Microsoft Windows virtual desktops to users on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Virtual desktops are dynamically assembled on demand, providing pristine, yet personalized, desktops each time a user logs in.
VMware Horizon 8 provides a complete virtual desktop delivery system by integrating several distributed components with advanced configuration tools that simplify the creation and real-time management of the VDI.
Horizon clone technologyVMware Horizon 8 offers the following methods for cloning desktops:
- Full clones—These are typically used for testing purposes or to create management VMs. Full clones are not ideal for VDI because full copies have no connection to the original VM. You must update each VM with this approach.
- Instant clones—These are available with Horizon Universal Subscription, Horizon Standard Subscription, and Horizon Enterprise Edition (TERM) licenses. This technology provisions a VM immediately after a user requests one. This is a far easier approach to operating system updates and patch management because the VM is created when it is needed. You can use the combination of products such as VMware App Volumes and Dynamic Environment Manager to emulate persistence.
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager
VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM) is another piece of the overall solution that provides for dynamically assembled virtual desktops with the appearance of user persistence. DEM provides a profile and policy management solution that allows administrators to create a truly stateless virtual desktop environment while delivering a consistent and personalized experience for each user.
From the user’s perspective, they receive the same profile mapping no matter where they are logged in from, so their personalized environment follows them and adapts across devices and locations. When deploying DEM, user profiles and configurations can be redirected to a NAS share. Dell PowerStore T store offers the capability to integrate with DEM by providing these NAS servers and SMB shares while also providing additional value with data reduction and protection capabilities.
VMware App Volumes
VMware App Volumes is a real-time application delivery system that enterprises can use to dynamically deliver and manage applications. Applications can be layered onto virtual desktops using VMware AppVolumes. This greatly improves application management and updates by removing the applications from the VDI base image and managing them independently.
Applications are packaged and delivered by attaching a standard VMDK or VHD file to a virtual machine. You can centrally manage the applications with the App Volumes Manager, a web-based interface that is integrated with Active Directory (AD) and vSphere. Administrators can assign, update, or remove applications to be delivered at the next user login without the need to modify the desktops or disrupt users while they are working.
An additional feature of App Volumes is Writable Volumes, which can contain data such as application settings, user profiles, licensing information, configuration files, and user-installed applications. This feature allows users to install applications and access their application data across sessions and devices.
VMware App Volumes and Writable Volumes require storage space which can be provided by the Dell PowerStore T storage array. It allows for high-performance access to applications for end-users as well as application and data persistence while also providing data reduction and protection capabilities.