VDI Data Protection - Part 4: Summary
Mon, 12 Dec 2022 21:26:48 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
In the previous blog posts in this series (part 1, part 2 and part 3) we discussed the components of data protection, disaster recovery, and operational backup approaches in a VMware Horizon environment. The components that require data protection in a Horizon environment are management infrastructure, desktop infrastructure, and user data components where user profiles, home drives and so on are stored.
Today’s organizations rely heavily on VDI to extend their business-critical applications to digital workspaces, giving users on-demand access from any device, no matter where they are. An outage to the VDI environment can cause a major disruption to business continuity and productivity as users are prevented from accessing the applications. So, a well-formulated DR and backup plan are critical to business continuity and for the success of VDI deployments. You can read more about the components of data protection, DR, and the backup aspects of Horizon data protection in the previous posts in this blog series.
We will conclude this series by exploring the public cloud disaster recovery options that are enabled by Horizon on the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform (DTCP) solution from the Dell Technologies Ready Solutions for VDI team.
VDI Data Protection in a Public Cloud - With DTCP and VMC on AWS
VMware Horizon on DTCP is a true hybrid cloud platform for VDI workloads that easily enables disaster recovery on the public cloud. DTCP is based on Dell EMC VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure running VMWare Cloud Foundation (VCF) delivering consistent infrastructure and operations. DTCP allows you to build standardized VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) architecture that provides a consistent infrastructure connecting your on-premises and a public cloud. Watch this video to learn more about Horizon on DTCP solution.
With DTCP, you can configure DR for Horizon 7 by having an on-premises active-primary site and a passive-secondary site on VMC on AWS, one of our partner public cloud. VMC on AWS delivers VMware SDDCs as-a-service on the AWS cloud. The consistent infrastructure that is offered by DTCP allows you to leverage the same existing skills to build a Horizon 7 infrastructure on VMC on AWS. By using VMC on AWS as a passive site for DR, you can take advantage of the hourly billing option and the pay-as-you-go benefit.
Figure 1: VMware Horizon on DTCP using VMC on AWS as a DR site
VMware Cloud Pod Architecture (CPA) allows you to join multiple pods to form a single Horizon implementation. This pod federation can span multiple sites and data centers, simplifying the administration effort that is required to manage a large-scale Horizon deployment. The CPA architecture also simplifies the DR fail-over process. Read more about CPA and different Horizon DR approaches in part 2 of this data protection blog series.
For a VDI environment based on non-persistent or stateless virtual desktops, you can keep a small host footprint on VMC on AWS, where you will deploy your Horizon 7 instance, store your updated golden images, and create a small pool of VMs. You should also replicate App Volumes, Dynamic Environment Manager settings, user profiles, and other user-related data to maintain consistency across on-premises and VMC on AWS sites. If you have an environment based on persistent or stateful virtual desktops, you must periodically replicate your full-clone desktop from on-premises to VMC on AWS. However, this type of protection is expensive and involves more effort. See this reference architecture guide from the Dell Technologies Ready Solutions for VDI team to learn more about the design considerations and replication options when deploying a Horizon solution based on DTCP and VMC on AWS.
Conclusion
VDI consolidates desktop storage from many devices onto centrally managed infrastructure in the data center. The management of centralized desktops is easier and more secure than distributed physical desktops and it gives more control to administrators. However, an outage to the VDI environment could affect the user’s ability to access business-critical data.
All three component layers (desktop, management, and user data) must be considered when developing a backup strategy for your Horizon environment. The backup approach might vary depending on whether you are using a persistent or non-persistent virtual desktop environment. For multi-site disaster recovery, it is recommended that you use an approach based on Horizon CPA architecture.
The availability and recoverability goals that are defined in the service level agreement (SLA) will determine the overall data protection plan for your VDI infrastructure. The level of redundancy and other factors will vary depending on whether it is a single-site or multi-site design. For the data protection of a Horizon 7 environment, you can choose from the broad range of Dell Technologies data protection products to match your user environment and existing data protection policy. For further information, see the Dell Technologies Data Protection web page.