We can use multiple desktop sources to deploy Virtual Desktops through Vmware View. This can be:
- A Virtual Machine that is managed through vCenter. You can only use vCenter servers that are known to the View Manager server.
- Fat Clients (physical PCs)
- Thin Clients
- Terminal Servers
- Blade PCs
The delivery methods for the are:
- Individual Desktop: one Desktop that can be use by one user a time.
- Manual Pool: this is a pool of dekstop with the following characteristics
- Multiple users to multiple desktop mapping; however, only one active user on a desktop at a time.
- Not provisioned automatically.
- Supports both persistent and non-presistent access modes.
- Administrator entitles entire pool to users or user groups
- Automated Pool: This is a pool that contains one or more dynamically generated desktops that are automatically created and customized by View Manager from a vCenter virtual machine template and have the following characteristics
- Multiple users to multiple desktop mapping; however, only one active user on a desktop at a time.
- Provisioned automatically.
- Administrator specifies a template and a customization specification which is used to provision desktop sources.
- Supports both persistent and non-presistent access modes.
- Administrator entitles entire pool to users or user groups.
- Terminal Server Pool: This is a pool of Terminal Servers desktop sources served by one or more terminal servers. A terminal server desktop source can deliver multiple desktops. A Terminal Server Pool has the following characteristics
- Pool of Terminal Servers desktops served by a farm comprising of one or more terminal servers.
- Least session count based load balacing. Vmware View load balances connections requests across terminal servers in a pool by choosing the terminal server that has the least number of active sessions on it.
- Administrator entitles entire pool to users or user groups.
- Administrator should deploy a roaming profile solution to enable user settings and personalization to be propagated to the currently accessed desktop.
If I would explain how to used these delivery methods in this post, this post would be very crowd y. So click on the link to see how configure the delivery method.
Note: This information is taken from the View Manager Administration Guide.
In orde to prepare a guest system for Vmware View you will have to:
- Install the latest VMware Tools.
- Network settings (proxy, etc) are properly configured and that the guest system is attached to a domain.
- View Manager Agent is installed. (this can be done through standard deployment methods like SMS, Zenworks)
To install the View Manager Agent you need to have Adminitrive rights to the system.
Install the View Manager Agent
- Run the View Agent executable on the system that wil lhost the agent. VMware-viewagent-xxx.exe where xxx is the build number of the file.
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- Accept the VMware license terms and click next.
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- Choose your custom setup options. You must install the View Manager Composer Agent if you want to deploy a linked clone desktop (NEED TO PROVIDE URL TO BLOG!!!!!).
- VDM Secure Authentication: this installs hte Graphical Identification and Authentication (GINA) dll. This component enables Single-Sign-On so that when a user logs into View Client they don’t have to reauthenticate to the guest OS.
- USB Redirection: If you want to use USB devices who are connected to the workstation where the View Client runs.
Windows 200o does not support USB redirection.
- Virtual Printing: This feature enables users to use the printers who are installed on the workstation that runs the View Client
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- If Remote Desktop Protocol is not enable. The installation will ask you to enable it. Without enabling RDP users won’t be able to use this System for Vmware View.
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- Accept or change the destination folder and click next.
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- Click install to begin the installation process. Once completed click Finish.
If you have a workstation that has multiple NICs,you will have to configure the View Agent wich NIC to use for RDP. You can do this by adding the following registy key to the workstation:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareVMware, Inc.VMware VDMNode ManagerSubnet = n.n.n.n/m (REG_SZ)
Now the system is ready to be managed by VMware View Connection Server.
An Individual Desktop is great for users who require a singel unique dedicated desktop or for hosting a costly application with single host license that needs to be accessed by multiple users at a different time. Users how are entitled to this type of desktop always access this desktop each time the connect.
In order to deploy a Individual Desktop, this virtual machines has to have the VMware View Agent installed. Check here how you can accomplish this.
An Individual Desktop can be a Virtual Machine managed by vCenter or a physical machine. The last is great to provide remote access to a users physical desktop. Disadvantage is that it does not support Offline Desktop.
Deployment
- In the VMware View Administrator inteface, go to “Desktop and Pools“, click the inventory tab and click “Add“.
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- Select “Individual Desktop” and click on “Next”.
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- Select “VirtualCenter virtual machine. Supports Offline Desktop” and click “Next”.
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- Click on the vCenter server who hosts the Virtual Machine and click on “Next”
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- Enter a Unique ID (This is for Administrators), Display name (Users who use this desktop will see this name. If you don’t provide a Display name the Unique ID will be used.) and optional a Description.
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- Specify the desktop settings:
- State: Enabled (After being created the desktop is automatically enabled and ready to use), Disabled (After being created the desktop is not enabled. This is useful if you want to to post deplayment tasks.)
- When VM is not is use: Do nothing (VM remains on), Ensure VM is always powered on (if the user shutdown the desktop it’s immediately restarted), Suspend, Power off.
- Automatic logoff after disconnect: Never, Immediately or After (time in minutes when the desktop is logged off).
- Allow users to rest their desktop: User can without administrative assistance reset their desktop.
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- Select the Virtual Machine who you wanna use and click “Next”.
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- Review the options and click “Finish”.
An Automated Desktop Pool contains one one or more dynamically generated desktops that are automatically created and customized by View Manager from a vCenter virtual machine template. There are two types of desktops:
- Persistent: An user is assigned an dedicated desktop, who contains the users settings, documents and applications. This assignment happens the first time a user connects and is than used for all the user sessions.
- Non-persistent: When a user connects, they are assigned a different desktop from the pool every time they connect. There is no persistent data between sessions.
When we want to create a Automated Desktop Pool, we have to create a Virtual Machine Template in vCenter. To do so, right click on a Virtual Machine and select “Convert to template” or “Clone to Template”.
When you have a template, you must create a Customization Specification in order to deploy automated desktops.
Configuration
- In VMware View Administration, select on “Desktops and Pools” and click on “Add”.
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- Select the “Automated Desktop Pool” type and click on “Next“.
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- Select the Desktop Persistence. In my case: Non-persistent.
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- Click on the vCenter server who hosts the template. Notice that “Use linked clone technology to create desktops in this pool” is grayed out. To use this feature you will have to configure this on your vCenter server (PROVIDE LINK!!!!)
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- Provide a Unique ID (Example: Corporate Desktops), Display Name (Example: Standard Desktop WilmsenIT) and a description.
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- Provide the Desktop/Pool Settings:
- State: Enabled (After being created the desktop is automatically enabled and ready to use), Disabled (After being created the desktop is not enabled. This is useful if you want to to post deployment tasks.)
- When VM is not is use: Do nothing (VM remains on), Ensure VM is always powered on (if the user shutdown the desktop it’s immediately restarted), Suspend, Power off.
- Automatic log off after disconnect: Never, Immediately or After (time in minutes when the desktop is logged off).
- Power off and delete virtual machine after first use: This is for Non-Persistent Pools only. When a users logs off, the Virtual Machine is deleted.
- Allow users to rest their desktop: User can without administrative assistance reset their desktop.
- Allow multiple sessions per user: This is for Non-Persistent Pools only. This enables users to make more connections to multiple desktops at the same time in the same pool.
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- Configure the desktop provision properties:
- Provisioning: Enabled (The desktop in the Pool will be immediately created upon completions of the deployment procedure or after a desktop is deleted), Disabled (The desktop in the pool will not be immediately created upon completion of the deployment procedure or after a desktop is deleted.).
- Number off Desktops: Specify the number of desktops created in this pool. This setting is disabled if you select the “Enable Advanced Pool Settings” check box in the “Advanced Settings” Panel.
- VM naming Pattern: By default, a prefix is used to identify all desktops in a pool as part of the same group. The prefix can be up to 13 characters in length and a numeric suffix is appended to this entry in order to distinguish each desktop from others in the same pool.
You can override thsi behavior by entering a name that contains a token representing the pool number {n} (Example: Finance-{n}-Desktop). You can add a fixed length token {fixed=3} (Example: Finance-{n:fixed=3}. The output can be: Finance-001 or Finance-002).
- Stop provisioning on error: This stops the provisioning of new virtual machines when error occur (for example no disk space left).
- Advanced Settings: Enable this option if you want to configure random provisioning. Give the number of “Minimum Desktops“, “Maximum Desktops” and “Availible Desktops“.
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- Select the Template who you wanne use. Make sure that the correct version fo Sysprep is installed on vCenter for this Template. After selecting the Template click “Next“.
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- Select the Place were the Desktop Pool will be created.
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- Select a host or a cluster where the Virtual Machine will run and click on “Next“. (Only Clusters of 8 hosts or less are supported and shown).
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- If you have a recourse pool, select it and click on “Next“.
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- Select one or more datastores where to store the Desktop Pool and click on “Next“.
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- If you want to use a specific Customization Specification select “Use this customization specification” and click on the Customization Specification you have created. If you want to customize the desktop manual select ” None – Customization will be done manually“.
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- Review the summary and if agree click “Finish”.
Now we are ready to automatically deploy desktops for our users.
In this example where going to create a database instance and DSN for VMware View Composer on the standard database who is created during the installation of vCenter.
Add a linked clone desktop database instance to SQL Server 2005
Download and install SQL Server Management Studio Expres from Microsoft.
- On the vCenter host: Start | All Programs | Mircosoft SQL Server 2005 | SQL Server Management Studio Express and connect to the existing SQL Server instance.
- In the Object explorer pane, right-click the Database entry and select New Database.. The New Database dialog appears.
- Enter a name (Example: VMwareView) in the Database name field and click Ok.
- Exit
Add an ODBC datasource
- Select Start | Administrative Tools | Data Source (ODBC).
- Select the System DSN tab
- Click Add and select SQL Native Client from the list.
- Enter a name (Example: Vmware View Link Clones) and a brief description of the database. In the server field select your server (hostnamedatabasename) and click Next.
- Make sure the Connect to SQL Server to obtain default settings for the additional configuration options is selected.
- Select the authentication method:
- With intergrated Windows authentication: Works only if the database is on the vCenter host)
- With SQL Server authentication usering a login ID and password entered by the user: Use this option if you dabase is on a seperate server
- Enable the Change the default database to checkbox and select the database your earlier created and click Next.
- Click Finish and Ok.
- Close the ODBC Data Source Administrator.
VMware | Michael March 17, 2009 | 
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