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Development of a Virtual DesktoInfrastructure at the

MIT Sloan School of Manageme

Mark Riedesel

Assoc. Director of Operations, Infrastructure, and Security

mried@mit.edu

Wesley Esser

Director of Technology Consulting and Support

wesser@mit.edu

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MIT Sloan School of Management

Founded in 1914 as the

engineering administration

curriculum Masters of Management offered

in 1925

Became the Sloan School of 

Management in 1959, with a

grant from the Alfred P. Sloan

Foundation

Moved into our new build ing in

2010

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MIT Sloan School of Management

112 Tenured and tenure-track

faculty

120+ Lecturers 250 Staff 

1300 Students

5000+ Executive Education

participants annually

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Defining Terms

VDI – Virtual Desktop InfrastuctureView – VMWare’s VDI product

Hosted Virtual Desktop– Virtual computer for personal use

Host – Server cluster that hosts the desktops

Client – the thing the user’s mouse and keyboard are connec

Connection Broker – service that connects a client to a desk

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Why Virtual Desktops

Why did we try it in the first place?  To see what the buzz was about it

 To get hands on experience

Because we thought it was technology with a future

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Why Virtual Desktops

Why do we like them now? Convenience

Expanded access to data and applications

Better remote experience

Always-on access

Fast deployment

Easily complements the Macintosh user’s experienc

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Why Virtual Desktops

Why do we like them now? Risk reduction

Reduce risk of hardware failure

Improve security

Reduce burden of management

Reduce data “wandering”

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Why Virtual Desktops

 A variety of use cases

Public Computing

Personal Computing Environment

Special Software

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Why Virtual Desktops

Public Computing

Computer labs

Kiosks

Conference rooms

Collaboration spaces

Classrooms

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Why Virtual Desktops

Personal computing environment

Good fits

 Traditional desktop users

Remote workers with decent network connectivit

Light travelers

Visitors

Users with short term computer needs

Hold for later

Heavy travelers

Heavy graphics users

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Why Virtual Desktops

Special Software

Can help deploy custom software

Bloomberg

Facset

@Risk

 Testing new software versions

Is a “get out of jail free” card for software incompatib

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Takeaway

Know your users

Pick the good fits

Look at the service you already have in place

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The Technical Stuff 

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The Technical Stuff 

VDI Components

Server 

Software

Storage

Virtual Desktop Machine

Connection Protocols/Broker 

End User Client

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The Technical Stuff 

VMWare at MIT Sloan

Used for servers starting w ith ESX 3.0 in 2006

Server infrastructure now 95% virtualized

Using Site Recovery Manager for DR for production serve

Started Desktop project four years ago

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The Technical Stuff 

Server Infrastucture

Dedicated VMWare Cluster for Virtual Desktops

Init ially 6 Dell R710s

96 GB or 192 GB of RAM for each server 

8 or 12 Cores per Server 

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The Technical Stuff 

Software

VMWare ESX 5.0

VMWare Virtual Center 

VMWare View Server (Connection Broker)

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The Technical Stuff 

Storage for VDI

EMC Fiber Channel SAN (NS-480)

Other options now available (iSCSI, NAS, sharing local di

Initially, each Virtual Desktop has storage for Windows 7

apps, etc. (about 40 GB each)

IO speed of storage is very important, especially for large

deployments

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The Technical Stuff 

Desktop Virtual Machines

Currently running ~100 Windows 7 Virtual Desktops on th

machine cluster 

2 to 4 GB of RAM per VM

1 or 2 Virtual CPUs per VM

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The Technical Stuff 

Connection Protocols and Brokers

Can use Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) on a PC or Mac

We initially used Panologic Protocol

Moved to Teradic i’s PCoIP when we moved to VMWare Vi

Two VMWare View Connection Brokers

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The Technical Stuff 

Client back end

Thin cl ient hardware, screen and keyboard

Windows PC or Mac running VMWare View client softwar

VMWare View client on iOS or Android

T k

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Takeaway

Do what you know

Find good partners

Leverage your discounts

High availability is essential

Wh ’ f

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Where we’ve come from

B

•Con

•Whe

Clou

2012 –Cloud and

RealityCheck

•Faculty

•DaaS testing

•Pullback fromclassrooms

2011 –Production

Service

•Deans Office

•Administrative

Assistants

2010 –Basic

Production

•Internal Pilot

•Classrooms

•Bloomberg Terminals

2009 –First Steps

•Virtualized 35 labseats

•First desktop user(me)

Wh ’ f 2009

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Where we’ve come from: 2009

First steps

Virtualized 35 computer lab seats

Panologic Cubes with PanoManager

VMWare ESX server

Done using money to pay for lab refresh

Wh ’ f 2010

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Where we’ve come from: 2010

Basic Production

Internal Pilot

STS Staff 

Approximately 20 users

Using either software client or Wyse P20 termina

ClassroomsUsing Wyse P20 terminals

Bloomberg terminals

Implemented VMWare View

Wh ’ f 2011

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Where we’ve come from: 2011

Production Service

Slowly expanding production

Deans Office

Faculty administrative assistants

Approximately 50 users

Using either software client or Wyse P20 termina

Wh ’ f 2012

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Where we’ve come from: 2012

Production, Cloud, and a reality check

Continued to expand production

Faculty

Knowledge workers

Approximately 100 users

Using either software client or Wyse P20 termina Ramping up to Business Class

Cloud-based Desktops

 Thin clients out of classroom

Takeaway

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Takeaway

Set a realistic pace

Try things that might fail

Use it yourself 

Where we are going

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Where we are going

Scaling Up for School-Wide Use

Optimize use of hardware resources (storage and servers

Continue to offer personalized environment

Enhance backup and DR capabili ties

Monitor availability and performance

Where we are going

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Where we are going

Optimize Hardware

Linked clones – one master image for OS and common a

VMWare Composer creates VM for each user 

LiquidWare FlexApp allows Windows apps to be stored e

imported into a VM

LiquidWare Profile Unity manages each user’s profile, wh

on a CIFS share (on NAS)

Where we are going

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Where we are going

Individualized VMs

Each persons profi le will be stored in a share and importe

user’s VM

 Apps not on the master image can be imported for each u

using FlexApp

These can be used either with a VM or a physical PC or la

Where we are going

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Where we are going

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Moving to Linked Clones and FlexApp provide some inhe

capability

We need to create a DR infrastructure, considering a clou

Final Thoughts

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Final Thoughts

Currently in an early product ion environment buil t on exi

strengths (SAN, VMWare)

Now moving to a business-class infrastructure built on th

VDI gives f lexibility, but is complex

There are a lot of ways to do i t - Pick one that fi ts your ex

choices

Understand l icensing

Over time, the value is great; at some points up fronts co

you behind in the value equation. Don’t despair.