From Paper to Production: Deploying a Virtual

Desktop Computing Environment Presented by

William Fulmer & Lorey Arthur Hoffman

August 20, 2014

Thank you for being here today

Presenters:

William Fulmer Chief Engineering Officer Helient Systems LLC

Lorey Arthur Hoffman Chief Information Officer

Goodwin Procter LLP

What is VDI?

“Any technology that

delivers a user desktop but

breaks the direct

relationship between the

user and at least one

primary component of the

Operating System

hardware”

How to Fail at VDI

Why A Virtual Desktop

• Mobility & Ubiquitous Delivery • Device Agnostic • Multiple Points of Entry Accommodate Varied Work

Styles

• Security • Containment within Enterprise

• Non-Persistency

• Auto-Healing / Refreshed Daily

How to Fail at VDI Business Decisions • Not knowing the business problem you’re solving with a Virtual Desktop • Believing desktop and server virtualization are the same • Doing too much

Operational Decisions • Overlooking the user environment • Holding on to bad habits • Collaboration and buy-in

Technology Decisions • Understanding requirements

• Understanding PoC ≠ Production

• Understanding End User Computing

How to Fail at VDI Business Decisions • Not understanding the business problem you’re solving • Believing desktop and server virtualization are the same • Doing too much

How to Fail at VDI Operational Decisions • Forgetting the user environment

• Hanging on to bad habits

• Collaboration

How to Fail at VDI Technology Decisions • Understanding requirements

• Understanding PoC ≠ Production

• Understanding End User Computing

Desktop = Layered Approach

• Operating System

• Applications

• User Profile and Setting

Legal Desktop = Layer Cake

• Initial capital investment • Infrastructure

• Servers • Storage • Networking • WAN Optimization

• Licensing

• Requires proper design & planning • For best performance • For High Availability • For Disaster Recovery

VDI Considerations

End User Computing

• Personalization

• Fast Logins • Outlook Cached Mode

• Windows Indexing and Search

• Windows 7 Aero Interface

• Multimedia & Graphics

• Flash • WMP

• Printing

VDI Case Study L.A.Hoffman

• Create a Virtual Desktop & Desktop management function with advanced

functionalities and meet current performance capabilities

• The VDI Desktop should be available from any endpoint, with emphasis on mobile

computing

• The VDI Desktop should be a persistent image for ease of transition

• The VDI should incorporate persona management

• The VDI should perform as well as older desktop technology

• The VDI should have a TCO that meets or exceeds the prior generation desktop

environment

VDI Case Study

Goals & Objectives

• Creates a new security infrastructure

• Dual environments during rollout period

• Storage & deduplication performance (boot storms and patch installations)

• Bandwidth requirements & bringing network management experience closer to the

Desktop

• Driving down the cost of computing & storage needs

• Material upgrade of staff skills

• Convergence of Desktop & Infrastructure teams & skills

• Immaturity of DR and other services

• One Central VDI installation means centralizing other services (Mail, Home drives,

‘local’ shared drives, etc)

VDI Case Study

Challenges

• 1100 desktops rolled now, moving to 2400

• Storage and performance issues resolved by moving to Flash with

deduplication. Array size is 10U, under 25% of a cabinet.

• Achieving great density – 55 desktops per server (3gb RAM per)

• Retraining of Desktop support team to meet new needs

• Evaluating next gen infrastructure, i.e. converged compute/storage

which holds promise to crush compute and rack space even further

VDI Case Study

Status

VDI Case Study

Boot Storm Impact

• Focus on the financial benefits versus the costs – implementation costs are only now

becoming sensible

• Technical knowledge requirements are non trivial

• All new processes & procedures for desktop management need to be thought out –

actual experience can deviate from textbook/course discussions, i.e. Patching/New

software rollout should be phased.

• Strong planning discipline is key as there are many moving parts

• Think through the impact on Tier 1 and 2 skills & service delivery

• VDI is beginning to make sense – but only if you have scale to justify the costs &

talent to deliver

VDI Case Study

Lessons Learned

William Fulmer Lorey Arthur Hoffman Chief Engineering Officer Chief Information Officer Helient Systems LLC Goodwin Procter LLP wfulmer@helient.com lhoffman@goodwinprocter.com @WillFulmer

Questions

Thank You