SLN116 Using a Virtual Infrastructure to Implement Hosted Desktop Solutions

Transcription

1 SLN116 Using a Virtual Infrastructure to Implement Hosted Desktop Solutions Michael Burnett, VMware Martin Quigley, CGI Craig Cook, Long View Systems John Frainetti, Talisman Energy

2 Agenda Company Introduction Problem Statement and Requirements Possible Solutions Why Hosted Desktops with ESX Server Architectural Overview Summary Q&A

3 Enterprise Hosted Desktop using ESX Server Case Study: Bell Canada, Customer Contact Martin Quigley CGI Consultant to Bell Canada

4 Company Bell Canada Enterprises is Canada's largest communications company. The main subsidiary, Bell Canada provides local telephone, long distance, wireless communications, Internet access, data, satellite television and other services to residential and business customers through some 27 million customer connections

5 Problem / Requirement Provide access to customer care applications to external and internal clients Most customer care applications are fat client. A customized desktop must be used for the applications to work AD, COM+, IE, Telnet, RDP, ICA all required for proper operation Time to deliver customized workstation to external clients is tedious. Extensive VPN and firewall rules required, updating applications difficult due to slow links and not always on condition Clients require two workstations due to security policies on customer care workstation

6 Possible Solutions Solutions PC with Windows XP Citrix or Windows Terminal Server Desktop Farm Issues Customized hardware and software expensive to manage and maintain Many clients need a second workstation due to security policies or need for a laptop Fat applications will not work under Citrix or Terminal Server Expensive, messy

7 Why Hosted Desktop on ESX Server Customer care workstation build CD easily modified to work as a guest under ESX Server (VMware tools, drivers etc.) Image easily duplicated for mass deployment Centralized management Delivery to client less costly Time to deliver reduced from days to hours Same management tools can be used to maintain workstation

8 Architecture Product components VMware ESX Server and VirtualCenter 1.2 used to manage, monitor and deploy virtual machines Using VIN licensing IBM Director IBM Director 4.21 used to perform native ESX Server install, monitor ESX Server hosts IBM BladeCenter IBM HS and CPUs, 8GB RAM Storage 8832 SAN Attached to HP MSA Using local 2 x 300GB SCSI Raid 1

9 Architecture, continued Product components, cont. Windows XP SP1 1 CPU, 512MB RAM, no memory over-commit Current environment 39 IBM HS x 2.8 GHZ Intel Xeon CPU, 8GB RAM, 40GB internal HD for ESX Server Console, SAN attached to 2 TB of disk on HP MSA Guests per host 32 IBM HS (EM64T) 2 x 3.2.GHZ Intel Xeon CPU, 8GB RAM, 2 x 300GB internal HD (SCSI sandwich) for ESX Server Console and guests 15 Guests per host

10 Architecture, continued Total Hosted Desktops = 948 Hosted Desktop solution was Implemented: In house after consulting with our VMware Canada Systems Engineer, reviewing documents published by VMware and IBM, and the wealth of information provided by VMTN.

11 Architecture, continued Performance tweaks Workload = "TerminalServices" uuid.action = "keep

12 Architecture, continued Hosted Desktop Architecture Internal Clients External Clients Remote Access via dedicated links Desktop Hosting Virtual Infrastructure Remote Access via VPN

13 Architecture, continued

14 Future Growth More outsourcing of call centers to reduce costs Customer Care representatives need the ability to tele-work Provide a workstation pool for developers

15 Questions?

16 Process Improvement Using Hosted Desktops with ESX Server and VirtualCenter Case Study: Talisman Energy Information Services Craig Cook, Practice Lead Long View Systems John Frainetti, Systems Engineer Talisman Energy

17 Company Talisman Energy Large, internationally diversified oil and gas producer. Based in Canada, we are also a major North American natural gas supplier Approximately 4,000 employees world wide Retained earnings, end of year 2004: $2.24 billion CDN

18 Problem / Requirement Talisman was looking to streamline operations for: Developers Application packagers User application testing Talisman was looking to reduce hardware costs Limit PC deployments to one PC/user

19 Possible Solutions Solutions PC with Windows 2000 Citrix or Windows Terminal Server VMware Workstation Issues Management, cost, extra hardware requirements (PC, monitor, network, power) OS Differences, licensing costs Non-standard hardware required (increased memory), difficult to manage centrally

20 Why Hosted Desktop with ESX Server Reduce the number of physical desktops as much as 5:1 Reduce time to deliver hardware for application testing from weeks to minutes Centralized management using VirtualCenter Eliminate time spent waiting to re-image machines (due to virtual disk snapshots) Accomplish all of this using standard desktop hardware (other solutions required beefed up desktops to achieve this) Easier to deploy than other solutions Better performance than other solutions

21 Architecture Product components VMware ESX Server and VirtualCenter VNC (Windows 2000 does not support RDP) HP DL360 Servers (2 CPU, 8GB RAM) HP MSA 1500 SAN Storage Windows 2000 Professional Guests (using VirtualCenter Templates)

22 Architecture, continued Solution was designed and implemented by: LONG VIEW VMware Authorized Consultants Premier Enterprise Partner 18 VCPs in Western North America

23 Architecture, continued hp StorageWorks msa/san Switch hp StorageWorks msa 2 SAN Switch Workers hp StorageWorks hp StorageWorks hp StorageWorks Remote Access Desktop Hosting Virtual Infrastructure

24 Challenges/Workarounds Media access (CD, floppy, etc.) Have someone insert CD into ESX Server (painful) Map network share to users workstation CD-ROM drive (workable) Use VirtualCenter Client to map local CD-ROM drive (coming soon) VirtualCenter security architecture Team leads have the ability to manage all virtual machines within their groups folder structure (including deployment from templates) Users can only see and affect the virtual machines assigned to them Users can commit, discard REDO logs for virtual disks to manage snapshots and avoid the time consuming RIS process

25 Further Possibilities Thin client architecture using hosted desktops Undoable disk simplifies desktop management IP load balancer directs users to a desktop (can be static or dynamic) Softricity SoftGrid is used to manage application deployments and conflicts Custom scripts discard REDO logs when user logs out (system is always clean build greatly reduces support costs)

26 Questions?

27 Summary Manageability Scalability Security

28 Hands-on Labs: LAB005: Thursday, October 20 th 2:00pm 4:00pm Lagoon H LAB005: Thursday, October 20 th 4:30pm 6:30pm Lagoon H

29 Questions?

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