My rant about Citrix and VMWare bullshitting the industry.

Hi, Max Herrmann here again from the Remote Desktop Services team at Microsoft. Lots of news and activity this week at VMworld in San Francisco, including Microsoft’s open letter to VMware customers. Today, I wanted to discuss a question that is important to our large base of session virtualization customers: How do you decide between virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and session virtualization? And if you have already successfully deployed session virtualization, should you replace it with VDI?

Session virtualization is a centralized desktop computing architecture where multiple users share a single operating system and application image within individual sessions on a Windows Server host. Some key benefits of this architecture are streamlined desktop management, flexible access, and simplified regulatory compliance, all realized by routing the end users to a single desktop image in the datacenter. This sounds a lot like the promise of VDI, specifically of what some vendors, including Microsoft, refer to as (virtual) desktop pools.

This one-to-many relationship between a (more or less) static desktop image and a user population is possible today both with identically configured virtual desktop pools and with session virtualization. Both approaches make the most sense when personalization of the desktop or administrative access to the desktop is not critical for the user’s tasks, or not desirable from an IT support standpoint. This is often the case with so-called task workers, where high user productivity and providing users with a consistent and appropriate user experience specific to their task are important. So which technology—VDI with virtual desktop pools or session virtualization—should a customer deploy? The white paper that we recently published, Achieving Business Value through Microsoft VDI Together with Session Virtualization, provides you with some criteria to consider in your decision. Please also check out Michael’s blog on this subject; he argues that “… pooled VDI can be expensive and painful” – certainly when compared with session virtualization.

Now, what about “personal” virtual desktops: virtual desktops that are dedicated to specific users? What about those customers who deploy a combination of VDI and session virtualization? Well, with desktop virtualization, it always comes down to the use case and the worker profile you are targeting; there is really no one size fits all, and the white paper will actually provide some good, common sense guidance there as well.

The main point is that with Remote Desktop Services you don’t have to choose a single model. Remote Desktop Services in Windows Server 2008 R2 provides customers with a comprehensive platform to explore and deploy these different scenarios, while a whole ecosystem of Remote Desktop Services software and hardware partners provides powerful solutions designed to meet a much broader set of customer requirements. For example, while you could deploy Microsoft's inbox solution for virtual desktop pools on its own in low complexity environments, environments with higher complexity scale virtual desktop pools on top of Hyper-V should be implemented in conjunction with partner solutions such as Citrix XenDesktop. And, because a blog from me without the mention of Microsoft RemoteFX wouldn’t be complete, let me add that you can use products such as vWorkspace from Quest Software or PowerTerm WebConnect from Ericom today with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (now in beta) to experience and enhance a VDI or session virtualization environment with RemoteFX. Check out Ericom’s solution for managed access to RemoteFX desktops; you can find more information on their offering here. Or take a look at this RemoteFX demo which shows some of the work Quest have done to accelerate RemoteFX for the WAN.

If you haven’t already done so, I suggest that you download the beta of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and familiarize yourself with the new virtualization capabilities in it. And make sure you give our partners’ solutions consideration as well, as they will undoubtedly make your life easier as you try and scale up your planned server-hosted desktop environment. As you conduct your evaluation, remember that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Sessions scale, while personal virtual desktops let you give your users more control. Use your own needs—not the limitations of a technology—to decide which model(s) fit(s) your business best.

Hi - by now you might have read there's 17,000 of us attending VMworld in San Francisco. Huge crowds, just as Rick Vanover predicted. Lots of energy and excitement as you can imagine. This post is designed to bring some of the show to you, assuming you're not attending and queuing up to a session 45 mins before the start.

The expo hall started Monday. The attendees who found us were entertained to see 'the biggest little booth' at VMworld. Here's a view. Mike Neil, our GM of Windows Server and Server Virtualization, filmed this 20-minute video from the VMworld blogger lounge (aka, The Cube). After the expo floor closed, we and Citrix hosted a Tweetup. Great conversations and crowd - not to mention the excellent vanilla bean beer made by Thirsty Bear. The discussions reflected the still maturing adoption of virtualization:

• a software gent from Fort Collins is attending VMworld to learn more about server consolidation. They have 100+ servers and are running out of room. We discussed what Hyper-V could do for him, and then after a bit of time it was revealed they're 99% SPARC shop with Java apps. We agreed that he's got to tackle the hardware before the Virt, otherwise Oracle OpenWorld is the show to attend ;-)
• three gents from Rockwell Collins. One gent works desktop support, and the other two gents work the datacenter. We had a good laugh about the power struggle between both camps during VDI projects, but not the case at Rockwell Collins to their credit. The most interesting part of the discussion was the one gent's ability to use session-based access to his email while on the airplane.
• I spoke with a few folks from Joann Fabrics. They're a big System Center shop, and are using ESXi w/ their Windows apps. I stepped into a funny trap when I told them, "My wife loves Joann Fabrics." I guess they hear that line all the time. Dana and crew were kind enough to stop by the booth yesterday, and hopefully we'll see you at a future MMS.

That evening, the Aug. 31 edition of USA Today starting hitting the streets starting in the East Coast. The front news section included this 'open letter' advertisement to VMware customers from Microsoft's Brad Anderson. It turned some heads so far. And, of course, VMware had an appropriate response.

Edwin Yuen published a blog worth reading, as it summarized our demos in the booth. Here's an excerpt:

So at this year's VMworld, we are demoing the cloud solution that Outback Steakhouse created using Windows Azure Platform. Working with a partner, Outback Steakhouse developed and deployed an online marketing campaign in less than eight weeks - the flexibility and scalability of the cloud allowed them to support overwhelming customer response.  The marketing campaign met its goal of 500,000 fans in only 18 days. It's a great example of IT being able to satisfy business and marketing demands with a fast, cost-effective solution.

We will also demo how we're helping customers use the same tools to control and manage Windows Azure-based applications, as they would applications running on Windows Server. Customers can use System Center Operations Manager to monitor the health of applications, whether the apps are on-premises or on Windows Azure, and in return get a complete view of how well all their IT services are running. We showed this demo at Microsoft Management Summit 2010. This solution provides the critical capability to manage your applications regardless of the infrastructure they may run on, whether it be your datacenter or the public cloud with Windows Azure.

Yesterday's keynote was probably the best of the 7 VMworld conferences that I've attended. It was a combination of game day celebration, painting pictures of the future, and showing what here or coming. There were several holes in the presentation. Go here to watch/listen to Mike Neil, Simon Crosby (CTO at Citrix) and Harry Labana (CTO at Citrix) comment on the keynote.

One of the more entertaining lines, or at least the takeaway, is when CEO Paul Maritz said the OS is no longer the center of innovation. His point is that the OS isn't going away, but rather the future innovation will be in virtualization, app frameworks and end-user access. This statement supports his company's lofty P/E ratio and investments in future revenue streams such as SpringSource, vBlock, View 4.5. Thankfully, we offer all that and more today:

OS (Windows Server Hyper-V), app framework (.NET), cloud-scale OS (Windows Azure), common identify and mngt (AD, System Center), desktop optimization (App-V, RDS, RemoteFX).

The meetings yesterday convinced me that Windows Azure much different than EC2 (off-premises IaaS) and VMware's vCloud (private cloud, IaaS), but there's little understanding of what it can do for people today. Coca-Cola, The Tribune Company, RiskMetrics, and Outback Steakhouse are examples that help people understand.

I hope you found this recap useful.

Patrick

 

Just an FYI on a new Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) Knowledge Base article we published today.  If you're having trouble running virtualized apps on your clients and getting something along the lines of Error Code: xxxxxxx-xxxxxx2A-00002AF9 then you'll want to check this one out:

Symptoms

An application on an App-V client fails to launch with the following error:

The Application Virtualization Client could not launch application name.
No such host is known.
Error Code: xxxxxxx-xxxxxx2A-00002AF9

Cause

This issue can occur if the server name specified in the HREF attribute in the application .osd file is incorrect.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, perform the following steps:

1. On the App-V Management Server, open the application .osd file and scroll down to the following line:

<CODEBASE HREF="rtsp://servername:554/ApplicationDirectory/Application.sft"

2. Verify that the server name specified in the HREF attribute is correct.

Example: If the App-V Management Server name is Appv-Svr, the HREF attribute should look like the example below:

<CODEBASE HREF="rtsp://Appv-Svr:554/ApplicationDirectory/Application.sft"

3. Once the sever name is corrected in the application .osd file, open the Application Virtualization Client MMC snap-in on the App-V client and refresh the Publishing Server.

4. Launch the application on the App-V client.

For the latest version of this information please see the following new Knowledge Base article:

KB2271253 - A virtualized application on a Microsoft App-V client fails to launch with Error Code: 2A-00002AF9

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

It’s only one win. But for Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization push, it could be a key victory in the global virtualization war vs. VMware. Specifically, CH2M HILL expects to save a projected $3.2 million over the next several years by switching from VMware virtualization solutions to Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor. Here’s the story.

Microsoft's Hyper-V is finding a home in the SMB market, but will it grab more second-tier enterprise servers, as virtualization and licensing costs expand? Some analysts say yes, despite VMware's superior management and automation tools.

The Remote Desktop Services Component Architecture Poster is available in PDF format on the Microsoft Download Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=200520).

This poster provides a visual reference for understanding key Remote Desktop Services technologies in Windows Server 2008 R2. It explains the functions and roles of Remote Desktop Session Host, Remote Desktop Virtualization Host, Remote Desktop Connection Broker, Remote Desktop Web Access, Remote Desktop Gateway, and Remote Desktop Licensing and RemoteFX.

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My experience with the Citrix Receiver for the iPad

Earlier today, the Hyper-V team released several Hyper-V updates as a single update package via Windows Update. These updates have been publicly available for some time now, but now they are available packaged together as a single roll-up for the convenience of customers.

There are three issues resolved with this update:

• Compatibility with Intel Nehalem Processors
• Compatibility with Intel Westmere Processors
• A network issue when, under extreme network load, the VM network connection is lost.

For specifics on the issues resolved with this update, please see this KB article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2264080

I’ll be posting more this week about what you’ll see when you visit the Microsoft booth (#1431) at VMworld 2010 U.S. conference next week. You can read an overview at NetworkWorld.

But last week a virtualization industry insider and consultant who has followed Microsoft virtualization for 5+ years and has met with Microsoft at the last 5-6 VMworld conferences, wrote the following to me:

“I really don't get why you guys insist on exhibiting at VMworld. The number of people stopping by must be huge to justify it.”

His email made me pause. If this gentleman doesn’t know why we’re there, then many others must wonder the same. I/we answered that question lots of times the first few years at VMworld, but the questions have diminished in the last few years. So I reflected on why we participate at VMworld, and wanted to share our thinking. At the high level, VMworld attendees are Microsoft customers: 

·        Approximately 75% of VMworld attendees run Windows Server (estimate based on industry analyst data of virtualized OSes)

·        About 50% of VMworld attendees run Microsoft server applications, such as Exchange, SQL, Sharepoint (estimate based on market share data)

·        Nearly 90% of VMworld attendees run Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 and MS Office (estimate based on market share data)

We first chose to exhibit at VMworld in 2005 because it was marketed as an industry event, and we wanted feedback on our virtualization solution from the early adopters. Since then, most booth visitors at VMworld have encouraged Microsoft’s participation at the event because they benefit from industry competition and they have questions for us. Here’s a summary of highlights from each year:

·        At VMworld 2005, attendees kicked the tires on Virtual Server, and Diane Greene stopped by the booth to thank us for being there. This was the only time a VMware executive came to our booth.

·        At VMworld 2006, the booth was so crowded we gave out 1,500 t-shirts in 150 minutes on Day 1; we handed out 4,600 t-shirts during the entire show. We generated 300+ sales leads. See a recap here.

·        At VMworld 2007, we had 200+ sales leads and a busy booth with people interested in “Viridian” and “SoftGrid.” See blog post here.

·        At VMworld 2008 Europe, we launched Windows Server 2008 and gave out 2,000 copies of the launch kit. It was the first time European customers saw us at VMworld, and we received over 200 sales leads. See Mike Neil’s interview here.

·        At VMworld 2008, we reached 3,800 attendees in less than 90 minutes, which translated into 175K visits in 7 days to a marketing website. We also co-presented with VMware about the Server Virtualization Validation Program, and met with representatives of 55 VMware partners.

·        At VMworld 2009 Europe, over 250 people attended our session. We handed out 500 copies of eval software, and met with representatives of 30 VMware partners.

·        At VMworld 2009, the first year of our 10x10 booth, we attracted 2,500 new followers to Microsoft via social media, and generated about 100 sales leads.

·        At VMworld 2010 and VMworld Europe 2010 … we shall see.

We get a ton of value from participating in the industry discussions at VMworld and, based on the feedback we get at the booth, conference attendees appreciate that we’re there.

I’m interested in your thoughts on our attendance at VMworld. Should we try to expand our presence at VMworld, or some other industry event? Should we opt out and focus on adding more virtualization content to Microsoft conferences (e.g., MS Management Summit, MS TechEd, Worldwide Partner conference)? Or should we just print lot, lots more Microsoft t-shirts?

Patrick

Jeff Alexander: About 4 years ago myself and Kleefy were frustrated at how slow it was to do all the demo’s we do on laptops computers.  Sure laptops are fast enough these days and you can do some things to trick them out and make them faster.  Back in 2006 though we decided to build our own shuttle PC’s and to be honest they served us well for many years

For the second straight year Microsoft   won't bother showcasing its primary virtualization technology at VMworld, because it believes the conference's sponsor and exhibitor agreement prevents vendors from demonstrating products that compete against VMware.

Microsoft appears to be the only major vendor taking this stance, as even its partner Citrix has decided to step up its presence at VMworld and will showcase XenDesktop, which competes directly against VMware's desktop virtualization software.

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My take on Intel buying McAfee.

Just a quick note that we published a new Knowledge Base article today that documents the supported command line options for the Microsoft App-V 4.5 Management Server.  I'm not going to duplicate it all here but if you want to check it out see the following link:

KB2384955 - Supported command line options for the Microsoft App-V 4.5 Management Server installer.

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer

As part of the RDP Client Licensing program, RDP licensees are now able to get reference source code for an implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol and its extensions.

Important to note:

• This is for reference only. Copying is not provided.
• This is only for the client side of the Remote Desktop Protocol.
• This applies to RDP Client version 7.1.
• The code is written in C++.
• The RDP client reference source code will be provided together with a small testing utility.

The following table outlines the functionality included in the RDP client reference code.

Feature

Details

Connectivity and capability, including codec negotiation

Maintains connectivity stages and client capability exchange

Bitmap remoting

Enables bitmap remoting over Remote Desktop Protocol

Bitmap compression

Includes multiple bitmap decoding codecs, including the basic RLE and latest RDP 7.1 RemoteFX codec

Bulk compression

Includes multiple bulk compressors, including the most recent RDP 7 era decompressors

Clipboard redirection

Supports copy and paste of content and files between remote sessions or between local and remote sessions

Audio playback redirection

Enables audio remoting over RDP and played on the client device

This code will be made available as an amendment to the existing RDP Client License. For more information, contact Dick Greeley (dickg@microsoft.com) or iplicreq@microsoft.com.

The following table shows changes in storage.  Some of the changes are performance related like hot add of storage.  This helps performance by reducing the time it takes to add new storage.  The big things to note are increases in IO Sizes passed from VM’s and huge improvements in Dynamic VHDs.

Ben Armstrong: I got asked this question a couple of weeks ago – and I did not know the answer.  After a bit of investigation – I now know the answer – and thought I would take the time to share it with the world (if you do not know what Sysprep is – go and read this first).  The short answer is:

Everything just works.

The long answer is as follows:

Prior to Window Server 2008 R2 (namely in Windows Server 2008) you could run into a couple of problems.  In Windows Server 2008 R2 we have implemented a Sysprep provider to ensure that everything goes smoothly.

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