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Tag Archive: vmware

virtual desktops in the higher education world

As I was working on my post about my adoption of the “VDI Lifestyle” I started thinking about the role and viability of virtual desktops in higher education in general.  It’s great that I’ve adopted it and use it the way I do, personally.  And I do think that the reasons why I’ve taken to it so thoroughly are important for many users to consider.    But from a strategic planning perspective, how do virtual desktops it fit into higher ed?

Operationally, a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a pretty complex setup.  It has a lot of moving parts, and it relies on all of the moving parts all the time to be successful.  For us, that means VMWare View as the backbone, Unidesk for management of the desktops, Active Directory for access, and all kinds of hardware connected as thin clients, converted retired desktops, all-in-one clients with built-in monitors, and then many staff using full-function desktops with the VDI software.  There are servers (7 of them serving 300 desktops – imagine if you were a much larger institution), a fast storage array (running solid state drives), network switches and lots of blinking lights.  We’ve had hundreds of hours of configurations and many lessons learned the hard way.

So on the one hand, it’s a tough proposition for a small IT shop.  Even a medium sized one, if you don’t have dedicated folks, it’s not going to be easy.  There is more than enough specialized, proprietary knowledge to require quite a bit of staff time.  This is a key part of making a strategic decision to move forward.

There are significant benefits, though.  Centralized management, a clearly-defined budgeting plan (either servers or perhaps Desktop as a Service), addressing server and desktop needs all at once (a big issue for us when we started), and quick response to user requests (need SAS on your desktop?  Just give me 10 minutes, reconnect and it’ll be there) are just a few.  When the moving parts are in sync, it’s quite beautiful.  So for the administrator, it is a powerful tool, and for support staff, a way to ease the load.  And if we can ease the the administrative overhead, then we can allocate resources to other needs, such as in-person desktop support or personal consultation.

But making strategic decisions isn’t just about internal operations or ease of administration.  That’s all about the department.  What truly matters is what we can deliver to the end user.  Desktops for work productivity is a Business Service Catalog component, and we must never forget that we are trying to meet customer needs here, not our own.

The first question I ask myself when making strategic decisions is “how will this improve productivity for the staff, faculty, or students?”  Yes, sometimes these discussions are quite short – without an ERP, we don’t get much done at all, so we need to have one.  Upgrades to networking, wireless connectivity, and other factors are all in the same ball park.  But there are lots of other services that do require some more thought, and something as fundamental as one’s computer certainly does (or should) fall into that category.  Most of the time the average computer will meet all needs.  But one size does not fit all – will the standard desktop handle the work of a statistics researcher?  What about laptop users?  Ultrabooks vs. desktop replacement?

And if virtual desktops are under consideration, will what we can provide centrally meet the productivity needs of others? (more…)

June 20, 2013 Higher Education IT, , , 0 Read more >

livin’ la VDI loca

[thanks to Tom Rose from Unidesk, with whom Menlo College works closely, for some editorial suggestions and cleanup]

There is a big difference between technology that you use as a tool, and one that becomes a foundation of how you get work done.  A computer used to be a tool to access digital assets when needed.  Now the only way we can be productive at all is to be at a workstation or on a laptop.  We used to do searches for what restaurants are nearby and how to get from point A to point B, and now we would probably be lost  forever without our smart phones.

I’ve had an experience like this recently, with our virtual desktops at Menlo College.

This has been my first exposure to a Virtual Desktop Implementation, commonly referred to as VDI.  Here at Menlo,  the desktops being served by the installation are also called VDIs (our VDI system supplies users with their VDI desktops).  For the tech-heads, our implementation is based on VMware View (as compared to Citrix or Microsoft’s VDI/Hyper-V) with Unidesk to provision and manage our desktops.  Unidesk allows us to build applications in layers which we can basically mix and match as we wish.  Then View delivers that customized desktop to the user or lab.

It’s took the first 7  months of my time here, but I’ve made it through that paradigm shift, from seeing VDI as something “on the side” to relying on VDI as the a core component of how I work.  Without VDI, I would not be able to do my job.

When I arrived at Menlo, I had a laptop docked and connected to all my peripherals and powering two 22″ displays.  I had a VDI allocated to me, but I connected very, very rarely and only via the software client on my laptop.  So I was using my full-featured laptop to connect only as-needed to my VDI.

Later on, just to test our new VDI build (we upgraded throughout Fall 2012 and Spring 2013) and some new software (Office 2013), I had a Samsung All-In-One 22″ thin client (over which I actually prefer a standalone client)  installed in my office.  This was in addition to my laptop.

Because Office is an everyday application, I was on the VDI fairly often.  Rather than spin my chair around and around to use both my VDI for Office but my laptop for everything else, I would slowly start using the VDI for email, calendaring, and creation of documents  – not just testing Office, but using it.  I added some more applications, and eventually found myself with a VDI desktop that did everything my laptop could.

Then, around early April, 7 months in, I was in a meeting, with my laptop, and realized that what I needed was a file I still had open on my VDI.  So I connected, again from the client software on my laptop but this time stayed in the VDI the whole time.  I was now using the laptop merely as an interface.

One particularly important aspect of doing this was that even though I was connecting from my laptop in the meeting room and a thin client from my office, it was still the same VDI.  I wasn’t running two different desktops.  I was connecting to the same exact one.  If I disconnected in my office and then connected in a meeting room, everything comes up just as it was before.  I am not restarting.  I am not logging off.  There is virtually no lag before I’m up and running again, right from where I left off.

Later that week I purchased a 10″ tablet (VMware View runs on both iOS and Android), gave my laptop up to one of my staff, and haven’t looked back.  My main workstation is now the same two monitors but this time connected to a thin client not much bigger than a cable modem that offers audio, high quality dual output video, and even USB device support (including my web cam, though it’s choppy sometimes and can’t do HD).

When I’m in a meeting, I often do take notes in the cloud (Google Keep, usually) but have my VDI running just in case I need to jump over and access my more extensive materials in Microsoft OneNote.  OneNote is an incredibly feature-rich, designed-for-notetaking application that I’ve been using since it came out.  And it doesn’t run on iOS or Android and I’ve struggled with that incompatibility for years, but it does on my VDI.  When I am at home, I use my desktop and connect to my VDI.

I don’t do any Menlo work outside of my VDI.

I am now “livin’ la VDI loca.”  It is an integral, almost inseparable part of how I get work done, not just a tool for getting onto our campus network or for access to a restricted resource.   It empowers me to use my personalized work environment from anywhere, as long as I have an internet connection.

I did eventually get an ultrabook laptop, by the way, because there are of course some times when I am not on the internet.  But I haven’t bothered to personalize it beyond the basics.  Because now the laptop is just a tool, just a way for me to connect to my real workspace, my VDI.

 

June 10, 2013 Higher Education IT, , , , 5 Read more >