Frequently Asked Questions

A virtualization software is an application that transforms hardware into software. A Virtualisation Software allows you to run multiple operating systems on a physical piece of hardware. it enables a physical computer or server to host multiple operating systems often called virtual machines (virtual desktops or servers). 

VDI stands for "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure." It is defined as hosting desktop operating systems on a central server. It is a form of desktop virtualization. The desktop images run in virtual machines are delivered to its end-users over the network instead of being hosted on locally on a machine.   

The benefits of VDI include reduction of bandwith consumption, the ability to access a desktop anytime - anywhere, granular controls over the end-user desktop configuration for security and data prorection purposes, increased desktop performance for the end-user through storage acceleration, a more optimal use of resources at a reduced costs, a faster, simpler backup or disaster recovery process, and finally more control over the IT infrastructure via centralized management.

Video conferenceing and communications with MS Lync for example can be a challenge as each communication stream has to traverse back and forward to the server. VDI can increase network traffic if not properly planned for. Applications which are locked to a specific device (mac address) may be a challenge to implement on a virtual desktop.

An Operating System image is a file that contains a serialized copy of the entire state of a computer system. An image can be used for backup so an operating system can be restored to the same state it was at a specific point in time.

Use cases for VDI revolve three main topics which can be summarized as keeping control over a decentralized IT infrastcuture,  providing mobility and flexibility to the end-users, ass well as increasing security and data compliance. Examples of use cases include organizations with a sprawling infrastructure and remote branches or companies that want to enable BYOD or CYOD provisioning policies but want to mitigate security and data loss risks.

There are several ways that the VDI enables the digital transformation. The first one is that desktops are consumed as services anytime-anywhere while IT support remains centralized. The second way is that your VDI solution should play nice with the rest of your digital technology stacks such as your data visualization, service deskapplications, and Artificial Intelligence solutions to help your organization provide data-driven as well user-centric IT services. Finally, VDI AND virtualization technology will allow you to deploy business applications faster without having to worry about how to scale.    

Software-defined storage (SDS) is a computer program that manages data storage resources and functionality. It removes the software’s dependence on proprietary hardware while simplifying VDI deployment.

Storage performance is typically measured in MBps which measures disk throughput, other key measurements include Input/Output per second (IOPs) and latency (wait time).

Storage is typically measured in overall capacity (space available) and performance.

Not using shared storage reduces complexity. A desktop pool that uses RAM or local disk for its Virtual Machines while being part of the same cluster offers significant advantages.  Each host can be independent while still being part of a larger cluster and infrastructure. 

Default for platform administration https://<IP ADDRESS>:8443

VDI clients are simply used to access the remote desktop hosted on the VDI infrastructure. From the end-user perspective, clients that contribute to the Virtual Machine performance using GPU offloading to the local device are preferable.  

StoreFront authenticates users to Sites hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications that users access. It hosts your enterprise application store, which lets you give users self-service access to desktops and applications you make available to them. It also keeps track of users’ application subscriptions, shortcut names, and other data to ensure they have a consistent experience across multiple devices.

Citrix' XenApp provides an RDS desktop featuring a Windows workspace that can be shared simultaneously by multiple users.

With regards to Hive Fabric,  the UI (user interface) is the same for all virtualization workloads. Other VDI solutions may require to use separate interfaces or tools to manage different types of workloads.

Hive Fabric uses a Cluster Resource Scheduler to balance the workload across the cluster and react to times of resource constraints. The CRS can be enabled from the host Actions menu.  

RDP is Remote Desktop Protocol and is the proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft that allows users to remotely access a Windows session running in a virtual or physical machine.

NFS datastores can be added to the platform through the Storage Pool menu.

Resource utilization is available from the Hive Fabric performance dashboard.

Any memory is allocated from physical memory

Virtual networking is a technology that facilitates data communication between two or more virtual machines, where the networking components have been defined by software (virtualized).

Virtual RAM or memory gives the effect of having larger capacity physical RAM by analyzing processes or tasks that are in RAM and moving them to local disk to enable the physical RAM to be used for active processes.

Microsoft recommends that you set virtual memory to be no less than 1.5 times and no more than 3 times the amount of RAM on your computer.

No, Random access memory (RAM) is physical memory that holds the applications, documents and procedures on a computer.

Virtual memory is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine which "creates the illusion to users of a very large (main) memory.

The operating system makes part of the storage drive available to use as RAM. Virtual memory is much slower than main memory because processing power is being taken up by moving data around, rather than just executing instructions

A VDI boot storm is when several Virtual Machines start up at once i.e. when a workday starts and large numbers of users request VDI desktops, Boot storms are defined by the large IO levels that are a consequence of a large number of request for VMs processed at the same time

You can measure IOPs through various tools like Iometer, login VSI etc

Server virtualization is a virtualization technique that involves partitioning a physical server into a number of small, virtual servers with the help of virtualization software. In server virtualization, each virtual server runs multiple operating system instances at the same time.

Stateless or non persistent VDI is Virtual desktops that are made from a single template or gold image, user data and personalisation can be brought together with a master image to create fresh / new personal desktops every time.

Stress or load on VDI is typically described as IO load.

Storage acceleration is used to improve the performance of slower speed storage through the management of processes and data.

GPU Virtualization is a computer process that virtualizes graphic processes on a back end server instead of the actual endpoint device

VDI Profile management is a process that takes the end-user desktop preferences and application preferences and applies those settings to a virtual desktop master image

Yes, you can rebuild a VDI using the backup of its operating system's image.

x86 is a term used to describe a CPU instruction set compatible with the Intel 8086 and its successors

VSI cloud computing is Server virtualiZation provided and delivered from a hosting provider i.e. the cloud

Security components for VDI Infrastructure

Tools that can be used to measure storage performance and load

Citrix doesn't have a hyperconveregd solution. Citrix uses vendors such as HiveIO or Nutanix as well as other hardware partners

Disaster recovery for Citrix Xendesktop is achieved through VDI architecture as opposed to specific features and functions within Xendesktop. Hive Fabric is one of the solutions that can be used for that purpose.

A Type 1 hypervisor is directly intalled on the host machine's physical hardware, and it's called a bare-metal hypervisor; it requires to load an underlying OS first. Hive Fabric, VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V server and open source KVM are examples of Type 1 hypervisors.

A virtual machine is a computer file, typically called an image, that behaves like an actual computer. In other words, a computer is created within a computer

DaaS or desktop as a service is usually a virtual machine provided by a hosting company or a Managed Service Provider. Desktop-as-a-service providers include Amazon, Desktone (a VMware company) and Citrix.

A Virtual Machine can be used as a desktop, serve or applation. It can host multiple Operating Systems, isolated from each other; A Virtual machine offers an instruction set architecture that may differ from that of its host. Its benefits include easy maintenance, application provisioning, availability and convenient recovery

A Type 2 hypervisor is a Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) that is installed as a software application on an existing operating system (OS). It is also called a hosted hypervisor and is the opposite of a bare-metal hypervisor.

Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a software-defined IT infrastructure that virtualizes all of the elements of conventional "hardware-defined" systems.

A thin client is a lightweight computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment

Does not exist, HyperV is a Micrsoft product

GPU acceleration is the deployment of a GPU (graphical processing unit) and CPU (computer processing unit) in order to facilitate graphic-intensive operations  

A message bus is software or hardware infrastructure supporting sending and receiving messages between distributed systems

A server that is running an application alone

HCI or hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) combines storage, compute, and networking into a single system with. It uses software and x86 servers to replace expensive, purpose-built hardware.

IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second, pronounced i-ops) is a common performance measurement used to benchmark computer storage devices like hard disk drives (HDD), solid state drives (SSD), and storage area networks (SAN).

Pool of virtual desktops using the same configuration and resources

A storage pool is a collection of physical disks. A storage pool enables storage aggregation, elastic capacity expansion, and delegated administration. From a storage pool, you can create one or more virtual disks. These virtual disks are also referred to as storage spaces

Pool of virtual desktops or servers sharing the same resources.

The Cluster Manager lets you manage the fabric infrastructure

Hive Fabric lets you create desktop pools which are typically stateless or persistent, server pools, application pools, and storage pools.

Pooling is the process of grouping together resources with the goal to optimize performance.

A hypervisor hosts, monitors and manages a group of virtual machines, it is the virtualization engine that provides the capability to create virtual desktops.

Bare metal virtualization refers to a Type 1 hypervisor.

A desktop broker provies a secure connection between the end-user and his or her respective renote desktop. It manages remote sessions (VDI).

Default for platform administration https://<IP ADDRESS>:8443

Virtual Machine Monitor is another name for hypervisor. it is the system that manages of VDI or VSI workloads.

An end-user can access any type of virtua ddesktops using the mac agent

Software Defined storage from that was designed by Atlantis computing

Atlants Ilio is Software Defined Storage designed by Atlantis computing and released before USX

A VDI template is the master operating system image used to create Virtual Machine pools

An ISO image is a disk image of an optical disc. In other words, it is an archive file that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, sector by sector, including the optical disc file system. ISO image files bear the .iso filename extension.

You can build a template from an ISO and then build a stateless pool from the template or you could build a new persistent Virtual Machine with an OS ISO image