Tag: Remote Desktop Services

Whitepaper: A Guide to Hyper-V Dynamic Memory

I’ve just published a new document or guide that is subtitled as “Understanding, enabling, and configuring Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Dynamic Memory for virtualised workloads”.

This whitepaper will walk you through:

  • The mechanics of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V Dynamic Memory
  • The scenarios that you’ll employ it in
  • The pre-requisites for Dynamic Memory
  • Configuring Dynamic Memory
  • Some of the application workload scenarios

“We normally don’t like it when a service pack includes new features. New features mean changes that need to be tested, possible compatibility issues, and more headaches in between the usual operating system deployment cycles. Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 came with a number of new features but we did not complain; in fact, we virtualisation engineers had a mini celebration. This is because those new features were mostly targeted at server and desktop/session virtualisation, and aimed to give us a better return on hardware investment.

Dynamic Memory was one of those new features. Put very simply, this VM memory allocation feature allows us to get more virtual machines on to a Hyper-V host without sacrificing performance.

You can use Dynamic Memory in a few scenarios. The one that gets the most publicity is virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) where economic PCs are replaced by expensive virtual machines running in the data centre. It’s critical to get as many of them on a host as possible to reduce the cost of ownership. Server virtualisation is the scenario that we techies are most concerned with. We’ve typically found that we tend to run out of memory before we get near to the processor or storage I/O limits of our hardware. And the final scenario is where we use Hyper-V to build an Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud, where elasticity and greater virtual machine density are required.

The approach that Microsoft took with this new memory optimisation technique ensures that concepts such as over commitment are not possible; that’s because over commitment potentially does cause performance issues. Dynamic Memory does require that you understand how it works, how to troubleshoot it, and how applications may be affected, before you log into your hosts and start enabling it. It will require some planning.

The aim of this document is to teach you how Dynamic Memory works, show you how to configure it, how to monitor it, and how to use it in various application scenarios”.

The document continues …

Credit:

Big shout out to the Hyper-V PMs and my fellow MVPs for the many conversations over the past year that allowed us to learn a lot.

Windows Thin PC for Software Assurance Customers

Microsoft has released WinTPC as an additional benefit for software assurance customers.  You can get access to this benefit with SA for your desktops, or by buying VDA VDI licensing.  Microsoft is aiming this version of Windows at those who are moving to VDI/RDS session hosts, and who want to convert some or all PCs into terminals.  Terminals are expensive so WinTPC gives you another option.  It will allow you to reuse existing PC hardware by converting them into terminals, but using the latest generation of Windows as the terminal OS.  You’ll still have access to features like BitLocker, DirectAccess, RemoteFX, and AppLocker.  You can also use System Center to manage WinTPC devices.  Eventually, you’ll want to recycle your PC hardware, and then you can switch to dedicated terminal devices.

The system requirements for WinTPC are:

  • 1 GHz or faster processor
  • 1GB RAM
  • 16GB hard disk space
  • DirectX 9 graphics device with Windows Display Driver Model 1.0 or later
  • Bootable DVD-ROM drive

I’m wondering about that DVD requirement.  I’ve not involved myself in the beta, but surely the DVD requirement is not necessary if you deploy the OS using the network – this appears to be a supported option according to the FAQ.

RemoteApp for Hyper-V

I’ve either completely forgotten this application compatibility solution or it escaped by my attention.  RemoteApp for Hyper-V is a VDI solution that allows you to publish apps from the following VDI VM guest operating systems to end users via RDP:

  • Windows XP SP3: Professional
  • Windows Vista SP1 and above: Enterprise and Ultimate
  • Windows 7: Enterprise and Ultimate

You can set it up in a “standalone” format where you manually create VMs, RDP files, and configure end user machines.  Alternatively you can create a full RDS VDI farm, using the RD Connection Broker. 

This product isn’t as manageable as a normal RDSH (session host) RemoteApp solution but it sure seems like a better (manageable) way to do appcompat than XP Mode (which is cheaper), thanks to the centralisation of VMs that can be easily deployed via SCVMM/SCE/or Hyper-V import/copy.

Speaking at PubForum This Week

PubForum Dublin 2011 started today with a “pre-con” master class on Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services, focusing on VDI.  The speakers are Christa Anderson, Kristin Griffin (contributed but couldn’t be here) (both of them them wrote Windows Server® 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services Resource Kit), Alex Yushchenko (RDS MVP, and the organiser), and me.

Christa is an RDS program manager in Microsoft and therefore is a fountain of knowledge.  She’s speaking right now.  I’m sitting here, listening, and making the most of the learning opportunity.

I’ll be doing a 2 hour brain dump on Hyper-V/SCVMM/backup in a VDI context.  My slide deck is monstrous.  I’ve had to drop a check point into it so I can see how I’m doing for time.  I’m not hitting all possible subjects, but I am focusing on what I think is critical, and some of the usual “pits” that I find people fall into.

Tomorrow I have a Microsoft Private Cloud session.  That’ll be funny; VMware will be in the next room talking about their solution.

And on Friday I have a 15 minute session.  I’d thought about doing an update session on Dynamic Memory but that is being covered in another 1 hour session.  And I thought about CSV/backup but I’m doing that today and it requires more than 15 minutes.  I think I’ll do a BYOQ session combined with chalk’n’talk.

More Microsoft Downloads to Consider

Windows Server 2008: Planning for Active Directory Forest Recovery

“This guide contains best-practice recommendations for recovering an Active Directory forest, if forest-wide failure has rendered all domain controllers in the forest incapable of functioning normally”.

iSCSI Initiator Users Guide for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

“Users Guide for the iSCSI Initiator”.

Holistic Approach to Energy Efficieny in Datacenters

“The Datacenter Efficiency whitepaper discusses Microsoft’s holistic approach”.

RD Virtualization Host Capacity Planning in Windows Server 2008 R2

“This white paper is intended as a guide for capacity planning of RD Virtualization Host in Windows Server 2008 R2”.

Microsoft Application Request Routing Version 2.5 for IIS 7 X86 & X64

“Microsoft Application Request Routing (ARR) for IIS7 is a proxy based routing module that forwards HTTP requests to application servers based on HTTP headers and server variables, and load balance algorithms. ARR Version 2.5 improves the performance and scalability of disk caching features in ARR”.

RemoteFX for Everyone?

A question that is bouncing around now is: Should I plan on using RemoteFX for everyone?

Short answer: probably not.

Long answer: …

Let’s step back.  In 1996 you probably (or your colleagues/predecessors) gave everyone a laptop or PC.  Then we all started hearing about this thing called server based computing.  The big players were Citrix with something called WinFrame, based on Windows Server NT 3.51 (when it required real IT pros to network a PC or server).  Not long after that the Citrix/MS relationship changed and we had Terminal Services which could be extended by the Citrix solution.

That’s about when some sales & marketing people (we didn’t have bloggers back then, did we?), and yes, a few of us consultants, started shouting that the PC was dead … long live the server!

Things didn’t quite work out like that.  Instead, Terminal Services (and the rest) usually became a niche solution.  It was great for delivering awkward applications to end users, especially when they were remote to some server, working from home or in a branch office.  But the PC still dominated end user computing.

Not long after, I remember a rather large consultant colleague from Berkley who derided me for learning more about Windows.  Didn’t I know that the Penguin would rule the world?!?!?!  Hmm … anyway …

Then a few years ago we saw how server virtualisation was being modified (with the help of a broker) to take the remote client of server based computing and provide connectivity to centrally located VMs with desktop operating systems.  VDI hit the headlines.  I’ve swung back and forth on this one so many times that I feel like a politician in election season.  At first I loved the idea of VDI.  It gave us the benefits of Terminal Services without the complexity of application compatibility (application silos) while retaining individual user environments.  Then I hated it.  The costs are so high compared to PC computing and you actually need more management systems instead of less.  And now I’m kinda swinging back to liking it again.

This is because I think it fits nicely in as part of an overall strategy.  I can see most people needing PC’s.  But sometimes, VDI is the right solution when people need an individual working environment that won’t be interfered with and they need it to be centralised.  But sometimes remote desktop (terminal) services (RDS) is the right solution.  That’s because it gives that centralised environment but at very dense rates of user/server that just cannot be matched by VDI.  And guess what: sometimes you need PC, VDI and RDS all in the same infrastructure, just for different users.

But let’s get back on track.  What about RemoteFX?  Would every user not want it?  And what the hell is RemoteFX?

RemoteFX is a feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1.  In other words, it’s a few weeks old (after heavy public beta/RC testing).  It allows Hyper-V VDI hosts or RDS session hosts to take advantage of one or more (identical) graphics cards in the physical server to provide high definition graphics to remote desktop clients.  That solves a problem for some users who want to use those graphics intensive applications.  Without RemoteFX, the graphics suck as bitmaps are drawn on screen.  But RemoteFX adds the ability to leverage the GPUs, combined with a new channel, to smoothly stream the animation over the wire.  It also allows client-attached USB devices to be redirected to the user session without the need for drivers on the client.  Sounds great, eh?  Everyone on VDI or RDS should have it!  Or should they?

You can find the hardware requirements for RemoteFX on TechNet.  And this is where things start to get sticky.  A user with a single normal monitor will require up to 184 MB of video card RAM.  That doesn’t sound like much until you start to think about it.  I’ve done a little searching on the HP side.  The largest card that they support is a NVIDIA Quadro FX5800which has 4 GB RAM.  That means that a HP GPU can handle 22 users!  You can team the cards but you can only get so many into a host.  For example, one of the 3 or 4 servers that HP supports for RemoteFX is the 5U tall ML370 G6 (not your typical virtualisation or session host spec) and it only takes 2 cards.  That’s 44 users which is not all that much, especially when we consider large multi-core CPUs, huge RAM capacities, SAN storage, and Dynamic Memory.  I don’t think this is a failing of RemoteFX; I think this is just a case of applications needing video RAM.  This type of technology is still very early days and video card manufacturers are watching and waiting.

There are special rack kits that contain lots of video processor/RAM capacity that can be hooked onto servers.  One of my fellow MVPs is using one of these.  They work but they are expensive.

And then there’s the other requirement: network.  This stuff is designed to work with 1 Gbps LANs, not for WANs.

So back to where we started: Should I plan on using RemoteFX for everyone?  For most people the answer will be no.  There will be a very small number who will answer yes.  Think about it.  How many end users really do need the features of RemoteFX?  Not all that many.  Implement it for everyone and you’ll have more, bigger hosts, hosting fewer users.  You’ll also be limited to using it in the LAN.

I think we’re back to the horses for courses argument.  Maybe you’ll have something like the following or a variation of it (because there are lots of variations on this):

  • A lot of PCs/laptops on the main network
  • Some people using VDI with whatever broker suits them
  • Some GPU intensive applications being published to PCs/laptops/VDI via RDS session hosts
  • And a measure of App-V for RDS and ConfigMgr to take care of it all!

The PC is dead!  Long live the PC!  But what about the iPad? *running while I still can*

74% Of Workers Plug Personal Devices Into Work Network

I’ve just read a story on techcentral.ie that discusses a Virgin Media (UK-based ISP) report.  It says that 74% of company employees are bringing personal devices into work and plugging them into the company network.  This is the sort of thing I was talking about in my previous millenials post.  It’s also the sort of thing that has impacted decision making by corporates: personal preferences for a better appliance or utility can improve the working experience, and the corporate decision making process.  We have to decide how we respond?

Do we try to block everything?  We can try.  Group Policy and utilities like DeviceLock can lock down what is plugged into PCs.  Network Access Protection (Windows)/Network Access Control (Cisco) can control what is allowed to connect to the network.  I’ve taken the device lock approach before.  But a valid business case always overrules global policy, and you might be surprised how many people come up with “valid” business cases.  Soon the policy resembles swiss cheese, only affecting the minority of users.  The result is that IT is disliked – it’s a blocking force once again.

The user-centric approach that we’re seeing with private cloud, App-V, and System Configuration Manager 2012 is an example of how we need to think.  My millenials post also suggests a way forward.  Maybe we need to allow personal appliances, but use those policy tools like Network Access Control to place the appliances into networks that are not central, kind of like the guest network that is often used.  Or maybe we need to change how we think about the PC altogether and treat the entire PC network as a guest network. 

The latter approach might work very well with the user-centric approach.  If end users are using their own PCs, tablets, and phones, then we cannot apply corporate policy to them.  Maybe we just provide user-centric self-service mechanisms and let them help themselves.  Or maybe things like VDI and/or RemoteApp are the way forward for LOB client delivery.  If everythign was cloud (public/provate) and web-client based then application delivery would be irrelevant.  Maybe it’s a little bit from column A and a little from column B?

It’s a big topic and would require a complete shift in thinking … and a complete re-deployment of the client network, including LOB application interfaces.

RemoteFX Deployment Guides

Microsoft has published guides for deploying RemoteFX.  RemoteFX is a new Windows Server 2008 R2 feature that is added with Service Pack 1 (currently a pre-RTM RC release).  It allows a Windows Server 2008 R2 server to virtualise a graphics card (GPU).  That means that Remote Desktop Services (VDI and Session Hosts aka Terminal Servers) can use a host server’s GPU to process high quality graphics, and stream them down to a “dumb” terminal.  Citrix is also including support for this in their Dazzle.

Windows User Group Ireland, September 10th 2010

The Windows User Group is back with a day-long event featuring updates on the latest in Microsoft IT infrastructure. Join us on Friday, September 10th in the Microsoft Auditorium in Leopardstown to hear expert speakers talking about Windows Server, virtualization, Exchange, unified messaging, and System Center for the small/medium enterprise. This day will give you valuable information that will educate you on what benefits new technologies from Microsoft will bring to your business.

The agenda is

Start

Finish

Session

Speaker

08:45

09:15

Registration

09:15

10:45

Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX

Aidan Finn (MVP), System Dynamics

10:45

11:00

Break

11:00

12:30

Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2010

Nathan Winters (MVP), Grey Convergence

12:30

13:15

Lunch

13:15

14:45

Communications Server 14

John McCabe (MVP), CDSoft Limited

14:45

15:00

Break

15:00

16:30

System Center Essentials 2010: Enterprise Management for the SME Customer

Wilbour Craddock, Microsoft

You can register and attend the event for free.

Date: Friday, September 10th, 2010

Location: EPDC-2, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18

Registration: 08:45 to 09:15 with a strict start time of 09:15

The detailed agenda and speakers’ bios are as follows:

Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX (90 Minutes – 09:15 until 10:45)

Speaker: Aidan Finn (MVP: Virtual Machine), Infrastructure Team Lead with System Dynamics

Webcast: LiveMeeting

Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is around the corner. It introduces some new features that will be of huge interest to anyone that is interested in Hyper-V or Remote Desktop Services (including Citrix software). Memory is often the main constraint in virtual machine to host density. Dynamic IT provides a new mechanism for configuring virtual machines with a variable amount of memory. Aidan will discuss what over commitment is and how it is bad. He’ll then introduces you to the mechanics behind Dynamic Memory and show it in action. Aidan will also introduce you to RemoteFX. This is a new solution to provide high quality graphics, such as 1080p video, to Remote Desktop clients. This will be used in Remote Desktop Services and compatible Citrix solutions.

About Aidan Finn:

Aidan is the Infrastructure Team Lead with System Dynamics, a consulting services company located in Dublin that provides IT infrastructure and business intelligence expertise. He has been working in IT since 1996 and has specialised in working with Microsoft infrastructure solutions including Server, desktop, System Center and virtualisation. Aidan is an MCSE and a Microsoft Valuable Professional with an expertise in virtualization. Aidan co-wrote Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 (Sybex), is the lead author of Mastering Hyper-V Deployment (Sybex), and is contributing to Mastering Windows 7 Deployment (Sybex). You can find his blog at https://aidanfinn.com.

Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2010 (90 Minutes – 11:00 until 12:30)

Speaker: Nathan Winters (MVP: Exchange), Unified Communications Lead with Grey Convergence

Webcast: LiveMeeting

Exchange 2010 SP1 was announced at TechEd US 2010 and contains some exciting enhancements to Exchange 2010. This session will first set the context for these new features and then walk you through what is now possible:

· Reminder of the Exchange 2010 core tenets

· An update on where Microsoft is with Exchange Online

· Introduction to the Feature Enhancements of Exchange 2010 SP1 such as:

· The New Exchange Control Panel Management UI

· Improved High Availability and Disaster Recovery functionality

· Improved Outlook Web App UI and Performance

· Better Mobile Device Experience

· New Information Protection and Control

Ø Personal Archive Enhancements

Ø Retention Policy Management Enhancements

Ø Multi-Mailbox Search Enhancements

· Demo

· Questions & Answers

About Nathan Winters:

Nathan Winters is the unified communications lead at Grey Convergence, a specialist Microsoft partner for unified communications and collaboration. Nathan has been working in IT for eight years and specializes in unified communications with a focus on Microsoft Exchange and Office Communications Server. Nathan has consulted at numerous Fortune 100 companies across a variety of vertical markets.

In 2006, Nathan founded the Microsoft Messaging and Mobility User Group UK, which holds regular meetings in the UK to discuss topics related to Exchange. In 2007, Nathan was named an MVP (Exchange Server) for his work with MMMUG and his regular contributions to the Mark Minasi Forum, and he has received the same honour each year since.

Nathan’s articles have been published on leading websites and magazines, including Windows IT Pro Magazine, MSExchange.org, Simple-Talk.com, Microsoft (TechNet Industry Insiders), and the MMMUG website.

You can contact Nathan at nathan@clarinathan.co.uk or through his blog at http://www.nathanwinters.co.uk

Communications Server 14 (90 Minutes – 13:15 until 14:45)

Speaker: John McCabe (MVP: Unified Communications), Technical Consultant with CDSoft

Webcast: LiveMeeting

Communications Server 2010 (Wave 14) is Microsoft’s Next Generation Unified Communications Platform. It brings many new features including a completely new UI. John will bring you through the main features and some of the new supported scenarios available in this platform and discuss how you can even use it now to replace your PBX! This really will be a serious contender for businesses of all sizes.

About John McCabe:

John currently works as a Technical Consultant for CDSoft Limited providing solutions to the Irish Market Place across multiple industries. John has over 12 years in the IT Industry ranging different disciplines from security, networks and of course Microsoft Infrastructure. John has attained MCITP/MCTS/MCP in various tracks as well as a multiple other professional certifications. John was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in October 2009 for extensive community work and promoting the Microsoft Product Group.

System Center Essentials 2010: Enterprise Management for the SME Customer (90 Minutes – 15:00 until 16:30)

Speaker: Wilbour Craddock, Partner Technical Specialist, Microsoft

Webcast: LiveMeeting

The aim of this session is to provide a technical overview of the key capabilities of SCE 2010, and how it provides an integrated management solution for SMB customers, from hardware right through to the virtual OS’s running on Hyper-V and applications/services in these VM’s. Attendees will gain valuable information around differentiating SCE with the other System Center technologies, which form part of the Server Management Suites, from both a technical, and pricing perspective. We’ll also cover DPM 2010; part of the new SCE Plus SKU, and how it provides a centralized, powerful SMB-friendly application protection and DR solution, protecting both virtualized servers, application workloads, and desktop data.

To help attendees understand the solutions better, we’ll be constructing a customer scenario to provide a complete solution that can be adapted for specific customer and partner engagements. This solution will include both licensing, and pricing information, to give a better idea of the overall solution cost, and ROI. We’ll focus on delivering a demo of this scenario, concentrating particularly on the virtualization management, PRO functionality, hardware integration, and overall management of the environment.

About Wilbour Craddock:

Wilbour is a former Windows Server MVP and Canadian User Group lead now working for Microsoft Ireland in the Partner Team and frequent speaker on the TechNet Ireland tours. Wilbour’s background is not that dissimilar from most IT Professionals, having started on a help desk and progressed through system administration to leadership roles in government organizations serving as a solutions architect overseeing development and deployment teams and helping set long-term IT strategies. He blogs with the TechNet Ireland team on the IEITPro blog.

Deploying Microsoft RemoteFX for Personal Virtual Desktops Step-by-Step Guide

“This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of setting up a working personal virtual desktop that uses RemoteFX in a test environment. Upon completion of this step-by-step guide, you will have a personal virtual desktop with RemoteFX assigned to a user account that can connect by using RD Web Access. You can then test and verify this functionality by connecting to the personal virtual desktop from RD Web Access as a standard user”