EUC

The mobile SDDC and EUC lab environment

With my  company I work for (Ictivity), we decided to develop a mobile Software Defined Data Center (SDDC) and End User Computing (EUC) lab environment. This mobile lab environment will be used to demo the VMware SDDC and End User Computing (EUC) stack with integration of third party solutions.  One of the reasons to use a physical lab environment instead of cloud services was flexibility and  having no dependencies.

The past moths I’ve got asked what components we used to build this lab environment. So here is an quick overview. The environment logically looks like the picture below:

Demo Environment

This environment contains three physical hosts with VMware ESXi installed and one switch. One ESXi host function as management host. On this management host the following software bits are installed:

  • vSphere 6
  • VSAN Witness
  • NSX Manager
  • Fortigate VMX
  • vRealize components
  • The End User Computing stack such as Horizon View, App Volumes, User Environment Manager and Identity Manager
  • Veeam

The other 2 ESXi hosts function as demo cluster. On this 2-node cluster the following software bits are installed:

  • vSphere 6
  • Virtual SAN (VSAN) All Flash (AF) configuration
  • NSX integration
  • Windows 10l
  • Windows Server 2012 R2

A laptop is used to connect to the lab environment.

What component are used? 

Some highlights of this lab are:

  • 4U rackmount flightcase
  • Mini-ITX motherboard
  • Intel Xeon D-1541 single socket System-on-Chip 8 core processor
  • 2 x 10 GbE Ethernet adapters
  • Only SSD is used
  • IPMI port

Case

The case is a robust custom made 19″ 4U rackmount flightcase with a removable front and back. It has two wheels so you can carry it easily around. This case contains 3 servers and one switch.Here is a picture of the case including alle the hosts and the switch.

IMG_0622Indeling Flightcase

Hosts

The flightcase contains three SuperMicro SYS-5018D-FN4T 1U Rackmount hosts with the following hardware specifications:

  • Chassis: SuperMicro 19″ 1U with a 200W Gold level power supply. Optimized for Mini-ITX (SuperChassis SC505-203B)
  • Motherboard: Super X10SDV-8C-TLN4F Mini-ITX board
  • Processor: 1 x Intel Xeon D-1541 single socket System-on-Chip. This processor contains 8 cores with 16 threads (hypertreading)
  • Memory: 4x DDR4 DIMM sockets (maximum 128 GB, 4 x 32GB DDR4 ECC  memory)
  • LAN: 2 x 10GbE and 2 x 1 GbE and 1 x IPMI LAN port
  • Expansion slots: 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and a M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4
  • Video: Aspeed AST2400
  • USB: 2x USB 3.0 and 4x USB 2.0

Management host

  • Memory: 4 x 32GB = 128 GB
  • SSD: 2 x Samsung PM863 MZ-7LM1T9E – SSD Enterprise – 1.92 TB – intern – 2.5″ – SATA 6Gb
  • Disk: Seagate Enterprise 6 TB disk (for backup)
  • USB Stick: Sandisk Ultra Fit USB3 16 GB (for booting ESXi)

Demo hosts 

Each host contains the following hardware:

  • Memory: 2 x 16GB = 32 GB per server
  • SSD: 1 x Intel P3500 SSD 1.2 TB PCIe 3.0 x4 (NVMe) and Samsung 950 Pro V-Nand M.2 PCI-e SSD 512GB
  • USB Stick: Sandisk Ultra Fit USB3 16 GB (for booting ESXi)

Switch

  • Switch: Netgear ProSafe Plus XS708E 8 x 10 Gbps +SFP slot

Cables

  • 6 x UTP CAT6 0.50 cm cables
  • 1 x UTP CAT6 5m
  • 1 x UTP CAT6 10m

 

Processor host

The two Intel X552/X557-AT NICs are not recognized by ESXi 6.5 and lower versions by default. To enable the Intel X552/x557 2 x 10GbE NICs download the Intel driver on the VMware website (link). Extract the ZIP file and install the offline bundle by using the following command:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore/driver/ixgbe-4.4.1-2159203-offline_bundle-3848596.zip

With this mobile SSDC lab environment we archived the following benefits:

  • Mobile and easy to carry around
  • Flexibility to install the latest VMware SDDC and 3e party software
  • No dependency
  • Enough horsepower
  • Low noise and power consumption
  • Remote accessible from our datacenter
  • IPMI and KVM support

 

Configure VSAN on HP Servers

For a new End User Computing (EUC) project I installed a Hybrid Virtual SAN (VSAN) configuration on HP Proliant server hardware. VSAN will be used as storage layer for VDIs. Each HP Proliant DL360 Gen9 server has the following components:

  • HP Workload Accelerator as caching device
  • HP Smart Array P440 controller with several 10k SAS disks as capacity tier

To enable VSAN the the first thing to do is to check the VSAN HCL(link)

HCL1

HCL2

The VSAN HCL gives important information about:

  • What hardware is supported?
  • What configuration does the  HP Smart Array controller support?
  • VSAN supported version(s)
  • Device driver and firmware versions including the download location of the driver.

All the hardware is supported and the firmware levels are listed in the HCL. So the next step is to do is to configure the HP Smart Array P440 controller in Pass-Through mode. HP calls this “HBA mode”. In HBA mode, all physical drives are presented directly to the operating system and the hardware RAID engine is disabled. This can be done in the Smart Storage Administrator.

HBAmode

After enabling the HBA mode the hosts needs a reboot.

The next step it to install the server with the HP Custom ESXi image . After the installation the ESXi, the HP Smart Array Controller is not recognized because the driver is not included. This same is for the HP Workload Accelerator that will serve for the caching tier. Download both drivers and add them to vSphere Update Manager. After both drivers are installed check the HP Smart Array Controller by using the following command (included in the HP Customed ESXi image):

esxcli hpssacli cmd -q "controller "slot=1" show config detail"

esxi command

The “slot=” option depends on the slot number the HP Smart Array P440 controller is installed.

To list the drives attached to the controller with the following command:

esxcli hpssacli cmd -q "controller slot=1 physicaldrive all show"

The Workload Acccelerator status can be displayed with the following command:

fio-status

The last step is to  open the vSphere Web Client, start enabling VSAN and claiming the disks.

VMware Horizon Q2 2015 announcements

VMware announced  last week what’s new with Horizon 6 (Q2 2015) as well as some brand new offerings that will help you to deliver and manage apps and end users across physical, virtual and cloud-hosted environments. Here are the announcements:

  • User Experience improvements
  • Linux Desktops support (GA in Q2)
  • User Environment Manager (UEM) (GA in Q2)
  • VMware Workspace Environment Management (WEM)
  • Free SysTrack Desktop Assessment tool

User Experience Improvements

Some new improvements for the upcomming Horizon 6 version are:

  • USB Mass storage support for RDS and Hosted Apps
  • Client drive redirection support. For example make an c-drive available in a RDS desktop.
  • VMware Horizon Client for Chrome Access (Chromebook) with support for Horizon Hosted Apps. Apply for the early access program here, link.

1

Linux Desktop Support

Linux support for VDI desktops will be available in Q2 2015. Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS VDI desktops are supported for 3D and Linux office applications. A nice thing about Linux VDI desktop support is the Microsoft desktop licensing is eliminated.

User Environment Manager (UEM)

VMware has acquired Immidio in February 2015. Immidio is now called User Environment Manager (UEM). UEM offers personalization and dynamic policy configuration across any virtual, physical and cloud-based environment. UEM has no new features, only VMware branding is included in this release. UEM will be sold separately as standalone product, included in the Horizon View Enterprise license and available in the VMware Horizon Application Management Bundle.

VMware has released a VMware User Environment Manager Deployed in 60 Minutes or Less whitepaper. UEM is a simple and straightforward to deploy and get up-and-running, as there is no extra infrastructure needed to configure. The whitepaper can be found here, link.

VMware Workspace Environment Management (WEM)

VMware Workspace Environment Management (WEM) is a bundle of products. This bundle is called the VMware Horizon Application Management Bundle. The following products are  includes in the bundle:

  • VMware User Environment Manager (UEM)
  • VMware vRealize for Published Applications (End-to-End Monitoring). In Q2 XenApp support will be added.
  • VMware App Volumes (Real-Time application delivery)
  • VMware ThinApp (Application Virtualization)
  • VMware Workspace Portal (central portal for your applications)

WEM

The VMware Horizon Application Management Bundle is sold as standalone product and is available to Citrix Customer for example.

SysTrack Desktop Assessment

SysTrack Desktop Assessment (Lakeside software)  is a free assessment tool. For customers considering the purchase of VMware Horizon 6 or VMware Horizon Air, Systrack Desktop Assessment provides quick and easy insight into end-user computing infrastructure, applications and desktops. This FREE service provides you with everything you need to gain visibility into your end user environment, understand the best deployment options for Horizon and assess your costs.  More information can be found here, link.