View

Knowledge

• Identify minimum hardware and software requirements for installation
• Identify required firewall rules
• Navigate the View Connection Server installation wizard

Hardware Requirements

Processor Pentium IV 2.0GHz or higher.  Recommended 4 CPU

Networking One or more 10/100Mpbs NIC’s.   Recommended 1Gbps NIC

Memory 4GB RAM.  Recommended 10GB RAM for 50 or more desktops

Operating System – Software Requirements

Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit Standard or Enterprise

Windows Server 2003 R2 32 Bit Standard or Enterprise

Note, to use PCoIP Secure Gateway component, the OS must be Windows Server 2008 R2 64 Bit.

Virtualization – Software Requirements

The following version of vSphere are supported:

vSphere 4.0 Update 3 or higher

vSphere 4.1 Update 1 or higher

vSphere 5.0 or higher

Note, both ESX and ESXi hosts are supported.

Firewall Rules

To allow communication to the View Connection Server, certain ports are required to be opened, as follows:

View Connection Server Installation

The first server in our View environment is going to be the ‘View Connection Server’.

The Connection Server as we mentioned in the first VMware View – Overview Architecture is responsible for centralised management and handles all authentication requests via Active Directory to access a desktop.  It’s the first server in the ‘View’ infrastructure.

With this in mind, I have created a VM called VMF-CON01 with the following specifications:

1 x vCPU

4 GB RAM

1 x vNIC

I have then downloaded the VMware View Connection Server from here.  As at the time of this blog post, the most recent version is VMware-viewconnectionserver-x86_64-5.1.2-928164.exe

Launch the installer and click Next

Accept the EULA and click Next

Choose the installation location, in most setups I tend to leave this as the default.

We are going to install a View Standard Server, click Next

Next we have to enter a password, which essentially protects any backups that View makes.

Good old Windows Firewall makes an entrance, select ‘Configure Windows Firewall Automatically’

Next we need to specify an Active Directory Security Group who can perform initial configuration tasks.  In my case, I’m rolling with ViewAdministrators

To access the Active Directory Domain, we need to specify a users credentials with appropriate access.  I like to use a service account for these purposes.

We can choose to participate in the ‘User Experience Improvement Program’ as this is a test lab, I’m going to opt out.

Finally, click Install, to let the View magic begin.

Boom, you should be greeted with ‘Installer Completed’.

You should notice an Icon on your desktop called ‘View Administrator Console’

Launch this or alternatively go to https://localhost/admin/

Ah, man down, it’s not working as we don’t have Adobe Flash Player installed

A quick Adobe Flash Player installation later and voila we now have access.

TOP TIP: I recommend choosing ‘Notify Me To Install’ Flash Updates as with many auto updates can break software access

So it’s time to get involved with VMware View as per my last blog post.

Now it’s time to start learning this product, to do this, I use the following template which ‘touch wood’ has always worked for me in the past:

1. Carry the Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View book with me during my work week and read it at least once per day.

2. Watch VMware View 5 Essentials Training by Brian Knudtson and Lane Leverett

3. Lab time what I have learnt and then destroy and rebuild the lab until I have the content nailed.

4. Document my learning on this blog, this generally contains information I have learned but placed into my own words.

What is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

I thought that I knew what VDI was as I have worked with Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) and Citrix XenApp in the past, however I was wrong!

The key differences between ‘old school’ VDI AKA RDS and XenApp is that the users log into a ‘server desktop’ which is locked down by GPO.  Whereas, with VMware View each user has there own ‘virtual machine’ as a desktop, meaning that what they do doesn’t effect the other thirty users logged in.

VMware View Architecture

This is my understanding of each component in View.

Client – application locally installed to gain access to desktop, much the same as using RDP or Citrix Receiver

Agent – appears to be the same as VMware tools, it’s installed into the guest OS and provides ‘enhancements’.

Composer – allows the ability to create linked clone desktops from a master image, saving on storage space.

View Manager – this comes as four seperate components which are

• Connection Server which handles all authentication requests via Active Directory to access a desktop.  This is the first server in the View Infrastructure.
• Replica Server which is an exact copy of the Connection Server used for load balancing and redundancy
• Security Server which sits in your DMZ and enables remote access to users Desktops.
• Transfer Server enables the use of ‘Local Mode Desktop’ allowing users to take the ‘desktop’ offline and any block changes are transferred back to the Desktop on the ESXi Host

Something which stands out is that you can have multiple connection servers, however View doesn’t have any inbuilt load balancing so either a service aware load balancing device would need to be purchased such as a Kemp/Barracuda/F5 or you can use Windows Network Load Balancing.