By Senthil Baladhandayutham, Solutions Development Manager, Desktop Virtualization Solutions Group, Dell.
The introduction of Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 has brought several important improvements to Remote Desktop Services (RDS) and VDI solutions leveraging Microsoft Hyper-V. Some of the notable additions include active Data Deduplication on running VMs, RDP clients for mobile endpoints, improved RemoteFX graphics and support for Microsoft Windows 8.1 VDI VM. In this blog, we will walk you through the integration of Windows Server 2012R2's feature set with Dell Desktop Virtualization Solution (DVS) Enterprise for Windows Server 2012R2 solution.
Dell DVS Enterprise for Windows Server 2012R2 is designed with simplicity and affordability in mind to meet the broadest set of VDI use cases with the emphasis on total cost of ownership. Whether your I.T department is planning for a pilot, a small office or a large-scale datacenter VDI implementation, we suggest three deployment options, or PODs, running on Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 in order to meet your needs.
- DVS 10-seat trial kit: tower based option, ideal for POC and small scale deployments.
- Dell PowerEdge VRTX POD: ideal for small office/branch office scenarios.
- Scalable Datacenter POD: ideal for large scale Enterprise deployment requiring a wide variety of user types.
All the POD’s were validated with latest Intel Ivy Bridge processors running Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 Session Host VMs and Windows 8.1 VDI VMs.
10-Seat Trial-Kit:
The DVS 10-seat trial kit is ideal for POC and small office deployments up to 10 users. The trial kit comes with a PowerEdge T110ii tower server bundled with Dell thin clients to support a quick and easy deployment.
PowerEdge VRTX POD:
The PowerEdge VRTX POD comes with 2- blades or 4-blades configuration. Nodes are clustered using Microsoft cluster and the storage is shared among the nodes using Microsoft CSV (Cluster Shared Volume) and Dell Shared PERC (PowerEdge RAID controller) technology. Pooled VDI and remote desktop session host (RDSH) deployments leverages CSV caching feature to reduce the boot storm and login storm IOPS experienced in a typical VDI deployment scenario. The PowerEdge VRTX POD is best suited for small departmental deployments or remote branch office deployments where sophisticated IT skillset is not required to manage the infrastructure.
Dell Datacenter POD:
The Dell Datacenter POD (or DVS Enterprise) comprises the best of breed of Dell datacenter components (Dell PowerEdge R720 rack server, Dell EqualLogic 61xx series storage arrays and Dell Force10 S55 networking bundled with Windows Server 2012R2, providing the ideal platform to solve the broadest set of VDI deployment scenarios (RDSH, pooled, persistent, graphics and unified communication (UC)) at an affordable price point.
Let us provide an example of how much you can save on storage requirements with Personal desktops. Personal desktops with persistent profiles are typically the most expensive VDI option to deploy due to the need for each user VM to be unique and require its own disk space. The Data center POD was optimized to deliver personal desktops at an affordable price by hosting such Personal desktops on a Dell PowerEdge R720 server running Windows Server 2012R2 File Server Role with built-in data deduplication feature and Dell EqualLogic hybrid array 6100XS (SSD low-latency performance with high capacity spinning media HDD) serving as the backend storage array. By utilizing native Windows data deduplication in our in-house testing, we observed a deduplication rate as high as 88%, translating directly into savings on the storage requirements. This capacity savings from data deduplication, combined with EqualLogic 6100XS ability to handle the higher IOPS, helps deliver Personal desktops at an affordable price.
Dell Datacenter POD
In addition to the storage enhancements, the Datacenter POD ships with Dell PowerEdge R720 Servers powered with the latest generation of Intel IvyBridge processors and NVidia (Gird K1/K2) or AMD (Firepro S7000/S9000) graphic cards, making it a highly flexible server platform for deploying remote desktop sessions, RemoteFX shared graphics VM’s, Pooled or Persistent based desktop VM’s.
Visit DVS Enterprise of Windows Server 2012 resources page to learn more about the solution.
Come and meet Dell and Microsoft VDI experts at Dell World in Austin, 11th-13th December 2013.
If you can’t attend, visit www.dell.com/virtualdesktop or contact us to learn more