Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Omaha InfoTech 2012 Conference

04/19/231

Who is Black Hills Corporation?• A diversified energy company based in Rapid City, SD• 201,300 Electric utility customers in South Dakota, Wyoming

and Colorado• 561,500 Natural Gas utility customers in Wyoming, Colorado,

Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska• Fleet of power generation facilities in Wyoming, Colorado and

South Dakota• Black Hills Exploration & Production produces oil and natural

gas in New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota• Wyodak mine in Gillette, WY supports BHC’s mine-mouth

generation

04/19/232

BHC Office Locations• Corporate offices in Rapid City, Denver and Papillion• Most utility service offices are in rural communities• Branch offices are not well connected. T1 MPLS (if available)

and VPN connections through local ISP (cable and dsl)• Low bandwidth, high latency connections present challenges

delivering a good user experience to remote offices

04/19/233

What is VDI?• Often referred to as Hosted Virtual Desktops• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an alternative desktop

delivery model that allows users to run a Windows desktop inside a virtual machine running in the data center.

• VDI is the evolution of server virtualization taken to the client level, and uses the same underlying principles

• VDI has the same look and feel of a traditional desktop computer, but all actions are happening remotely in the data center

04/19/234

Why is BHC Deploying Virtual Desktops?

• Centralized management• Enhanced security and compliance• Deliver a managed desktop to unmanaged devices• Efficient bandwidth utilization• Support for mobile devices – Blackberry, Android, iPad• Virtual Desktops offer options for both flexibility and control.

Finding the right balance will be our priority• Positions us for much simpler future desktop upgrades• Hard dollar cost savings may not be attainable

04/19/235

Terminology• Persistent Desktop

– Each user has full desktop image– Individual applications can be installed per desktop– Separate storage is required for each individual desktop– Managed the same way as traditional desktops

• Provisioned Desktop– Golden image of desktop environment – Streamed to users on demand– Greatly reduced storage requirement– Protected from unintentional changes– Requires unique anti-virus configuration

04/19/236

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure• Benefits

– Much greater control for Policy enforcement (users can’t unplug NIC to prevent policies from applying)

– Centralized patch management and software distribution on fast networks

– Access to data is much improved as it is happening over fast networks within the datacenter

– Security and regulatory compliance: data never leaves the datacenter– Recoverability: VMs and data are backed up & snapshots occur in

data center so local desktop data can be easily recovered.– Mobility: Users can connect from any device anywhere and have same

desktop experience.– Control over application licensing compliance

04/19/237

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure• Benefits, continued

– Reduce field support travel. Thin clients with no moving parts are less likely to fail.

– Strong competition in this market means vendors are actively enhancing and improving their products

– Live migration of VMs for availability and similar High Availability solutions like we use with servers.

– VDI can offload Flash and Windows Media content to render on local device. This creates a much improved user experience at remote sites.

– Reduces power consumption by using thin clients on the desktop and energy efficient servers in the Data Center

– Additional Advantages for Provisioned Desktop• Single image to manage• Fast deployments with on demand provisioning • Relatively easy upgrades

04/19/238

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure• Challenges

– Requires additional MS licensing through Software Assurance or VDA– Virtual Desktop technology is dependent on a highly available and low

latency networks– User support model changes significantly. May require realignment of

IT resources– Windows mobile devices create a challenge. Users need the ability to

work in an offline mode. This will be Phase 2 for us– Must get management buy-in in order to be successful– Ensuring we have identified all the user applications that will need to

be available as published applications outside of the standard Windows 7 & Office 2010 image

04/19/239

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure• Challenges, continued

– Must be connected– Offline capabilities are immature– User experience around multimedia can be unpredictable. We are

actively working to address this concern.– Additional Challenges for Provisioned Desktops

• Limited control for users. Users cannot install applications • Roaming profiles are essential for provisioned desktops• Limited personalization of individual settings and appearance • Non-standard drivers for printers and USB devices need to be installed by

system administrators• No immediate image updates. After an image is updated, user needs to

logoff for changes to be applied

04/19/2310

Supporting Infrastructure Components• HP BL490c Blade servers – Dual 6-core, 144GB – Sized to host

50 desktop sessions per server• NetApp v3240 storage, 1TB cache, 600GB 15k drives• Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Provisioning Server• Desktops configured with 2 CPUs and 3GB RAM• Citrix XenApp delivers applications to VDI desktops• All Citrix servers built on XenServer 6.0• HP t5740e thin clients• Citrix Netscalers for external access• Silver Peak WAN accelerators at T1 locations• QOS implementation to prioritize ICA traffic

04/19/2311

04/19/2312

2-factor Authentication

Virtual Desktop Deployment• Part of Windows 7 and Office 2012 Deployment• 2200 Users across 7 states• VDI will be the preferred desktop delivery method for non-

laptop users• Base image contain Windows 7 Enterprise, Office 2010

Professional and basic plugins only• All other applications are delivered with Citrix XenApp• Goal is 40% adoption across entire user population by year

end• 2 Systems Engineers support Citrix infrastructure full-time, 2

part-time

04/19/2313

VDI Deployment Progress• Used for Office 2010 training for all users. • Used for Office 2010 compatibility testing. Provisioned BH Desktop

assigned to 615 users (so far) for testing• Used for application compatibility testing with Windows 7 across

enterprise• 130 users of Provisioned Desktop daily as primary desktop

environment• 40 users of Persistent Desktop daily as primary desktop

environment• Current environment built to support 550 concurrent users• Can failover to secondary site for maintenance or DR. This site

currently built to support 300 user desktops

04/19/2314

Questions?

04/19/2315