Jumping VDI

Now we take a closer look at the core part of last months development efforts. According to the illustration below, the desktop broker (Sun VDI 3 software) is listed as one monolithic block which is installed on top of Solaris 10.

And this is done by intention. Sun VDI 3 software combines Sun Ray Software (SRSS/SRWC) and the previously known Virtual Desktop Connector (VDC). There is only one installation and configuration process, which configures the embedded Sun Ray Server Software (SRSS) exclusively for VDI usage. It handles similarly the setup of the underlying database configuration. In summary, the installation process is straightforward with barely any user interaction.

Sun VDI 3 software appears as one building block only handling third tier executed desktops. Execution platform is Solaris 10 U6 or above. Sun VDI 3 supports VMware and VirtualBox as virtualization hosts (desktop provider).

Besides the installation process we have been working on some other major components. First to mention is that we now use our own Sun VDI 3 data repository. This is a MySQL database that stores all the information that are managed by the desktop broker:

• Access information about the Desktop Providers (DP). A DP is a Virtual Center or a cluster of VirtualBox hosts and attached storages.
• AD/LDAP access information
• Pools and their embedded desktops
• Virtual machine configuration
• Association of users/groups/tokens to pools/desktops
• ...

An administrator can choose of three different node configurations, mainly driven by the way the database is used:

• Cluster DB setup:
  This is a multi-node setup with an embedded MySQL cluster. Designed for HA. Cluster configuration is handled by the setup tool. Basic database skills are required.
• Remote DB setup:
  This is also a multi-node setup. However the database (MySQL) is installed externally. Database configuration needs to be done by the administrator. Level of HA is controlled by the administrator. Advanced database skills are required.
• Evaluation setup:
  Single node installation made for evaluation purposes. Zero configuration mode. Not suitable for production.

The administration UI has been reworked to keep up with the new features. I don't dive here into the details, but really a fair set of new things have been incorporated.

Besides UI, we've put a lot of attention to the command line interface (CLI). It matches now with the admin UI feature set. It allows you e.g. to create desktop pools and other stuff directly from the CLI. This might be important if you want to combine Sun VDI 3 with some sort of automation or tools like the Identity Management suite.

That's it for today. The next article will have a closer look at the user management capabilities of Sun VDI 3.

-Dirk

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