Hi,
Sun VDI 3.1 Early Access has been released last Tuesday. This is not just a minor update, but we have added a number of new things that might be of interest for people:
- Microsoft Hyper-V support:
Sun VDI introduces Hyper-V as a new desktop provider. Virtual desktops are provisioned using ZFS, which allows a fast deployment based on ZFS cloning and copy-on-write semantics. Far more scalable than any other VDI storage solution in the market. - Microsoft RDS support:
It is possible to run mixed environments of VDI and Terminal Services. All under the same management infrastructure. - VirtualBox 3.0.x
Most prominent feature is the guest multi processor support (guest SMP) - Template Management module
Template management has been introduced for better keeping track of template revisions and controlling the staging and rollout of new template revisions. - Integrated webconsole for VirtualBox
The webconsole allows to do in-place modifications of templates and desktops with the management UI. It can run in any browser that supports Adobe Flash. - Host and Storage Maintenance
There is a new module that takes care of controlled outages of hosts and storages. You schedule outages and suspend running virtual desktops or migrate them to other available hosts. - Virtual Networking
There is now the option of isolating the virtual desktop network traffic per desktop pool. Or you can assign multiple subnets to virtual desktops. - RDP client configuration per desktop pool
The access for Sun Ray clients can now be configured on a per pool basis. All RDP configuration settings can be controlled. - Sun Desktop Access Client
There is a new client, the software version of the Sun Ray included in the release. - Flash acceleration for MS Windows XP and 2003 desktops
- USB redirection for MS Windows XP desktops and all hosted VirtualBox guest OSs
These are just the highlights. Many more things went into the EA. Just have a look. The download is here. Documentation can be found on the VDI Wiki. If you have some questions or issues you can contact us on the VDI forum. And of course your feedback is important to us. Please take the EA survey, it takes just 5 minutes. Loads of the features are there because of your feedback.
Cheers,
Dirk
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Hi Dirk,
Happy to know that Oracle doesn't "kill" SunVDI!
Have two questions regarding Ubuntu support:
1. Template Management module, did I will also support Ubuntu or only Windows guest OS?
2. USB redirection, what did you mean by "all hosted VirtualBox guest OSs"? Concretely, did Ubuntu guest OS running in VirtualBox can use an USB stick plug on a SunRay DTU?
Best regards,
Laurent
Posted by More info on September 27, 2009 at 12:59 PM CEST #
Hi Laurent,
The template management module is guest OS independent. In essence it manages different versions of harddisks. Only specific to Windows is the inbuilt sysprepping support.
Regarding your second question: Yes, USB stick are working under Ubuntu.
-Dirk
Posted by Dirk Grobler on September 27, 2009 at 09:10 PM CEST #
Hello Dirk,
I read in the wiki that there is an option for High Availability in a VirtualBox backend, but it is not explained how to do this, It says that the terminated session will restart on the 2nd vbox host. How does it work?
thanks in advance,
Michael.
Posted by Michael on October 13, 2009 at 05:28 PM CEST #
Michael,
Assuming your are running 2 VBox hosts. If for whatever reason one VBox host goes down, the VM is restarted on the other host, assuming you have enough capacity.
In VDI 3.1, if there is a planned outage, the host can be taken into maintenance mode and the VMs are then migrated to remaining available hosts. This involves a short service interruption as the VMs are suspended and resumed.
-Dirk
Posted by Dirk Grobler on October 13, 2009 at 05:41 PM CEST #
Thanks Dirk,
Can i test this feature in an evaluation environment?
Michael.
Posted by Michael on October 14, 2009 at 10:29 AM CEST #
Yes, just use two hosts to run VBox on.
-Dirk
Posted by Dirk Grobler on October 14, 2009 at 11:38 PM CEST #
Thanks again,
This supposed to work automatically or there has to be some configuration, i tried this by just adding 2 vbox hosts and it does not seem to work, am i missing something? its just very important for me to know that there is high availability in all aspects of the VDI.
Michael.
Posted by michael on October 15, 2009 at 12:48 PM CEST #