Keeping apps updated on VDI's?

[WoodiE]

I manage just under 500 View VM's for the various departments at our company. One thing I've found to be more of a time consumer is keeping everyday type apps updated and current.

Applications such as Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Shockwave, etc. A lot of my VM's are in a pool setup which makes it each, I update each program on each parent and recompose the pool. Then of course there are a number of VM's that are not in a pool.

Neither setup is hard to update, but programs such as Reader and Flash where it seems to be updated every week. Doing constant recomposes and installs takes up a lot of time with an environment this size, which is only getting bigger.

What methods do you guys use to keep apps such as these updated and current on your VM's?

 

[lopoetve]

I have a much smaller environment, but it's a monthly patch/update cycle. Once a month, the master is updated with windows patches, software updates, new versions, etc - and then a recompose is run to update all the guests.

In addition, with my pools, everything is based off of the same gold master, and I thinapp as much as possible - that way I only have to update ~one~ vm - and let the thinapps be pushed out differently to each group as needed.

 

[WoodiE]

Man I would LOVE to have one master image to maintain. However our VM's are used across four different states using two clusters. I think thinapp would just be to slow to stream all of our apps, especially on the locations where the network isn't top grade.

 

[lopoetve]

Man I would LOVE to have one master image to maintain. However our VM's are used across four different states using two clusters. I think thinapp would just be to slow to stream all of our apps, especially on the locations where the network isn't top grade.

Put a repository in each site. Set it up to stream to the local systems only via a template.

 

[kbrennan]

+1 on lopoetve. Storage is cheap. I have 220ish View desktops over three locations. All three have their own repository and it works like a champ.

 

[lopoetve]

Exactly. Seriously - little 2k3 VM with a bunch of space for thinapps in each center, all you have to do is update the thinapp and have it push them back out again whenever you update. Nice and easy

 

[WoodiE]

That would probably work fairly well for what VM's are at the "main" locations, but the majority of our VM usage is very spread out to various small cities/towns where their.

Example we have a number of offices out in various cities in Kansas but all of their VM's live in Ohio. Of these locations some are on DSL and Cable connections, wouldn't adding more items using the network (streaming thinapps) only hurt performance more? The same setup goes for our offices in and around Connecticut - all of which also has their VM's living in Ohio.

 

[lopoetve]

ah, but most things don't fully stream. They download once per recompose (unless you tell it to update to a new version) and then live on the desktop (if it is not a floating desktop that gets reset). It'd be slow for the first few minutes as it streams, and then plenty fast

 

[kbrennan]

Sooo, the Virtual Desktops sessions live in the data centers correct?
The users are connecting via the connection server or security gateway?

If the answer to both of those is "yes" then you're over thinking this. You just need repositories in each of the data centers.

The only way I see a headache is with offline desktops, which I really try to avoid.

 

[WoodiE]

ah, but most things don't fully stream. They download once per recompose (unless you tell it to update to a new version) and then live on the desktop (if it is not a floating desktop that gets reset). It'd be slow for the first few minutes as it streams, and then plenty fast

Okay so this is something I'm certainly going to test out more then. Of all of our VDI's I'd say close to half are floating pools that refresh or delete after log off. The others are dedicated.

So other then trying to leverage thinapp more in the future, any other solutions or ideas you guys use to keep software up to date?

 

[lopoetve]

Okay so this is something I'm certainly going to test out more then. Of all of our VDI's I'd say close to half are floating pools that refresh or delete after log off. The others are dedicated.

So other then trying to leverage thinapp more in the future, any other solutions or ideas you guys use to keep software up to date?

REmember, the thinapp streams to the desktop, not to the user's computer - it just has to make it to the ESX box, as kbrennan points out.

I mostly live on ThinApp - only thing I ahve installed local is office (because thinappping office is a pita). Update manager can do some updates too, but most don't use it for that.

 

[WoodiE]

In terms of steaming how would that work for apps such as Adobe Flash? My understanding was the apps don't get "installed" on the VM until it's ran. In the case of Flash this program wouldn't start until they went to a flash enabled website then?

I would think this would cause worse user experience as they would have to wait however many more seconds for that app to be streamed to them before the page gets displayed or displayed correctly. Or is there another way to combat that issue?

 

[lopoetve]

From what I understand, those things set for full (not streaming installs, which are only supported by a few choice things) are streamed to the desktop on login. And you don't thinapp flash - that has to be installed locally, I'd expect.

 

[xxan0xx]

this may sound a bit overboard, but you could take a much more proactive approach and do something like using GFI max (www.gfi.com) which would give you a much more complete management of the overall systems that you are managing let alone extend it downstream to you mobile laptop users. This is how I have approached managing large numbers of machines in a very automated and cost effective manner.

let me know if you have any questions as I work with this product day in and day out