VMWARE VIEW DESKTOP DELIVERY MODELS
VMware View Manager is the VMware virtual desktop management solution that improves control and manageability and provides a familiar desktop experience.
At a high level, there are multiple pool types in VMware View :
• Manual desktop pools: This pool type provides the assignment of multiple users to multiple desktops, with only one active user on a desktop at a time. These types of desktops must be manually precreated with using VMware full clones or tools with space-efficient VM provisioning capabilities, for example, the NetApp VSC Provisioning and Cloning plug-in, and can be automatically imported into VMware View. The manual desktop pool supports two types of user assignment:
− Dedicated assignment: Users are assigned a desktop that can retain all of their documents, applications, and settings between sessions. The desktop is statically assigned the first time the user connects and is then used for all subsequent sessions.
− Floating assignment: Users are not assigned to particular desktops and could get connected to a different desktop from the pool each time they connect. Also, there is no data persistence of profile or user data between sessions without using third party software or roaming profiles.
• Automated desktop pools: This pool type provides the assignment of multiple users to multiple desktops, with only one active user on a desktop at a time. The creation and customization of these types of desktops are performed by VMware View and optionally with VMware View Composer by using either of these two options:
− Full clone: Leveraging VMware vCenter virtual machine template to create VMware full clones.
− Linked clone: Leveraging VMware View Composer feature in VMware View 4.5 to create VMware linked clones. Both options in automated desktop pools support the two types of user assignment:
− Dedicated assignment: Users are assigned a desktop that can retain all of their documents, applications, and settings between sessions. The desktop is statically assigned the first time the user connects and is then used for all subsequent sessions.
− Floating assignment: Users are not assigned to particular desktops and could get connected to a different desktop from the pool each time they connect. Also, there is no persistence of environmental or user data between sessions.
• Terminal server pool: This is a pool of terminal server desktop sources served by one or more terminal servers.
Discussion on the storage best practices for this type of desktop delivery model is outside the scope of this document.
