VDI-in-a-Box - Best Practices

Best Practices: Scale One by One

Creating the VDI-in-a-Box Grid

• Start with one server then expand, or one image then expand
• Scale the grid one server at a time
• Keep host versions consistent
• Assign static IP addresses to servers
• Use of thin provisioning to cut down dramatically on disk space
• Size your server using recommended best practice
• Ensure that you can generate desktops and users can log on before adding a second or third or fourth server to the grid.

Joining servers to the Grid

• Do not join multiple servers at the same time
• Let the second server join, receive images, provision desktops before joining the third

Use IP addresses instead of DNS names

• To remove the dependency on DNS
• For setting up the hypervisor connection
• For the vdiManager console when configuring the Grid
• For the Active Directory User database connection

Create a base image

• Start with an ISO to create a base published image
• Test this base image first and use this to make additional copies for production
• Keep image sizes small (20-30GB). Less storage space consumed
• Create one domain administrator account for both user authentication (Active Directory) and for image syspreps
• Minimize password changes to accounts. You can do this by creating special “Citrix” accounts

Ports

• vdiManager <> Hypervisor | HTTP over SSL/TLS (HTTPS):443
• vdiManager <> Active Directory | LDAP:389 | LDAP over SSL/TLS (LDAPS):636
• Endpoint <> vdiManager | HTTP over SSL/TLS (HTTPS):443
• Endpoint <> Secure Remote Access (CAG VPX) |HTTP over SSL/TLS (HTTPS):443
• Desktop Receiver <> Virtual Desktop | ICA:1494 or 2598 RDP:3389

Logins and username and passwords

• Management COnsole https://vdiMgrIPaddress/admin - Account: vdiadmin/kaviza
• VDI-in-a-Box appliance logon (vdiMgrIPaddress) - User: kvm/kaviza123|User: root/kaviza123
• User logon from a web browser https://vdiMgrIPaddres
• User logon from the Java Client http://vdiMgrIPaddres/dt/vdiclient.jnlp
• User logon from mobile devices http://vdiMgrIPaddres/dt/PNAgent/config.xml