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SOLUTION GUIDE

SteelFusion™ with VMware View Solution Guide August 2014

Solution Guide – SteelFusion with VMware View

© 2014 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. 1

© 2014 Riverbed Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Riverbed®, SteelApp™, SteelCentral™, SteelFusion™, SteelHead™, SteelScript™, SteelStore™, Steelhead®, Cloud Steelhead®, Virtual Steelhead®, Granite™,

Interceptor®, Stingray™, Whitewater®, WWOS™, RiOS®, Think Fast®, AirPcap®, BlockStream™, FlyScript™, SkipWare®, TrafficScript®, TurboCap®, WinPcap®, Mazu®, OPNET®, and Cascade® are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. (Riverbed) in the United States and other

countries. Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners. The trademarks and logos displayed herein cannot be used without the prior written consent of Riverbed or their respective owners.

This documentation is furnished “AS IS” and is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Riverbed. This documentation

may not be copied, modified or distributed without the express authorization of Riverbed and may be used only in connection with Riverbed products and services. Use, duplication, reproduction, release, modification, disclosure or transfer of this documentation is restricted in accordance with the Federal Acquisition

Regulations as applied to civilian agencies and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement as applied to military agencies. This documentation qualifies as “commercial computer software documentation” and any use by the government shall be governed solely by these terms. All other use is prohibited.

Riverbed assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this documentation.



PREFACE .................................................................................................................................................3 About This Guide ............................................................................................................................................................ 3

Audience ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Contacting Riverbed........................................................................................................................................................ 3

Internet ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Technical Support ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 Professional Services.................................................................................................................................................. 3

Chapter 1 Solution Overview ...................................................................................................................4 SteelFusion Overview ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 VMware View Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 5 Branch Office Desktop Solution Components ................................................................................................................. 5 Branch Office Desktop Design with SteelHead and SteelFusion .................................................................................... 6

Chapter 2 Deploying SteelFusion with VMware View ..............................................................................8 Deployment Prerequisites ............................................................................................................................................... 8 Deployment Best Practices ............................................................................................................................................. 8

VMware View Best Practices ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Riverbed SteelFusion Best Practices for Pinned LUNs at the Branch ........................................................................ 9

Branch Office Desktop Configuration ............................................................................................................................ 12 Task 1: Preparing for Initial Deployment ................................................................................................................... 12 Task 2: Initial Branch Setup ...................................................................................................................................... 22 Task 3: Deploying the Initial Pool at the Branch........................................................................................................ 29 Task 4: Patching VMs at the Branch ......................................................................................................................... 36



PREFACE Welcome to the SteelFusion solution guide for VMware View. Read this preface for an overview of the information provided in this guide and contact information. This preface includes the following sections:

About This Guide

Contacting Riverbed

About This Guide

This paper details the steps to deploy Riverbed® SteelFusion appliances with a VMware View environment in order to expose one or more iSCSI LUNs to a data center or remote site. After completing the steps in this guide, the iSCSI LUNs available through the SteelFusion Edge can then be attached to the desired systems through normal attach procedures in the operating system or device to deliver View desktops at the branch or remote office location.

Audience

This paper is written for storage and network administrators familiar with administering and managing distributed office environments using common network and storage protocols such as iSCSI, SCSI, TCP, CIFS, HTTP, FTP, and NFS. You must also be familiar with:

VMware View management interface.

Riverbed SteelHead™ management interface.

Riverbed SteelHead appliance installation and configuration process Note: The SteelFusion solution was previously referred to as Granite. Not all product user interfaces (UI) and documentation have been updated to reflect this new name. Several images and references to Granite in this document are intentional and designed to reflect the current versions of these products. SteelFusion and Granite refer to the same product, and the name does not impact the operations or performance of the solution. These terms are interchangeable.

Contacting Riverbed

This section describes how to contact departments within Riverbed.

Internet

You can learn about Riverbed products through the company Web site: http://www.riverbed.com.

Technical Support

If you have problems installing, using, or replacing Riverbed products, contact Riverbed Support or your channel partner who provides support. To contact Riverbed Support, open a trouble ticket by calling 1-888-RVBD-TAC (1-888-782-3822) in the United States and Canada or +1 415 247 7381 outside the United States. You can also go to https://support.riverbed.com. Professional Services

Riverbed has a staff of professionals who can help you with installation, provisioning, network redesign, project management, custom designs, consolidation project design, and custom coded solutions. To contact Riverbed Professional Services, email [email protected] or go tohttp://www.riverbed.com/us/products/professional_services/.



Chapter 1 Solution Overview According to IDC, to meet the demands of global customer and global talent requirements, companies have to maintain remote offices. Companies are spending over $4 billion on remote office IT support. These islands of distributed branch infrastructure have been necessary to meet local performance and reliability needs to ensure the productivity of these remote offices; however, they are costly and inefficient to manage. Because of these inefficiencies, companies rarely can afford to have the expertise in branches to maintain operation and protect data in such distributed infrastructure. Therefore when branch offices suffer outages due to natural or manmade disasters, productivity and data are compromised and company revenue is impacted. Centralizing and consolidating data is key to eliminating these issues; however only 8 percent of branch offices consolidate data in the data center, which increases companies’ exposure to data theft, data loss and downtime due to outages or natural disasters. Riverbed SteelFusion is a branch converged infrastructure solution, encompassing server, projected storage, networking, and WAN optimization. SteelFusion can be fully deployed and administer from a central location, eliminates the need for remote onsite IT. SteelFusion allows for the consolidation of all data/storage (server OS’s, application, and data) into the datacenter, where it can be managed and protected (backed up), while projecting it out the branch. This is accomplished without sacrificing any of the benefits (performance & access) of having servers and data at the Edge, close to end-users. SteelFusion ability to have near-instant continuance of operations to any location, guarantees the highest operational levels with little to no loss in productivity. With SteelFusion, businesses can restore operations in a matter of minutes vs. days, centrally protect and secure data, and significantly lower the TCO of branch and remote offices. Riverbed SteelFusion appliances can help consolidate distributed data, improve security, and reduce administration for managing remote / branch office environments. When utilized with Amazon Web Services Storage Gateway (AWS Storage Gateway), SteelFusion can expose one or more iSCSI LUNs to remote / branch offices. After completing the steps in this guide, the iSCSI LUNs can then be attached to the desired systems through normal attach procedures in the operating system or device.

This chapter includes the following sections:

SteelFusion Overview

VMware View

SteelFusion Overview

SteelFusion is a converged infrastructure solution purpose-built for the branch. Unlike traditional converged infrastructures, SteelFusion enables “stateless” branch services. Users access applications running locally in the branch while the primary data is centralized in the datacenter. Decoupling compute from its underlying storage allows applications to run in a stateless mode, which reduces your branch footprint and centralizes management of your branch services. SteelFusion consists of two components:

SteelFusion Edge: A converged appliance that integrates server, storage, network, and virtualization to run local branch apps, eliminating the need for additional branch infrastructure.

SteelFusion Core: A storage delivery controller in the datacenter that interfaces with your storage area network (SAN). This projects centralized data out to branches, eliminates branch backups, and provides instant provisioning and recovery of branch services.

SteelFusion products enable users and applications in branch office locations to write to and access centrally managed storage while maintaining local disk performance. By accelerating branch access to data center deployed Storage Area Networks (SANs), IT organizations no longer need to provision and maintain dedicated storage resources in branch offices. SteelFusion Core mounts iSCSI or Fibre Channel LUNs provisioned in the data center and shares the storage resources with branch offices running the SteelFusion Edge appliance. SteelFusion Edge virtually presents one or more iSCSI targets in the branch which can be utilized by services and systems running both within the Riverbed Virtual Services Platform (VSP) as well as externally to the SteelFusion Edge appliance. SteelFusion Core inspects mounted file systems and is able to proactively stream data to the branch locations utilizing innovative block-level prediction algorithms. This industry-first capability allows data from centralized storage to be available wherever and whenever it is needed. Through asynchronous block-based write acceleration, SteelFusion Edge ensures that data created in branch office locations is securely stored in the data center.



Figure 1: SteelFusion High Level Topology

VMware View Introduction

A growing number of organizations are adopting virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to simplify global end-point management, reduce costs and achieve better levels of security and compliance. Desktop virtualization with VMware View™ allows IT to simp lify and automate the management of thousands of desktops and to securely deliver desktop as a service to users from a central location with levels of availability and reliability unmatched by traditional PCs. When accessed over the wide area network (WAN) in branch office deployments, customers encounter several challenges that are potential show-stoppers when deploying and using VMware View. These challenges include:

WAN Connectivity

Low bandwidth at remote locations

High latency between branches and the data center hosting the VDI infrastructure

Loss of desktop connectivity during WAN outages

Cost of Centralized Storage

Needs to be sized for peak IOPS for VDI to account for “boot-storms” generated during login process.

Expensive tiered storage to eliminate slowness experienced by users for read/write intensive applications

Other Design Considerations

Latency and bandwidth concerns around peripheral performance (e.g. printing).

Consolidating services at the branch locations and eliminating infrastructure around services (DHCP, Pinter servers) and backup.

To address these challenges, Riverbed Technology optimizes desktop performance for local branch users with a new Branch Office Desktop (BOD) solution that combines SteelHead WAN optimization and SteelFusion with the VMware View Branch Office Desktop. SteelHead and SteelFusion technologies integrated with View creates a perfect balance of centralized management and security while providing fast access to the desktops at remote locations while overcoming the limits of the WAN.

Branch Office Desktop Solution Components

VMware View Overview VMware View delivers desktop virtualization that decouples the applications, data and operating system from the end point, and moves these components into the data center where they can be centrally managed. VMware View allows IT to simplify and automate the management of thousands of desktops and to securely deliver desktop as a service to users from a central location with levels of availability and reliability unmatched by traditional PCs. By delivering secure access to applications and data to any device, when and where the user needs it, VMware View provides end users with the highest levels of mobility and flexibility.



Riverbed SteelHead Overview Riverbed SteelHead appliances deliver high performance WAN optimization that overcomes both bandwidth and latency problems to deliver LAN-like performance to branch offices and mobile workers. SteelHead products accelerate a broad set of applications important to business, combining application streamlining data streamlining and transport streamlining, with quality of service control to deliver up to 100 times performance increases across the WAN. File transfers that once took hours or minutes now take minutes or seconds, dramatically improving productivity and global collaboration.

Branch Office Desktop Design with SteelHead and SteelFusion

The BOD solution utilizes both SteelHead and SteelFusion appliances to optimize the virtual desktop experience for branch users. SteelHead accelerates any data transfer required across the WAN, and SteelFusion enables a completely localized experience with the virtual desktops, including operation in the event of a WAN failure. In this solution, the desktops for users at the branch are stored on a LUN in the central location. The SteelFusion Core at the data center projects this storage to the branch office to the SteelFusion Edge. SteelFusion Edge presents the projected storage target containing the virtual desktops to a local vSphere host at the branch office which enables the desktops to run locally at the branch office.

Figure 2 Branch Office Desktop Architecture Figure 2 illustrates the deployment architecture with Riverbed SteelHead and SteelFusion appliances in a traditional View environment. In a typical deployment, the desktops for users at the branch office location are stored and executed from a central location. This leads to the challenges described earlier, primarily around bandwidth and latency. SteelFusion technology enables View desktops to be provisioned and managed centrally, but to be utilized with local connectivity in the remote location. The BOD solution does not require any of the View management components to run outside the data center. Users connect to the View Connection server as they normally would but establish a session with the local “projected” desktop so all PCoIP traffic stays within the branch. The only View traffic crossing the WAN is agent communication that is optimized via the SteelHead appliance. All applications accessed inside the virtual desktops that require resources centrally or outside of the local branch are also optimized over the SteelHead appliance for optimal performance. The BOD solution removes the heavy dependency on the WAN and also the fear of a network outage as desktop users remain connected and able to work on any application that does not require resources outside of the branch. The solution also provides benefits by lowering central storage requirements and costs. Because the desktops at the branch of fice use storage on the SteelFusion appliance, users accessing heavy read/write workloads (boot-storms) hit the SteelFusion Edge appliance first. For any necessary writes, SteelFusion Edge subsequently trickles IOPS in a steady-state fashion back to the data center storage. The central storage no longer needs to be sized for peak desktop operations and can be scaled down for such deployments. For larger solution sizes customers can chose to use the SteelFusion 1360P which includes the Advanced Tiering Cache that dramatically improves read and write performance and is targeted specifically for a VDI workloads.



The benefits of the BOD the solution include:

WAN connectivity o LAN performance while accessing the desktops o Bandwidth savings by completely eliminating PCoIP traffic over the WAN o Disconnected operations during WAN outages o SteelHead accelerate all application traffic from the branch

Reduced cost of Centralized Storage o Lower SAN IOPs requirements – read/write bursts absorbed locally o Centralized storage can be tiered down

Other benefits o Branch consolidation and disaster recovery are built in

Data stores are replicated to centralized storage where they can be protected with local array snapshots or other backup technologies

No backups required at the remote location Consolidated branch services (DHCP, print services) delivered locally by SteelHead using the

Virtual Services Platform (VSP) o Peripherals are supported on the LAN

Desktops are executed at the branch location and have local access to printers or USB drives Peripheral devices no longer consume WAN bandwidth during operation.



Chapter 2 Deploying SteelFusion with VMware View This chapter describes the process and procedures for deploying SteelFusion with VMware View. It includes the following sections:

Deployment Prerequisites

Deployment Best Practices

Branch Office Desktop Configuration

Deployment Prerequisites

For a BOD deployment, the following components are needed: VMware Infrastructure

VMware View infrastructure at the data center o View Connection Server o View Composer o Active Directory o Other required View components o No dependency on versions (5.X or later recommended)

vSphere host at the branch o Network boot o Can be hosted on SteelFusion o No dependency on versions (5.0.0u1 or later recommended)

Riverbed Appliances

SteelFusion Core at the data center o Physical or virtual SteelFusion Core o Software version 1.0.1 or later.

SteelHead appliance at the data center o Any SteelHead appliance sized appropriately for the specific deployment o No dependency on version (7.x or later recommended)

SteelFusion Edge at the branch o Requires SteelFusion license o No dependency on software version

Storage Array Requirements

Any supported storage

Deployment Best Practices

The BOD solution is designed to maintain a centralized VDI model for provisioning, re-composition, security and yet providing end users local desktop performance. To ensure optimal performance and management for production environments, several key deployment best practices are highlighted in the following sections. VMware View Best Practices

The first set of recommendations is focused specifically on VMware View. Pool Management The BOD solution is designed to provide granular control over each location and associated dependencies. The recommended approach is to create a pool per branch location or at least a pool that manages branches of similar sizes. While this adds some management overhead, it provides better branch management for the provis ion and re-composition processes.



vSphere host In a typical VDI deployment a farm of high-end vSphere hosts provide compute resources for virtual desktops. In the BOD deployment, user desktops at branch locations require local compute which can be provided either directly on the SteelHead Virtual Services Platform (see below) or by a separate ESXi host. There is little to no management overhead for the hosts at the branch location. SteelFusion Edge presents vSphere VM images directly at the branch where one or more external compute hosts can be configured to mount SteelFusion-projected storage to use for booting and local desktop execution. SteelHead appliances at the branch optimize vCenter traffic as well as View agent communication between the branch and data center.

Riverbed SteelFusion Best Practices for Pinned LUNs at the Branch

A storage LUN provisioned via SteelFusion can be deployed in two different modes, pinned and unpinned. Pinned mode caches 100% of the data blocks on SteelFusion Edge at the branch. This allows users at the branch to access all data even in the case of a WAN outage. Unpinned mode maintains only a working set of the most frequently accessed blocks at the branch. For BOD deployments it is recommended that the LUN containing the virtual desktops being projected be deployed in pinned mode. However, user profiles (My documents, other persistent files) can be put on a second data store on an un-pinned LUN. For these items, SteelFusion will locally host the most recently used files at the branch location and intelligently pre-fetch blocks of storage of new files as needed. If disconnected operations are not a requirement and the deployment does not include linked-cloned desktops, the entire deployment can leverage unpinned LUNs. Sizing SteelFusion Edge for BOD When deploying the BOD solution it is important to size the SteelFusion Edge appropriately for the branch office. When sizing the SteelFusion Edge for View it is important to take into account the expected number of IOPS that will be used by virtual desktop operations at the branch. A typical medium office workload typically generates 5 to 15 IOPS during steady state. Using table 1, size the SteelFusion Edge based on the number of View desktops that the SteelFusion Edge will be supporting and the expected number of IOPS per desktop. It is also recommended to enable host caching when creating the View pool as this minimizes the number of IOPS generated by the pool.

Size Model IOPS

1U EX 1160 170

2U EX 1260-2 350

2U EX 1260-4 700

2U EX 1360 1700

2U EX 1360P 10,000

Table 1 Sizing SteelFusion Edge IOPS

SteelFusion Data Stores

Pools

Data Center VMware View

Branch A

Desktop A1..An

Server A

Branch B

Desktop B1..Bn



The SteelFusion Edge solution natively features an ESXi hypervisor known as the Virtual Service Platform (VSP) that provides the ability to run View desktop VMs directly on the WAN optimization appliance. For some deployments the compute resources on the SteelHead may be sufficient to support the number of View desktops running at the branch. When sizing the SteelFusion Edge appliance for View desktops it is important to consider the compute resource and memory available to VSP. This will determine the number of View desktops that can run on a single appliance. Table 2 shows the CPU and memory that is available for each SteelFusion model.

Model With SteelFusion

Shipped RAM Available for VSP

EX 1160 L/M/H/VH 48 32

EX 1260-2 L/M/H/VH 72 48

EX 1260-4 L/M/H/VH 88 64

EX 1360 L/M 128 64

Ex 1360P L/M 128 64

Table 2 Memory Configuration QoS for SteelFusion Traffic During production hours, writes from SteelFusion back to the data center might affect other higher priority WAN production traffic such as VOIP or other application data. To limit the impact of SteelFusion traffic on other production traffic, it is highly recommended that QoS be enabled on the SteelHead appliance. QoS can be adjusted to free SteelFusion traffic from restriction during non-production hours as there typically will not be any traffic contention during these periods. SteelFusion Protocol Overview The following description of the SteelFusion protocol and utilized ports provides information that is useful in determining quality of service configuration requirements. The protocol defines how the SteelFusion Edge and SteelFusion Core appliances communicate and how data blocks are transferred over the WAN. SteelFusion uses five TCP ports for data transfers and one TCP port for management. The following table lists the TCP ports used by the protocol and maps the different operations to each TCP port:

TCP Port Operation Description

7970 Management Used for management information exchange between Edge and Core appliances

7950 Read Used to transfer data requests for data blocks absent in Edge from the data center

7951 Write Used to transfer new data created at the Edge to the data center

7952 Prefetch0 Pre-fetch data for which SteelFusion has highest confidence (example: file read ahead)

7953 Prefetch1 Pre-fetch data for which SteelFusion has medium confidence (example: boot)

7954 Prefetch2 Pre-fetch data for which SteelFusion has lowest confidence (example: prepopulation)

Table 3 SteelFusion Protocol TCP Ports Note: The SteelFusion protocol creates five TCP connections per exported LUN.



SteelFusion QoS Requirements The following table lists SteelFusion QoS requirements for each operation and relative TCP port:

TCP Port Operation Outgoing Branch Bandwidth

Outgoing Branch Priority

Outgoing Data Center Bandwidth

Outgoing Data Center Priority

7970 Management Low Normal Low Normal

7950 Read Low Business-Critical High Business-Critical

7951 Write High (off-peak hours) Low (peak hours)

Low-Priority Low Normal

7952 Prefetch0 Low Business-Critical High Business-Critical

7953 Prefetch1 Low Business-Critical Medium Normal

7954 Prefetch2 Low Business-Critical Low Best-Effort

QoS for SteelFusion Write Traffic To prevent SteelFusion traffic between the branch and the data center from consuming bandwidth required for other applications during business hours, it is recommended to allow more bandwidth for write traffic (port 7951) during off-peak hours and a less bandwidth during peak hours. It is important to consider required RPO and RTO objectives when configuring QoS for SteelFusion replication traffic. QoS for non-pinned LUNs In a non-pinned LUNs scenario, Riverbed recommends to prioritize traffic on port 7950 so that the SCSI Read requests for data blocks not present on the SteelFusion Edge block-store cache can arrive from the data center LUN in timely manner. It is also recommended to prioritize traffic on ports 7952, 7953 and 7954 so that the pre-fetch data can arrive at the branch block-store when needed. QoS for pinned LUNs In a pinned LUN scenario because all the data will be present at the edge, it is recommended to only prioritize port 7951 so that the protocol can transfer newly written data blocks from the SteelFusion Edge block-store to the data center LUN via the SteelFusion Core appliance. Time-based QoS Another option with SteelFusion is to completely disable SteelFusion write flushes during peak hours and limit this action to occur only during off-peak hours. By using time based QoS rules, SteelFusion write traffic can be limited so that no writes occur and therefore do not consume any WAN bandwidth during working hours. The example below illustrates how to configure time-based QoS rules on a SteelHead appliance. The goal is to create two recurring jobs, each undoing the other, using the standard 'job' cli command. One sets the daytime cap on throughput or a low minimum guarantee and the other removes that cap or sets a higher minimum guarantee. steelhead (config) # job 1 date-time hh:mm:ss year/month/day “Start time” steelhead (config) # job 1 recurring 864000 “Occurs once a day” steelhead (config) # job 1 command 1 <command> steelhead (config) # job 1 command 2 <command2> “Commands to set daytime cap” steelhead (config) # job 1 enable steelhead (config) # job 2 date-time hh:mm:ss year/month/day “Start time” steelhead (config) # job 2 recurring 864000 “Occurs once a day” steelhead (config) # job 2 command 1 <command> steelhead (config) # job 2 command 2 <command2>> “Commands to remove daytime cap” steelhead (config) # job 2 enable



Branch Office Desktop Configuration

The configuration for the BOD deployment is divided into four tasks. Each task is describe below and highlights steps required at each stage of the deployment cycle.

Task 1: Preparing for Initial Deployment – This task includes populating the storage LUN at the data center with the VM image that will be used to create the initial VMware View pool at the branch followed by the prepopulation of the SteelFusion appliance with this image and shipping of the unit to the branch office.

Task 2: Initial Branch Setup – This task includes setting up the SteelFusion appliance at the branch, configuring the vSphere host at the branch to connect to the storage at the data center.

Task 3: Deploying the Initial Pool at the Branch – This task utilizes the appropriate vCenter server to configure the branch VMware View pool for production in the remote office.

Task 4: Patching VMs at the Branch – Once the virtual desktop solution has been deployed the VM image at the branch might need to be patched. This step describes the patching process for desktops when using the BOD solution.

Task 1: Preparing for Initial Deployment

This step is performed at the data center to prepare the SteelFusion appliance for the deployment of the initial pool at the branch office. In this step, the SteelFusion appliance is prepopulated with the golden VM image that will be used for the deployment of the initial pool. By prepopulating the SteelFusion appliance with the image, it will speed up the deployment process and not flood the WAN link with unnecessary I/O. The SteelFusion appliance can then be shipped to the remote location and brought online and ready for the initial pool deployment. In this task the following sub-tasks will be performed:

Map local vSphere host to storage

Populate LUN with golden VM image

Prepopulate SteelFusion Edge with a golden image

Ship SteelFusion Edge to branch office for initial pool deployment Reference architecture for task 1

Figure 3 Reference Architecture Task 1



Map vSphere Host at Data Center to Storage

1. Create the LUN on the data center storage subsystem and map it to local vSphere host with access to the master VM image.

2. Map the newly created LUN to a vSphere host at the data center. From the vCenter GUI navigate to the hostname of vSphere host, select Configuration > Storage Adapters > Properties (Figure 4).

Figure 4 ESXi Storage Adapter Properties

3. In the iSCSI Initiator Properties window click Dynamic Discovery, then click Add… button to enter the IP address of the storage array into the iSCSI Server field (Figure 5).

Figure 5 Storage Array Discovery by ESXi



4. Close the window, and answer Yes to the request from the VMware vSphere host to rescan the host bus adapter (Figure 6).

Figure 6 iSCSI Adapter Rescan

5. Navigate to the Storage menu of the vSphere host and click the Configuration tab. Then click the Storage… tab. Click Add Storage to open the Add Storage wizard (Figure 7).

Figure 7 Add iSCSI Storage to ESXi

6. Follow the wizard. For Storage Type select Disk/LUN and for File System Version select VMFS-5. Click the Finish button to complete the operation (Figure 8). The storage appears in the storage screen after the wizard closes (Figure 9).

Figure 8 Add Storage Wizard

Figure 9 Storage Completion



Populate LUN with master VM image

1. On vCenter navigate to the hostname of the vSphere host where the datastore of the master VM image resides. Right click on the master image virtual machine and click clone (Figure 10).

Figure 10 Clone the Master VM

2. Follow the wizard and point to the vSphere host where the newly created datastore resides and click Next. Select Do not customize and click Next (Figure 11).

Figure 11 Clone VM Wizard



Un-mount the Datastore from the vSphere Host

1. Once the master image replication is complete, the datastore must be un-mounted. Before that can be done the newly created cloned VM must be removed from inventory. On vCenter, navigate to the hostname of vSphere host. Right click the newly created virtual machine and click Remove from Inventory (Figure 12).

Figure 12 Remove VM from Inventory

2. Once the VM is removed from inventory it is possible to un-mount the data store. On the vCenter GUI navigate to the hostname of the vSphere host. Click the Configuration tab for the host. Select Storage from the list on the left panel. Right click the data store and click Unmount (Figure 13).

Figure 13 Unmount Datastore



3. Click back on Storage Adapters from the list on the left panel, and on the right click the iSCSI or FC adapter that is delivering the LUN from the storage array to ESXi. Then select the LUN representing the unmounted data store from the bottom portion of the window and click Detatch (Figure 14).

Figure 14 Detatch LUN

4. If the vSphere host no longer needs to connect to the storage system, remove the iSCSI connection. In the vCenter GUI, navigate to the hostname of vSphere host. Click the Configuration tab for the host. Select Storage Adapters from the left menu and click Properties (Figure 15).

Figure 15 Storage Adapter Properties

5. Navigate to the Dynamic Discovery tab. Select the IP address of the storage adapter to remove, on the iSCSI Initiator Properties window, click the Remove button (Figure 16).

Figure 16 Remove Storage Array Connection



Prepopulate SteelFusion Edge with the Master Image

1. Once the vSphere ESXi host is detached from the LUN, prepopulate the SteelFusion Edge with the master image VM. On the storage system, map the LUN with the master image to the SteelFusion iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN). The IQN name can be found from SteelFusion Core GUI, under Configure > iSCSI Configuration. Look for the IQN name next to Initiator Name (Figure 17).

Figure 17 SteelFusion Core iSCSI Initiator Name

1. In this step SteelFusion Core will connect to the storage system. In the SteelFusion Core GUI, navigate to Configure > Storage > iSCSI Configuration. Click Add an iSCSI Portal. Enter the IP address of storage system and click the Add iSCSI portal button (Figure 18).

Figure 18 Connect to Storage Array



2. Once the iSCSI target is discovered from the iSCSI portal, map the iSCSI target learned from the portal. Click the Add Target button. SteelFusion Core will then discover iSCSI targets that have been mapped from the storage system. The newly discovered targets are displayed under Target Name.

Figure 19 Map iSCSI Target

3. Once the storage array target is established, the LUN where the master VM image resides must be mapped on the SteelFusion Core. Choose Configure > Storage > LUNS. Under the LUN Serial number drop down select the LUN with the master VM image and provide a LUN alias name. An alias is a name assigned to the LUN that is meaningful or descriptive to the purpose of the LUN (Figure 20).

Figure 20 Add LUN to SteelFusion



4. From SteelFusion Core add a SteelFusion Edge. On the SteelFusion Core GUI choose Configure > Storage > Granite Edges. Click Add Granite Edge and enter an identifier for SteelFusion Edge. An identifier is a name assigned to the SteelFusion Edge that is meaningful to the administrator (Figure 21).

Figure 21 Add SteelFusion Edge

5. Assign the LUN to the specific SteelFusion Edge. Navigate to Configure > Storage > Granite Edges. Click on the identifier for the SteelFusion edge created above. Assign the LUN with the master VM image to this SteelFusion Edge and click Map These LUNS (Figure 22).

Figure 22 Add LUNs to SteelFusion Edge



6. Connect the SteelFusion Edge to the SteelFusion Core. On the GUI of the SteelFusion appliance navigate to Configure > Granite > Granite Storage. Enter the IP address or the hostname of the SteelFusion Core. Enter the same SteelFusion Edge identifier that was previously configured on the SteelFusion Core above. Leave the interface as primary for simplicity and click Add Core (Figure 23).

Figure 23 Connect SteelFusion Edge to SteelFusion Core

The SteelFusion Edge should now show connection to the SteelFusion Core (Figure 24).

Figure 24 SteelFusion Edge Connection Success



7. Prepopulate the LUN to SteelFusion Edge. In the GUI of SteelFusion Core, navigate to Configure > Storage > LUNS. Click the LUN where the master VM image resides. Select Pinned and click Update. Then click Enable and then click on Enable Immediate Repopulation to enable and begin prepopulation (Figure 25).

Figure 25 Prepopulate the LUN to SteelFusion Edge

Once the previous step is complete save the configuration and power down the SteelFusion appliance. It is ready to be shipped to the branch office.

Task 2: Initial Branch Setup

Once the SteelFusion Edge appliance is shipped to branch office, the vSphere host at the branch can connect to the LUN back at the data center. In this task the following sub-tasks are performed:

Bring up SteelFusion Edge at the branch

Connect the vSphere host at the branch to LUN at data center via SteelFusion

Reference architecture for task 2

Figure 26 Reference Architecture Task 2



Bringing up SteelFusion at the Branch

1. Power up the SteelFusion Edge appliance at the branch and configure it with the appropriate IP addresses. Additional configuration may be needed for SteelHead WAN optimization. Refer to the SteelHead deployment guide for the configuration steps.

2. Ensure the SteelFusion Edge can connect back to the SteelFusion Core at the data center. In the GUI of the SteelFusion Edge, navigate to Configure > Granite > Granite Storage. The green check box indicates that SteelFusion is connected to the SteelFusion Core (Figure 27).

Figure 27 Confirm SteelFusion Connection

Connect the vSphere Host at the Branch to LUN at Data Center via SteelFusion

1. Once SteelFusion Edge can connect to SteelFusion Core, connect the vSphere host at the branch to the LUN target made available via SteelFusion Edge. First get the IQN name of the vSphere host at the branch to use when mapping of the LUN. To get the IQN name of the vSphere host, connect to vCenter and navigate to the vSphere host at the branch. Click on the Configuration tab then click on Storage Adapters. The IQN name can be found under Properties (Figure 28).

Figure 28 ESXi Host IQN Name



2. Add the vSphere host at the branch as an initiator for this SteelFusion Edge. In the SteelFusion Core GUI click on Configure > Storage > Granite Edges. Click on the appropriate SteelFusion Edge being configured, then click on Initiators and finally click Add Initiator. Enter the IQN name of vSphere host. Click Add initiator (Figure 29).

Figure 29 Add Branch ESXi Host IQN to SteelFusion

3. Next map the vSphere host to the LUN with the master VM image. In the SteelFusion Core GUI, navigate to Configure > Storage > Granite Edges. Click the identifier of the SteelFusion Edge. Click on LUNs and select the LUN alias to be mapped. Highlight the IQN name of the host to be mapped and click Add (Figure 30).

Figure 30 Assign LUN to Branch ESXi Host



4. Connect the vSphere host to LUN with the master VM Image. On vCenter, navigate to the hostname of vSphere host at the branch where SteelFusion Edge resides. Select Configuration > Storage Adapters > Properties (Figure 31).

Figure 31 Branch ESXi Host Storage Adapter Properties

5. Navigate to the Dynamic Discovery tab of the iSCSI Initiator Properties window that appears. Click the Add button. Enter the IP address of the primary interface of the SteelFusion appliance into the iSCSI Server field (Figure 32).

Figure 32 Add SteelFusion Edge to Branch ESXi Host



6. Close the window and answer Yes to the request coming from the VMware vSphere host to rescan the host bus adapter (Figure 33).

Figure 33 Rescan for SteelFusion Delivered LUN

7. Now that the vSphere host sees the LUN the next step is to add the storage. From the vCenter GUI navigate to the IP or hostname of the vSphere host. Click the Configuration tab, and select Storage from the left menu. Click the Add Storage link to start the Add Storage wizard (Figure 34).

Figure 34 Add Storage Wizard

8. Follow the Add Storage wizard, select Disk/LUN and click Next (Figure 35).

Figure 35 Add Storage Step 1



9. Select the SteelFusion projected LUN and click Next (Figure 36).


1. Select Keep the existing signature and click Next (Figure 37).




10. Click Finish to complete the Add Storage wizard (Figure 38).

Figure 38 Add Storage Wizard Completion

11. Next add the master VM image to the inventory. Click on the name of the newly added datastore, then right click and select Browse Datastore (Figure 39).

Figure 39 Browse Datastore

12. Navigate to the folder that contains the master image. Right Click the *.VMX file and click Add to Inventory (Figure 40).

Figure 40 Add Master VM Image to Inventory



Task 3: Deploying the Initial Pool at the Branch

With the vSphere host at the branch connected to the LUN at the data center the next step is to deploy the initial pool at th e Branch Office. The initial pool deployment differs from what is typical with a View pool deployment at the data center. Typically in the data center, the VM for the deployment of the initial pool can exist on any vSphere host that is managed by the same vCen ter server. For the BOD deployment, the golden VM image for the pool needs to be in a datastore that is connected to the vSpher e host at the branch. In this task the following sub-tasks will be performed:

Create a snapshot from golden VM image

Create the initial View pool Create a Snapshot from the Golden Image VM 1. On vCenter GUI, navigate to and right click on the VM of the golden image. Select Snapshot and click Take Snapshot

(Figure 41).

Figure 41 Take Snapshot 2. When the pop up screen comes up enter the name for the snapshot, enter a description for the snapshot and click OK

(Figure 42).

Figure 42 Snapshot Name



Create a VMware View Pool 1. Now that the snapshot has been created from the golden image, the initial pool is ready to be deployed from View

Administrator. Navigate to the View Administrator console by pointing to the URL of the View console from a web browser https://(hostname)/admin (Figure 43).

Figure 43 VMware View Admin Login Screen

2. In the View Administrator GUI click Pools. In the pop up window click Add. Select the type of pool to create and click Next (Figure 44).

Figure 44 Create New Pool

https://(hostname)/admin



3. Connect to the VMware View GUI. Select the type of assignment to create and click Next (Figure 45).

Figure 45 VMware View Configuration

4. Select the type of desktop being provisioned and click Next (Figure 46).

Figure 46 VMware View Configuration Step 2



5. Enter a, ID, a Display Name, and a Description for the pool then click Next (Figure 47).


6. Select the View Characteristics. Refer to the VMware View administrator guide for a definition of each characteristic. Click

Next (Figure 48).




7. Enter the naming pattern for the VMs then enter the number of VMs to create. Click Next (Figure 49).


8. Enter a Disk Profile for the View VMs and click Next (Figure 50).




9. First select the golden image VM then select the snapshot from which to create the clones. Use default for the next steps. For the remainder of the entries select the SteeelFusion datastore of the vSphere host at the branch. Click Next (Figure 51).


10. Select host caching to minimize IOPS going to disk for the vSphere host at the branch and click Next (Figure 52).




11. Enter Guest Customization if any and click Next (Figure 53). Refer to VMware View administration guide for more information on customization.


12. Do a final check of the pool parameters. Click Finish to create the pool (Figure 54).


Now that the initial pool is created, the next step is to assign the pool to select users. Once completed the pool can be used.



Task 4: Patching VMs at the Branch

Just like deploying an initial VM pool at the branch office, the process of patching VMs with the BOD solution differs from that of the typical VMware View VM patching process at the data center. With the BOD solution, the golden image is first patched at the data center and then cloned to a datastore on the vSphere host at the branch. A snapshot is taken from this image and a new pool is created from the snapshot. In this task the following sub-tasks will be performed:

Clone newly patched golden image from data center to branch vSphere host

Create a new View pool for users at the branch office Clone Newly Patched Golden Image from Data Center to Branch 1. In vCenter GUI navigate to the hostname of the vSphere host where the golden image is hosted. Right cl ick on golden image VM and click clone (Figure 55).

Figure 55 Clone Patched VM

2. Follow the wizard and point to the vSphere host at the branch office. Select the SteelFusion datastore and click Next. Follow the wizard. Select Do not Customize and Click Next (Figure 56).

Figure 56 Clone VM Wizard



Create a New View Pool for Users at the Branch Office 1. Now that the revised cloned snapshot has been created from the golden image, a new pool is ready to be deployed from

View Administrator. Navigate to the View Administrator console by pointing to the URL of the View console from a web browser https://(hostname)/admin (Figure 57).

Figure 57 VMware View Admin Login Screen

2. In the View Administrator GUI click Pools. In the pop up window click Add. Select the type of pool to create and click Next (Figure 58).

Figure 58 Create New Pool

https://(hostname)/admin



3. Connect to the VMware View GUI. Select the type of assignment to create and click Next (Figure 59).

Figure 59 VMware View Configuration

4. Select the type of desktop being provisioned and click Next (Figure 60).




5. Enter a, ID, a Display Name, and a Description for the pool then click Next (Figure 61).


6. Select the View Characteristics. Refer to the VMware View administrator guide for a definition of each characteristic. Click

Next (Figure 62).




7. Enter the naming pattern for the VMs then enter the number of VMs to create. Click Next (Figure 63).


8. Enter a Disk Profile for the View VMs and click Next (Figure 64).




9. First select the golden image VM then select the snapshot from which to create the clones. Use default for the next s teps. For the remainder of the entries select the SteeelFusion datastore of the vSphere host at the branch. Click Next (Figure 65).


10. Select host caching to minimize IOPS going to disk for the vSphere host at the branch and click Next (Figure 66).




11. Enter Guest Customization if any and click Next (Figure 67). Refer to VMware View administration guide for more information on customization.


12. Do a final check of the pool parameters. Click Finish to create the pool (Figure 68).


Now that the initial pool is created, the next step is to assign the pool to select users. Once completed the pool can be used.



Riverbed Technology, Inc.

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