Questions before an internal lab POC (on old underperformant hardware)

Hello VDI users,
NB: I initially asked this list of questions to my friends at the
SunRay-Users mailing list, but then I found this forum as a
more relevant place.
It's a bit long and I understand that many questions may have
already been answered in detail on the forum or VDI wiki. If it's
not too much a burden - please just reply with a link in this case.
I'd like this thread to become a reference of sorts to point to our
management and customers.
I'm growing an interest to try out a Sun VDI POC in our lab
with VirtualBox and Sunrays, so I have a number of questions
popping up. Not all of them are sunray-specific (in fact, most
are VirtualBox-related), but I humbly hope you won't all flame
me for that?
I think I can get most of the answers by experiment, but if
anyone feels like sharing their experience on these matters
so I can expect something a'priori - you're welcome to do so ;)
Some questions involve best practices, however. I understand
that all mileages vary, but perhaps you can warn me (and others)
about some known-not-working configurations...
1) VDI core involves a replicated database (such as MySQL)
for redundant configuration of its working set storage...
1.1) What is the typical load on this database? Should it
just be "available", or should it also have a high mark
in performance?
For example, we have a number of old Sun Netra servers
(UltraSPARC-II 450-650MHz) which even have a shared SCSI
JBOD (Sun StorEdge S1 with up to 3 disks).
Would these old horses plow the field well? (Some of them
do run our SRSS/uttsc tasks okay)
1.2) This idea seems crippled a bit anyway - if the database
master node goes down, it seems (but I may be wrong) that
one of the slave DB nodes should be promoted to a master
status, and then when the master goes up, their statuses
should be sorted out again.
Or the master should be made HA in shared-storage cluster.
(Wonder question) Why didn't they use Sun DSEE or OpenDS
with built-in multimaster replication instead?
2) The documentation I've seen refers to a specific version
of VirtualBox - 2.0.8, as the supported platform for VDI3.
It was implied that there were specific features in that
build made for Sun VDI 3 to work with it. Or so I got it.
2.1) A few versions rolled out since that one, 3.0 is out
now. Will they work together okay, work but as unsupported
config, not work at all?
2.2) If specifically VirtualBox 2.0.8 is to be used, is there
some secret build available, or the one from Old Versions
download page will do?
3) How much a bad idea is it to roll out a POC deployment
(up to 10 virtual desktop machines) with VirtualBox VMs
running on the same server which contains their data
(such as Sun Fire X4500 with snv_114 or newer)?
3.1) If this is possible at all, and if the VM data is a
(cloned) ZFS dataset/volume, should a networked protocol
(iSCSI) be used for VM data access anyway, or is it
possible (better?) to use local disk access methods?
3.2) Is it possible to do a POC deployment (forfeiting such
features as failover, scalability, etc.) on a single
machine alltogether?
3.3) Is it feasible to extend a single-machine deployment
to a multiple-machine deployment in the future (that
is, without reinstalling/reconfiguring from scratch)?
4) Does VBox RDP server and its VDI interaction with SRSS
have any specific benefits to native Windows RDP, such
as responsiveness, bandwidth, features (say, microphone
input)?
Am I correct to say that VBox RDP server enables the
touted 3D acceleration (OpenGL 2.0 and DX8/9), and lets
connections over RDP to any VM BIOS and OSes, not just
Windows ones?
4.1) Does the presence of a graphics accelerator card on
the VirtualBox server matter for remote use of the VM's
(such as through a Sun Ray and VDI)?
4.2) Concerning the microphone input, as the question often
asked for SRSS+uttsc and replied by RDP protocol limits...
Is it possible to pass the audio over some virtualized
device for the virtual machine? Is it (not) implemented
already? ;)
5) Are there known DO's and DONT's for VM desktop workloads?
For example, simply office productivity software users
and software developers with Java IDEs or ongoing C/C++
compilations should have different RAM/disk footprints.
Graphics designers heavy on Adobe Photoshop are another
breed (which we've seen to crawl miserably in Windows
RDP regardless of win/mstsc or srss/uttsc clients).
Can it be predicted that some class of desktops can
virtualize well and others should remain "physical"?
NB: I guess this is a double-question - on virtualization
of remote desktop tasks over X11/RDP/ALP (graphics bound),
as well as a question on virtualization of whole desktop
machines (IO/RAM/CPU bound).
6) Are there any rule-of-thumb values for virtualized
HDD and networking filesystems (NFS, CIFS) throughput?
(I've seen the sizing guides on VDI Wiki; anything else
to consider?)
For example, the particular users' data (their roaming
profiles, etc.) should be provisioned off the networked
storage server, temporary files (browser caches, etc.)
should only exist in the virtual machine, and home dirs
with working files may better be served off the network
share altogether.
I wonder how well this idea works in real life?
In particular, how well does a virtualized networked
or "local" homedir work for typical software compile
tasks (r/w access to many small files)?
7) I'm also interested in the scenario of VMs spawned
from "golden image" and destroyed after logout and/or
manually (i.e. after "golden image"'s update/patching).
It would be interesting to enable the cloned machine
to get an individual hostname, join the Windows domain
(if applicable), promote the user's login to the VM's
local Administrators group or assign RBAC profiles or
sudoer permissions, perhaps download the user's domain
roaming profile - all prior to the first login on this
VM...
Is there a way to pass some specific parameters to the
VM cloning method (i.e. the user's login name, machine's
hostname and VM's OS)?
If not, perhaps there are some best-practice suggestions
on similar provisioning of cloned hosts during first boot
(this problem is not as new as VDI, anyways)?
8) How great is the overhead (quantitative or subjective)
of VM desktops overall (if more specific than values in
sizing guide on Wiki)? I've already asked on HDD/networking
above. Other aspects involve:
How much more RAM does a VM-executing process typically
use than is configured for the VM? In the JavaOne demo
webinar screenshots I think I've seen a Windows 7 host
with 512Mb RAM, and a VM process sized about 575Mb.
The Wiki suggests 1.2 times more. Is this a typical value?
Are there "hidden costs" in other VBox processes?
How efficiently is the CPU emulated/provided (if the VBox
host has the relevant VT-x extensions), especially for
such CPU-intensive tasks as compilation?
*) Question from our bookkeeping team:
Does creating such a POC lab and testing it in office's
daily work (placing some employees or guests in front of
virtual desktops instead of real computers or SR Solaris
desktops) violate some licenses for Sun VDI, VirtualBox,
Sun Rays, Sun SGD, Solaris, etc? (The SRSS and SSGD are
licensed; Solaris is, I guess, licensed by the download
form asking for how many hosts we have).
Since all of the products involved (sans SGD) don't need
a proof of license to install and run, and they can be
downloaded somewhat freely (after quickly clicking thru
the tomes of license agreements), it's hard for a mere
admin to reply such questions ;)
If there are some limits (# of users, connections, VMs,
CPUs, days of use, whatever) which differentiate a legal
deployment for demo (or even legal for day-to-day work)
from a pirated abuse - please let me know.
//Jim
Edited by: JimKlimov on Jul 7, 2009 10:59 AM
Added licensing question

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Read this about how to change the security questions: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5312
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<Email Edited By Host>

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1. Use your current Apple ID password
Trying using your current Apple ID password. If that doesn't work, continue to the next step.
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FaceTime: Go to Settings > FaceTime, tap your Apple ID, then tap Sign Out.
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FaceTime: Go to Settings > FaceTime, then tap "Use your Apple ID for FaceTime".
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Rescue email address and how to reset Apple ID security questions
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5312
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Navigate to My Apple ID using your web browser.
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