VDI: Mumbai is connected

We will be posting another VDI update soon because the 20Mbit connection was delivered yesterday.

A point to point check of the connection revealed no problems and the latency was 158ms which, considering that the length of the cable is around 9000 kilometres (5600 miles) is pretty stunning performance.

The connection will now be made with the workstations of the engineers and then testing can start.

Question roundup

In the time since my last post I have received some questions through comments on several blogposts. This is a roundup of the questions and answers:

From Jack:

- “Any preplanning pointers that you might have I would love to hear.”

With regards to planning I would recommend to do a full PowerRecon or VMWare Capacity Planner assessment of the environment.

Another thing I would do differently (but which will take up a lot of time with regards to project startup) is to secure the people you need for the project, rather than having a lot of work done by the ICT department(s). It will probably cost more time and money (training and making working arrangements with the departments that will be managing the environment after the project) but when you are in the process of converting the servers it will save you a lot of time.

Separately I would like to address the different type of engineer or departmental structure that could be necessary for managing the Virtual Infrastructure. Because everything is integrated in the VI (servers, network, storage) you will gain so much by having all the necessary disciplines in one team rather than having to beg the network department for resources and beg the storage department for storage etc. It will make a big difference to either have some form of budgetary control over these areas or set up specific SLA’s adressing the needs of the VI.

Also from Jack:

- “I saw that you used PowerConvert on this project was wondering if you used PowerRecon for your planning phase? If so what was your take on it?”

We have used PowerRecon for the planning phase but only for a limited amount of servers. With regards to Oracle this came around and gave us some headaches later on. If I was to do this type of project again I would do a full inventory with either PowerRecon or VMWare Capacity Planner so you will have a calculated rather than guesstimated consolidation ratio.