Virtualization Beyond Servers:
Delivering a New Desktop and
Application Deployment Strategy
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December 10, 2011 1
Background:
Institutional
• Large academic medical institution in Baltimore, MD
• Decentralized, with 40-50% consolidation, more on
the medical side
• New Clinical Towers – opening April 2012 – replaces
most of the current hospital, $1B construction effort,
“hospital of the future”
• Widespread deployment of full clinical documentation
• Academic mission – residents, nursing & medical
students – built into clinical mission
• Highly mobile workforce inside the buildings and units
– even if mobility means walking around each unit
December 10, 2011 2
Convergence of Opportunities
• New hospital planning process – unique opportunity to
reconnect about technology futures with nearly everyone
• Mature server virtualization and storage practice, ‘completed’
server virtualization in March 2009
• Deployment of clinical documentation – people spend 3 times
more time interacting with a computer – paperless environment
• New devices (remember netbooks, now iPads)
• Available budget through fleet replacement and new hospital
funding
• Initial demos of virtual desktop met with huge positive response
• Challenge: Could we do this at scale, in 2 years, while the
products matured and our organization adapted?
December 10, 2011 3
Why were people so excited
• Simple ways to ‘drag’ a desktop session anywhere provided a
very positive, easy to grasp demo
• Drives device independence, easy, secure remote access
• Finally a full, personal desktop with network storage for nurses,
residents
• Faculty – Office and clinical environments converge
• Real engagement from IT folks – not just problem management
• Addressed session loss issue with certain apps on wireless
network
• Plus SSO and Tap and Go technologies added to the ‘complete
package’
December 10, 2011 4
Organizational Setting
• Organization had storage, client and virtualization
practices in one place
• Built a small team of VDI user support folks
– Focus on training, adoption, outreach, rounding, technology
fit
• Integrated team of engineers
– Different specialties (storage, server, desktop, imaging,
patch management) – takes lots of care and feeding
• App team buy-in was critical, took some time
• Now, there is a Cloud & Virtualization team for the
background technologies and strategy
December 10, 2011 5
Technology
• Launched View 3.0 into production June 2009
• Currently – VMWare View 4.6
• Next gen efforts starting in Fall, 2011
• Continue to push scalability – not just
underlying technology, but…
– Support processes
– Provisioning processes
– Organizational readiness
December 10, 2011 6
1st Generation Platform
• Full desktops for each person – 175-200 per
server (Nehalem technology, 144GB RAM)
• Use Netapp storage array for de-duplication
(75%), 20GB virtual desktops
• Windows XP, Office, Outlook, clinical apps,
push additional apps as needed
• H: drives (big deal for nurses, residents)
• Single Sign On
• USB pass through working well
December 10, 2011 7
December 10, 2011 8
Integrated Provisioning
• Create a virtual workspace, pre-enabled with access
to all key services
– Windows desktop
– Apps installed
– Access to file shares, email, instant msg
– SSO enabled
– Pre-provisioned inside applications
– Proper unit assignment – detect unit changes, address roaming
users
• Example: Nightingale / VDI integration
• Device naming
– pass actual room number/location to applications for fine-tuned
context management
December 10, 2011 9
December 10, 2011 10
Technology Challenges
• Storage – For full desktops – IOPS must be
managed very carefully – easy to overwhelm
ANY storage array without carefully
managing updates, software pushes, reboots
• Very familiar technologies – remote desktop,
hypervisor, SAN – but integration ‘at scale’
still maturing
• Plan to do major upgrades every year
December 10, 2011 11
Virtual Desktop Counts &
Milestones
December 10, 2011 12
Roadmap
2010 2011 2012 2013
Next Generation – 2nd Wave
•Larger scale -20K
•More use cases – labs, classrooms, mass
audience, niche apps & uses
•Windows 7
•Abstract OS, Persona, Apps
•Less or no reliance on SAN for OS
•Most recently updated OS upon reboot/login
•Automated / Self Service Provisioning
1st Generation
•Large scale (10K)– but focused on clinical settings
•Focus on user experience, workflow enhancements, adoption
•Timeline tied to New Hospital
•Belt & Suspenders – safety 1st
•Traditional Patch Mgmt / Updates
•Batch Automated Provisioning
•Organizational Change
•Technology Maturity
December 10, 2011
•Small pilots in non-clinical areas 13
Is there an ROI????
• Acquisition costs similar to legacy PC
• Labor investment substantial, but we
transformed from within
• Fleet and new hospital budget provided a
foundation
• No discernible labor dividend yet, but we
are seeing reduced issues with VDI
• “Upping our game” on basic XP alerts and
resolutions
• Much more flexible platform for customers
• Much better security and flexibility for IT
• Building a chargeback model for the rest
of the user community
• Costs no higher – but it’s a better solution
on many fronts for many people
• Concurrent licenses in clinical setting
‘stretch’ 3:1 on average * License amortized over 4 years including support
December 10, 2011 14
Interesting Use Cases
• Medical/Nursing Students – bridges gaps between
their clinical and academic experience – follow
through entire career
• Training rooms – good place to introduce change,
save funding, reduce management costs
• Isolated or special purpose pools of test machines
– App testing
– malware analysis
• Mobile services – rehab, child life, social work,
pharmacists – totally portable experience, using any
open device on a unit
December 10, 2011 15
Johns Hopkins then ….
and now…
December 10, 2011 16
December 10, 2011 17
Netbooks – at the time
• Supported using a stripped down image with Windows XP,
browser and a virtual desktop client
• Not enough processing power for local install of full suite of
enterprise applications
• But… decent platform for virtual desktop, browsing
• Provides a manageable, affordable solution for clinical laptops
• More secure – no local data, apps
• Fast forward one year – moderate niche usage – fills a gap
• Netbooks, better wireless carts and IT staff engagement
signalled a new, tangible, positive engagement around the more
abstract concept of virtual desktop…. It was our “in”…
December 10, 2011 18
Basic View…
December 10, 2011 19
Virtual Desktop Architecture
Dynamic Location Monitoring
• Conceptual Goal:
– Map based console built against actual floorplans
– Each network connected device show in actual location
– Up/Down, Key Services tracked
– Possibility of linking with RFID
– Can be linked to server availability, network availability
• Builds on existing technologies (SCOM for desktops)
• Proof of concept – Spring 2010
December 10, 2011 21
Application Integration
• Need extended application roadmaps
– 2 or more years for all key apps
– Hardware, memory requirements
– Interoperability requirements (.NET, Java, IE, OS, hardware)
– Rollout plans, hardware budgets
– Need more joint testing opportunities
• Need bug fixes, technology improvements – not just
functional improvements
– Inefficient memory usage
– Ill-behaved without wrapping in virtual ‘bubble wrap’
– Hardware contention
– Often tied to a specific hardware device
December 10, 2011 22