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Learn VMware ThinApp with New ThinApp Essentials Book

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ThinApp is an essential piece of VMware’s end user computing portfolio as it acts as the decoupling agent between legacy Windows applications and the underlying operating system.  Leveraging ThinApp allows administrators to overcome application compatibility issues while providing new application deployment options to both physical desktops as well as VMware View desktops.  ThinApp does this by virtualizing everything that makes a Windows app a Windows app – registry entries, DLL registrations, Program Files directories, and user personalization – into a single .exe or .msi file.  The ThinApp application runs in a sandbox on any computer without the need for a locally installed agent or any significant datacenter infrastructure.  The power of ThinApp can be further extended with VMware Horizon Application Manager – an ‘App Store’ for the enterprise.

Packt Publishing has released a new book on VMware ThinApp: VMware ThinApp 4.7 Essentials, by Peter Björk.  I’ve got the book on my Kindle and thought I would share a bit about it.  VMware ThinApp 4.7 Essentials provides great detail on ThinApp architecture, the basics of application packaging, deployment of ThinApp packages (including details on using Horizon Application Manager) ThinApp project updating, and design considerations.  There’s also a great section on testing and troubleshooting ThinApp packages – usually one of the hardest aspects of ThinApp.

Whether you are just starting out with ThinApp, or have been using it for a while and want to increase your knowledge and skills, this book is packed with great detail.

VMware ThinApp IconWhile I’m on the topic of ThinApp, I should also mention that VMware released ThinApp 4.7.3 last week.  The release notes for ThinApp 4.7.3 are here: https://www.vmware.com/support/thinapp4/doc/releasenotes_thinapp473.html.  Of note in this release is support for packaging and running ThinApp virtualized applications on Windows 8, and introduces a new parameter that can help overcome conflicts between ThinApps.  ThinApp 4.7.3 also fixes 40-some issues, including problems with virtualized Internet Explorer, Firefox, Microsoft Office, and Camtasia.

VMware Press Review Team

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I follow VMware Press on Facebook.  Their status update post this morning caught my attention.  VMware Press is starting the ‘VMware Press Product Review Team’ – a group of qualified book reviewers who will read and publish reviews of VMware Press titles (blogs, Amazon, BN.com).  Reviewers will be given up to three free eBooks from VMware Press in exchange for an honest review of the book.  The first book for review will be the forthcoming VMware View 5: Building a Successful Virtual Desktop by Paul O’Doherty.

While there has been some noise lately around the number of paid reviews on sites like Amazon, the goal of this program is to improve the quality of VMware Press titles through quality feedback from qualified reviewers.  Feedback from reviews will help VMware Press select the right topics for future books, as well has improve the quality of content within their books.

Just speculation, but I wonder if reviewers that prove themselves as having a keen eye for detail and deliver thoughtful and well written reviews will be contacted for official pre-publication technical reviewer or author roles in future titles.  That could be a pretty cool way to get involved in authoring for those who are so inclined.

Signing up for the program is easy – just head over to VMware Press’s Facebook page for the Product Review Team and fill out the form.

VMware View 5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions Book Review

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VMware View 5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions CoverI recently received a copy of VMware View 5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions by Jason Langone and Andre Leibovici.  I had a few hours of flying time yesterday and decided to read the book.  The book is billed as ‘A complete guide to planning and designing solutions based on VMware View 5’.  Included in the contents of the book are the following topics:

  • Components of VMware View, including View Composer
  • Solution Methodology, including assessment worksheets, use case definition help, basic View design principles, and design validation using the VMware View Planner tool.
  • Persistent vs. Non-Presistent Desktops – the differences between the two and how to choose.
  • End Devices, including Thick, Thin, Zero, and other clients.
  • PCoIP Protocol: Protocol overview, benefits, and offload using the Teradici APEX card.
  • Sizing the VDI, including network, compute, and working around vSphere configuration maximums.
  • Redundancy, including using VMware High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and vCenter Heartbeat Server.  Design of View components (Connection Servers, Security Servers, etc.) for redundancy was discussed.
  • Sizing of Storage for View: This is probably the most challenging part of a View implementation.  The authors provided great insight into the storage performance profile of View VM’s and the intricacies of the split storage profile when using Linked Clones.  Capacity sizing is also included, with considerations for often overlooked sizing for video swap, virtual machine swap, and CBRC digests.
  • Security of VDI, including device control (USB), smart card authentication, and forensics.
  • Migration from physical desktops to virtual desktops, including the use of VMware View Persona Management.
  • Backing up the View infrastructure for disaster recovery.
  • New features and functionality in View 5.1.

All of these topics were covered with a good mix of high level overview and deep-dive details based on the authors’ extensive experience with VMware View.   I’ve been helping Clearpath customers with View implementation, upgrades and troubleshooting for some time.  I found the book to be factually accurate and well written.  I recommend VMware View 5 Desktop Virtualization Solutions for anyone preparing to implement View.  I’ve found that folks who rushed into a View implementation without understanding the nuances of VDI can run into problems, be it performance, capacity, or user experience, and often end up calling us in to diagnose and correct those problems.  While it’s great to be the hero, I much prefer working with customers from the inception of their View projects to correctly plan, size, and design the virtual desktop infrastructure.  This book will be a good resource for customers to read to get up to speed on the View solution they are considering, and will help to foster richer discussions with my team at Clearpath during planning and design phases of View projects.

Bottom line: Get this book to get you started on correctly sizing a View environment, including the necessary compute and storage resources for the solution, before purchasing and implementing.

VMware Press Releases “Managing and Optimizing VMware vSphere Deployments” For Pre-Order

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VMware Press has released Managing and Optimizing VMware vSphere Deployments by Sean Crookston & Harley Stagner for pre-order on Amazon.  The book is billed as “The Complete Guide to Planning, Deploying, and Operating  High-Performance VMware vSphere 5 Virtual Infrastructure.”  The description of the book on Amazon (copied below) sounds like this title will be well worth the price ($15 on the Kindle, $25 for the paperback).

To make the most of VMware’s vSphere 5, IT professionals need knowledge, tips, and insights they’ll  never find in the manuals–or in any book, until now! In Managing and Optimizing VMware vSphere Deployments, two world-class VMware experts offer start-to-finish lessons for vSphere planning, implementation, operation, management, and troubleshooting: expert insights drawn from their unsurpassed  “in-the-trenches” consulting experience.

Writing for experienced VMware professionals, the authors focus on high-value techniques optimized for the new vSphere 5, helping you establish frameworks that support your virtual infrastructure’s evolution for years to come. They present scenarios and examples drawn from real-world data, helping you address crucial issues ranging from sizing and performance to redundancy. The book concludes with a full  case study that walks you through a design from inception through implementation and explores the reasons for each key decision.

Coverage includes:

  • Building a strong foundation for virtual infrastructure: design considerations and  best practices
  • Smoothly integrating vSphere 5 into current environments and considerations
  • Establishing a more stable infrastructure
  • Choosing hardware and making optimal configuration decisions
  • Transforming your VMware design from  blueprint to completion
  • Operating vSphere solutions more efficiently  on a day-to-day basis
  • Automating tasks and maximizing availability
  • Streamlining the installation of updates, patches, and upgrades
  • Forecasting and planning capacity on an ongoing basis to support growth
  • Overcoming roadblocks on the journey to  100% virtualization
  • Monitoring vSphere 5 with tools provided by VMware and its community
  • Discovering the most valuable and current online VMware resources
  • Examples using Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) are provided throughout the book

I’ve got a good queue of books lined up already, but I’ll be ordering this book for my library.

Microsoft and VMware Virtualization Documentation

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Microsoft published a document named “Getting to Know Hyper-V: A Walkthrough from Initial Setup to Common Scenarios” last week.  According to Microsoft, “this guide provides detailed step-by-step walkthroughs for testing Hyper-V on a pre-production environment. You can use this guide to become familiar with Hyper-V and the process of creating and managing virtual machines. Also included in this guide are useful scenarios that you can test to better understand how Hyper-V can address the business goals of your organization.”  The document serves as a sort of evaluators guide for Hyper-V, stepping the reader through everything from enabling VT in BIOS through virtual networking.  It also includes some sections on using snapshots, base virtual machine templates, and managing Hyper-V based virtual machines remotely with Hyper-V Manager.  If you want more in-depth documentation on Hyper-V you can go through https://technet.microsoft.com.

As a side note, Microsoft has published the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications to help standardize technical documentation.  I have long been a fan of Microsoft’s technical documentation for its easy to read style, although it sometimes lacks the depth that I desire.

VMware vSphere Documentation LibraryWhile we’re on the topic of virtualization documentation, I have also been quite pleased with VMware’s technical documentation over the years, and have found it to be continually increasing in quality, providing very specific technical guidance and references to additional resources.  I have also been pleased to see that VMware has improved delivery options for documentation.  VMware offers several formats for documentation delivery, including web-based and PDF’s.  Start with the Documentation Roadmap for a quick introduction to the available documentation, and where to find what you need.

You can find web-based vSphere documentation here: https://pubs.vmware.com/vsp40/.   The web-based documentation is great for running searches on.  All vSphere documentation can be accessed through this page: https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pages/vsp_pubs_esx40_vc40.html.  If you want to do a full grab of all of VMware’s documentation for an in-house repository (e.g. SharePoint), check out xtravirt’s VMware Documentation Downloader script.

If you are looking for quick and easy evaluator guide-type documentation from VMware, check out these resources: ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup Guide and the Virtualization Kit (registration required) at https://www.vmware.com/resources/wp/virtualization101_register.html.

There is a ton of less formal VMware documentation in several places:

Do you have other sources of virtualization documentation or easy methods of searching documentation to find exactly what you need when you need it?  If so, leave a comment!