Setting Up Desktop and Application Pools in View

Desktop Pools for Specific Types of Workers
View provides many features to help you conserve storage and reduce the amount of processing power
required for various use cases. Many of these features are available as pool settings.
The most fundamental question to consider is whether a certain type of user needs a stateful desktop image
or a stateless desktop image. Users who need a stateful desktop image have data in the operating system
image itself that must be preserved, maintained, and backed up. For example, these users install some of
their own applications or have data that cannot be saved outside of the virtual machine itself, such as on a
file server or in an application database.
Stateless desktop
images
Stateless architectures have many advantages, such as being easier to
support and having lower storage costs. Other benefits include a limited
need to back up the linked-clone virtual machines and easier, less expensive
disaster recovery and business continuity options.
Stateful desktop images
These images might require traditional image management techniques.
Stateful images can have low storage costs in conjunction with certain
storage system technologies. Backup and recovery technologies such as
VMware Consolidated Backup and VMware Site Recovery Manager are
important when considering strategies for backup, disaster recovery, and
business continuity.
You create stateless desktop images by using View Composer and creating floating-assignment pools of
linked-clone virtual machines.
You create stateful desktop images by creating dedicated-assignment pools of either linked-clone virtual
machines or full virtual machines. If you use linked-clone virtual machines, you can configure View
Composer persistent disks and folder redirection. Some storage vendors have cost-effective storage
solutions for stateful desktop images. These vendors often have their own best practices and provisioning
utilities. Using one of these vendors might require that you create a manual dedicated-assignment pool.
Pools for Task Workers
You can standardize on stateless desktop images for task workers so that the image is always in a well-
known, easily supportable configuration and so that workers can log in to any available desktop.
Because task workers perform repetitive tasks within a small set of applications, you can create stateless
desktop images, which help conserve storage space and processing requirements. Use the following pool
settings:
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Create an automated pool so that desktops can be created when the pool is created or can be generated
on demand based on pool usage.
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Use floating assignment so that users log in to any available desktop. This setting reduces the number
of desktops required if everyone does not need to be logged in at the same time.
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Create View Composer linked-clone desktops so that desktops share the same base image and use less
storage space in the datacenter than full virtual machines.
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Determine what action, if any, to take when users log off. Disks grow over time. You can conserve disk
space by refreshing the desktop to its original state when users log off. You can also set a schedule for
periodically refreshing desktops. For example, you can schedule desktops to refresh daily, weekly, or
monthly.
Chapter 1 Introduction to Desktop and Application Pools
VMware, Inc. 11