This article contains information about the best practices for Personal Desktops with VDI-in-a-Box.

Background

Personal vDisk (PvD) allows you to create personal desktops within VDI-in-a-Box. A personal desktop provides space that allows the users to store their files and applications while still retaining the manageability benefits associated with pooled desktops. When the administrator updates the golden image, the user will receive the latest version of the image, while retaining the personal data and personally installed applications. If PvD is backed up, it can be restored to another server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid in the event of a server failure.

Personal vDisk Requirements

To use PvD with VDI-in-a-Box, ensure that the VDI-in-a-Box grid is running version 5.1 or greater. Personal desktops are available for Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows 2008 R2 are not currently supported.

Setting up Personal Desktops

When importing an image into VDI-in-a-Box, the administrator will be prompted to prepare the image to be used for personal desktops or pooled desktops. Selecting the option to prepare the image for use with personal desktops enables the image to be used with both the personal and the pooled desktops. Whereas, if the administrator selects the pooled option, the ability to use the image for personal desktops becomes unavailable when creating templates that point to this image.

The preparation process will take significantly longer when preparing the image to be used for personal desktops. If the administrator does not plan to utilize this feature, it would be faster to select the pooled option. Once an image has been prepared to support personal desktops, the next step is to create a template pointing to this image. If the template is set to create personal desktops, the administrator will also be prompted to select the size of the personal disk. By default, 50% of the disk will be reserved for personal data, and the other 50% will be the usable space for user installed applications. This ratio is dynamic and will automatically resize after a restart if the application portion is running low on disk space. This will not resize the personal disk itself, but will adjust the percentage allocated to applications instead of user personalization. It is important to add all users of personal desktops to the local administrators’ security group on the golden image, or through group policy. This ensures that the users will have the ability to install applications.

Using Personal Desktops

Personal desktops should be used only for users who require a highly customizable desktop. It is advisable to use standard pooled desktops for the majority of users who require access only to a standard set of applications that can be installed on the golden image. These users will have their personal data retained by a profile management solution such as Citrix UPM and no further customization will be required for their desktops. Using pooled desktops for as many use cases as possible will maximize the benefits of VDI and provide the highest density of desktops. In such cases, where a standardized desktop is insufficient for certain users, it is advisable to assign those users a personal desktop which allows them to have a set amount of space in which they can install their own applications.

User Data Partition

Fifty percentage of the personal disk will be reserved for personal data such as the user profile and all of the data contained within. It is considered best practice to still use a profile management solution such as Citrix’s UPM to manage the personal data and retain it on centralized storage. If UPM is being used, it will utilize the section of the vDisk reserved for user data to cache the information locally.

Application Partition

Fifty percentage of the personal disk that is reserved for user installed applications will allow the users to install whatever programs they require onto the vDisk. While the user sees a secondary hard drive attached to the desktop, it is not necessary to install applications to this drive. All data that is written to the desktop will be written to the PvD.

Backing up the Personal vDisk

It is advised to back up the PvD to another server in the grid or to an external storage receptacle. In the event of failure of the server hosting the personal desktop, a new linked clone will be created on an operational server in the grid, and the personal disk can be restored to this server to allow the user to retain access to their personalized desktop.

For detailed instructions on how to utilize the built in hypervisor tools to export the PvD to an external location, refer to the article on backing up and restoring PvDs.

CTX134792 Backup and Restore VDI-in-a-Box Personal Desktops on XenServer 

CTX140341 Backup and Restore VDI-in-a-Box Personal Desktops on HyperV 

CTX140342 Backup and Restore VDI-in-a-Box Personal Desktops on vSphere 

Known Issues

There are currently two known issues with PvD:

• Rolling back a Windows Update on the golden image may cause issues with all personal desktops generated from that golden image. It is strongly advised to test any Windows Updates thoroughly before publishing the golden image with these updates to avoid the need to roll back.

• If a user restarts the desktop while there is an upgraded golden image available, there might be issues. It is advisable to ensure that all users have logged out of the personal desktops before publishing an update to the golden image. Once the update is applied, select the Refresh option on the templates generating personal desktops from the updated image to ensure that the updated image has been applied to all desktops before the users log back in. It is unlikely that the user will restart the desktop as the Start menu option is obfuscated allowing a user only to log off or disconnect. The only way to restart the desktop would be through the command line, or the VDI-in-a-Box logon page under the “Problem connecting” options.

This article contains information about the best practices for Personal Desktops with VDI-in-a-Box.