This article provides instructions on how an administrator operating a VDI-in-a-Box grid running version 5.2 or newer of the VDI-in-a-Box appliance can configure the grid to utilize a shared storage datastore to provide High Availability of the Personal vDisks associated with personal desktop templates.

Requirements

Using shared storage for the Personal Disk datastore requires:

• VDI-in-a-Box 5.2 or later

• Hyper-V 2012, Hyper-V 2012 R2, or ESX hypervisor

• A shared storage datastore (ESX) or a Cluster Shared Volume (Hyper-V) configured on the hypervisor

• A VDI-in-a-Box template configured to generate personal desktops’

Note: VDI-in-a-Box cannot make use of shared storage when running on the XenServer hypervisor, or Windows Server 2008 based hypervisors. Hence, ensure that you are using ESX, vSphere, Hyper-V 2012, or Hyper-V 2012 R2 hypervisors.

Instructions

VDI-in-a-Box Configuration

Enabling Multiple Datastores

Complete the following procedure to enable the multiple datastores option in VDI-in-a-Box:

1. Log on to the vdiManager as an administrator and navigate to the Administrator tab.

2. Open the Advanced Properties settings

3. Select Enable multiple datastores, as displayed in the following screen shot:

   

Configuring the Grid Servers

Once the multiple datastores option has been enabled, you must select the datastore for each server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid by following the given procedure:

1. Select the Servers tab from the VDI-in-a-Box administrator console.

2. Click the name of the first server in the grid to be modified.

3. Select Configure…from the Server Properties window.

4. Enter the hypervisor password and click Refresh to refresh the list of datastores.

5. Select the shared storage datastore for the Personal disks, as displayed in the following screen shot:
   Note: Do NOT select the shared storage datastore for the Images or the Desktops datastores.

   

6. Click Save and repeat these steps for each server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid.

High Availability

When the Personal disks datastore has been configured to utilize shared storage on each server in the VDI-in-a-Box grid, the personal desktops become highly available. In the event of the failure of a server hosting a personal desktop, a new linked clone can be created on another running server in the grid, and that new desktop can use the personal disk on the shared storage datastore.

In this example, a personal desktop is currently running on the .4 server in the VDI-in-a-Box environment.

The .4 Server has gone missing, and a new desktop is being started up on the .5 server in the grid.



On the user sessions tab, select the Actions link to the right of the personal desktop that can no longer be accessed. Click the Repair link in the actions menu, and you will be prompted to repair the desktop. Click Confirm.

VDI-in-a-Box will repair the desktop, and the personal desktop that was previously tied to the .4 server will now be found on the .5, as displayed in the following screen shot:

The user will now be able to log into the new desktop, located on the .5 server.

Hypervisor Configuration

Hyper-V

When using Hyper-V Cluster Shared Volumes, the path to access the storage will usually be C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1. This might not be immediately accessible for use as a VDI-in-a-Box datastore.

Complete the following procedure to configure Hyper-V so that this path is usable as a VDI-in-a-Box datastore:

1. Open Hyper-V Manager.

2. Select Hyper-V Settings… for the Hyper-V server.

3. Change the Virtual Machines default folder to C:\ClusterStorage\Volume1 or to the path of the cluster shared volume.

4. Click OK.

The path to the cluster shared volume should now be visible within VDI-in-a-Box.

For more information on using Cluster Shared Volumes with Hyper-V 2012, refer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612868.aspx

vSphere

When using vSphere, all that is required is to have the shared storage datastore added to the list of datastores visible from the vSphere client.

1. Click the Configuration tab.

2. Select Storage.

3. Choose Add Storage if the shared storage datastore is not already listed.

   If the datastore is listed, it will be usable by VDI-in-a-Box.