American Casserole #VDM30in30

/ seanpmassey

It’s Sunday…and that means another recipe.

This week’s recipe is one that my grandmother used to make all the time.  It’s a very simple and delicious casserole that she called American Casserole.  Like last week’s Baked Mostacciolli, this recipe scales very well (2 pounds of ground meat to each pound of noodles), and it freezes very well.

In some ways, this recipe is like the Cheeseburger Macaroni Hamburger Helper that is layered instead of mixed together.

Ingredients:

  • 2 lbs. of ground meat (turkey, beef)
  • 1 lb. box of elbow macaroni
  • 1 Family Size can of tomato soup
  • 2 cups Milk
  • 3 Eggs, beaten
  • American cheese slices

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Brown ground meat and drain fat.  Season to taste.
  3. Combine tomato soup and ground meat.  Set aside.
  4. Cook elbow macaroni to al dente per package directions.  Drain but do not rinse.
  5. Combine milk and eggs.  Add to macaroni and mix well.
  6. Place macaroni mixture in the bottom of a baking pan.
  7. Place meat and tomato soup mixture on top of the macaroni mixture. 
  8. Place American cheese slices on top of the meat layer.
  9. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.

Notes:

  • Do not use whole-wheat pasta with this recipe.  I’ve tried it, but the macaroni layer doesn’t quite bind together.
  • If you’re not a fan of American Cheese slices, you can use other cheese.  Shredded mild cheddar works well too.

Career Thoughts Pt. 1–You Can’t Let Go of Everything to Keep Up with Tech #vdm30in30

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Back in September 2013, the IEEE Spectrum published an article with a very interesting statistic: technical professionals need at least 10 hours of training each week just to keep current with the changing technology.  Although this was geared more towards programmers and electrical engineers, it can just as easily be applied to systems administrators and other IT fields.

Ten hours a week doesn’t sound like a lot at first.  That’s only two hours per weekday.  Early in a career it may be easy to set aside two hours per night or a large block of time on weekends, but as your life changes, other priorities start to require that time.

There are very few ways to get that time back, and it usually comes at the expense of sleep or other hobbies and interests.  I’ve heard more than one IT person say that they’ve given up on all non-work related hobbies because they don’t have time to meet their family commitments and keep up with technology.

I’m guilty of this myself.  I’ve set aside hobbies such as photography and reading and writing on non-technical subjects because there isn’t enough time for it.  I’ve traded sleep for lab time.

Doing this is a mistake.  Trading in hobbies and interests for career may benefit your career, but you’re stealing from yourself when you do it. 

Who Are You, and What Have You Done to Microsoft? #VDM30in30

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One of the cornerstones of Microsoft’s business has been Office.  Office, along with Windows, has been so successful that its profits have been able to fund a number of less-than-profitable business units over the years and allowed Microsoft to not only survive debacles like the XBox Red Ring of Death but still make a profit while writing off billions in expenses.

Although Microsoft has been pushing Office to a subscription-based service with very affordable non-commercial tiers, I was shocked to see this article from The Verge when I opened up Twitter this morning.

Starting today, you won’t need to have an Office 365 account in order to edit or save documents on IOS or Android devices.  Windows and Mac users don’t get a free version, and they will still need to pony up for an Office 365 subscription to use Office on their PCs.

Although Microsoft has given away products in the past such as the Visual Studio Express Editions and SQL Server Express, I can’t recall a time when they’ve given away one of their core products in a form that wasn’t tied to another revenue generating platform.

OK…that sentence was a little awkward.  What I mean is that while Visual Studio Express and SQL Express are feature limited versions of Microsoft products, they’re still tied to the Windows ecosystem. 

The difference here is that Microsoft is giving away a version of Office, albeit a feature limited one, on platforms that they don’t derive any direct revenue from.

This isn’t an entirely altruistic move – it’s one to ensure that Office remains the dominant productivity platform in the face of multiple mobile options.  It doesn’t really undercut any of their competitors like building Internet Explorer into Windows did to Netscape – Google and Apple already offer free mobile productivity suites as well, and users will have their choice of which suite they want to install and use.

So is this big?  Yes.  Is it shocking?  In some ways, yes.  But its also a move that Microsoft had to make in order to keep Office relevant in an era of open document standards and free alternatives on mobile devices.

Home Lab Expansions #VDM30in30

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Over the last two weeks, I’ve made some significant changes to my home lab.  The changes were brought about by a steadily increasing electric bill that had been increasing significantly over the last few months.

I picked up two new servers, a PowerEdge R710 and a PowerEdge R610,  on eBay that will replace the 3-node, 2U Dell DCS6005 that I had been using for my lab.  Both servers come with dual quad-core Xeon processor and 24 GB of RAM.   The R610 will be for server workloads, and the R710 will be for testing out VDI related software.

Although I end up with fewer cores and less RAM for running virtual machines, the two new servers have a few features which make them attractive for home lab use.  The include onboard power monitoring to track electricity usage, and I easily view this within the iDRAC.  The baseboard management on the DCS6005 nodes never worked right, so the new servers had iDRAC6 Enterprise modules added for improved remote management.  The new servers are far quieter than the DCS6005, and I can barely hear them once they are running. They also have more expansion slot, which will allow me to start testing GPUs with Horizon

Election Day is Here #VDM30in30

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Today is Tuesday, November 4th.  If you’re in the United States and haven’t been avoiding television (which I wouldn’t blame you if you were), you know that today is the last day of the barely truthful ads attacking candidates using half-truths and lies…I mean it’s Election Day.  It’s the day that we vote for the people who will lead our government for the next two to four years.

I’m not going to get into who I’m voting for.  That’s not important.  The important thing is to find your polling place and cast your vote. 

And then you can be thankful that the campaign ads stop tonight.

Horizon View 6 Part 10–Building Your Desktop Golden Images #VDM30in30

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A virtual desktop environment is nothing without virtual desktops.  Poorly performing virtual desktops, or virtual desktops and pools that aren’t configured properly for the applications that are being deployed, can turn users off to virtual desktops and sink the project.

How you configure your desktop base image can depend on the type of desktop pools that you plan to deploy.  The type of desktop pools that you deploy can depend on the applications and how you intend to deploy them.  This part will cover how to configure a desktop base image for linked clone pools, and the next part in this series will cover how to set up a linked clone pool.

Before You Begin, Understand Your Applications

Before we begin talking about how to configure the desktop base image and setting up the desktop pools, its very important to understand the applications that you will be deploying to your virtual desktops.  The types of applications and how they can be deployed will determine the types of desktop pools that can be used.

A few factors to keep in mind are:

  • Licensing – How are the applications licensed?  Are the licenses locked to the computer in some way, such as by computer name or MAC address?  Is a hardware key required? 
  • Hardware – Does the application require specific hardware in order to function, or does it have high resource requirements?  This is usually a consideration for high-end CAD or engineering applications that require a 3D card, but it could also apply to applications that need older hardware or access to a serial port.
  • User Profile and User Installed Applications – Are user profiles being centrally managed, or are they remaining local to the virtual desktops? Are users able to install their own applications?
  • Application Remoting – Can the applications be installed on a terminal server and presented to the users using an application remoting technology such as XenApp or Horizon Application Remoting?

Once you understand the applications that are being deployed to the virtual desktops, you can start planning your pools and creating your base images.

Supported Operating Systems

Horizon View only supports virtual desktops running Microsoft Windows.  The versions of Windows that are supported are:

  • Windows 8.1 Enterprise or Professional
  • Windows 8 Enterprise or Professional
  • Windows 7 Enterprise or Professional
  • Windows Vista Business or Enterprise SP2 (32-bit only)
  • Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit only)

Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported as a desktop operating system.  Configuring support for Server 2008 R2 desktops is easier in Horizon 6.0, and it only requires checking a single checkbox instead of editing the Horizon LDAP database.

Terminal Server sessions running on Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer are also supported, but I will cover those in another series.

For this part, we’re going to assume that we’re building a desktop running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1.  This will be more of a high-level overview of creating a desktop template for Horizon View, and I won’t be doing a step-by-step walkthrough of any of the steps for this section.

Configure the VM

Building a desktop VM isn’t much different than building a server VM.  The basic process is create the VM, configure the hardware, install the operating system, and then install your applications.  Although there are a few additional steps, building a desktop VM doesn’t deviate from this.

You should base the number of vCPUs and the amount of RAM assigned to your virtual desktops on the requirements for of the applications that you plan to run and fine tune based on user performance and resource utilization.

The recommended hardware for a virtual desktop is:

  • SCSI Controller – LSI SAS
  • Hard Disk – At least 40GB Thin Provisioned
  • NIC – VMXNET3
  • Remove Floppy Drive, and disable parallel and serial ports in BIOS
  • Remove the CD-ROM drive if you do not have an alternative method for installing Windows.

Note: You cannot remove the CD-ROM drive until after Windows has been installed if you are installing from an ISO.

BIOS Settings
BIOS screen for disabling Serial and Parallel ports and floppy controller

You’ll notice that I didn’t put minimums for vCPUs and RAM.  Sizing these really depends on the requirements of your user’s applications.  I’ve had Windows 7 64-bit desktops deployed with as little as 1GB of RAM for general office workers up to 4GB of RAM for users running the Adobe Suite.

Install Windows

After you have created a VM and configured the VM’s settings, you need to install Windows.  Again, it’s not much different than installing Windows Server into a VM or installing a fresh copy of Windows onto physical hardware.  You can install Windows using the ISO of the disk or by using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and PXE boot to push down an image that you’ve already created.

When installing Windows for your desktop template, you’ll want to make sure that the default 100 MB system partition is not created.  This partition is used by Windows to store the files used for BItlocker.

Since Bitlocker is not supported on virtual machines by either Microsoft or VMware, there is no reason to create this partition.  This will require bypassing the installer and manually partitioning the boot drive.  The steps for doing this when installing from the DVD/ISO are:

1. Boot the computer to the installer
2. Press Shift-F10 to bring up the command prompt
3. Type DiskPart
4. Type Select Disk 0
5. Type Create Partition Primary
6. Type Exit twice.

diskpart

Once you’ve set up the partition, you can install Windows normally.  If you’re using something like the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, you will need to configure your answer file to set up the proper hard drive partition configuration.

Install VMware Tools and Join the Template to a Domain

After you have installed Windows, you will need to install the VMware tools package.  The tools package is required to install the View Agent.  VMware Tools also includes the VMXNET3 driver, and your template will not have network access until this is installed.   The typical installation is generally all that you will need unless you’re using vShield Endpoint as part of your antivirus solution.

After you have installed VMware Tools and rebooted the template, you should join it to your Active Directory domain.  The template doesn’t need to be joined to a domain, but it makes it easier to manage and install software from network shares.

Install View Agent

After you have installed the VMware tools package and joined your computer to the domain, you will need to install the VMware View Agent.  The default install of the View Agent includes all of the features except for PCoIP Smartcard support.  The agent install will require a reboot after it is completed.

Installing Applications on the Template

After you install the View Agent, you can begin to install the applications that your users will need when they log into Horizon View.

With tools like Thinapp available to virtualize Windows applications or layering software like Unidesk or Cloud Volumes, it is not be necessary to create templates for all of the different application combinations.  You can create a base template with your common applications, such as your office suite, pdf reader, etc, and then either virtualize or layer your other applications on top of that.

“Finalizing” the Image

Once you have the applications installed, it is time to finalize the image to prepare it for Horizon View.  This step involves disabling unneeded services and making configuration settings changes to ensure a good user experience.

There are two ways to do this.  The first is to use the batch file provided by VMware in the Horizon View Optimization Guide for Windows 7 and Windows 8.  The other option is to use the VMware OS Optimization fling.

Before you shut the virtual machine down to snapshot it, verify that any services required for applications are enabled.  This includes the Windows Firewall service which is required for the View Agent to function properly.

Shutdown and Snapshot

After you have your applications installed, you need to shut down your desktop template and take a snapshot of it.  If you are using linked-clones, the linked-clone replica will be based on the snapshot you select.

That’s a quick rundown of setting up a desktop template to be used with Horizon View desktops. 

In the next part of this series, I’ll cover how to create a linked-clone pool.

Simple Baked Mostaccioli–#vDM30in30

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Sunday isn’t always the best day for writing a tech blog.  So instead of trying to shoehorn a technical topic in on the weekend, I thought I would do Recipe Sundays where I share a recipe from my family cookbook.

The first recipe I’m going to share is one that I’ve been making for over 10 years.  It is one of the first things that I learned to cook when I was in college – baked mostaccioli.

This recipe is very simple to put together, stores well, and can easily be scaled up to feed a small army. 

Ingredients:

1 pound of lean ground beef or ground turkey
1 pound box of Mostaccioli or Penne
1 45 oz.  jar of Ragu Old World Style Traditional Spaghetti Sauce or generic equivalent
16oz shredded Mozzeralla Cheeze
Seasonings
1 9×13 baking pan
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook pasta per package instructions for 8-9 minutes so that it is slightly undercooked.  Drain, but DO NOT rinse pasta.
3. Season ground meat with onion and garlic powder and brown over medium heat until cooked thoroughly, drain
4. Spread about 1/2 cup of sauce on the bottom of the pan
5. In a large mixing bowl or pot, combine the meat, pasta, remaining sauce and a half cup of shredded cheese.  Mix until pasta and meat are coated with sauce.
6. Pour the pasta and meat mixture into the baking pan and top with remaining cheese.
7. Bake for approximately 35 minutes until cheese is slightly browned and a thermometer reads 165 degrees when inserted into the center.
Note: Cooking times may vary depending on oven and if it was frozen before going into the oven.
8. Allow to stand and cool for 5-10 minutes.

A Whole Month of Blogging – Introduction to #NABLOWRIMO

/ seanpmassey

November is known for a few things – Thanksgiving, the religious shopping holiday known as Black Friday, and National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

National Novel Writing Month is basically a novel writing sprint.  Participants in this project attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 day.

For those of us who aren’t so creatively inclined or have the time to dedicate to writing 1000 words per day, there is something for you too – 30 blog posts in 30 days.

The idea was originally put forward by Greg Ferro (@etherealmind), and it was quickly adopted by the Virtual Design Master crew.

Today is November 1st, and this is the first of 30 posts.

Wait – 30 days of technology posts?  Where do you find the time to do that?

Not all of the posts will be technical. The rules of this contest are to have 30 blog posts in 30 days, so some of the posts will be on things besides VDI or PowerShell.

I’ll post a list of participating bloggers and sites in the near future as one comes together.

Horizon View 6.0 Part 9–Configuring Horizon View for the First Time

/ seanpmassey

Now that the Connection Server and View Composer are installed, it’s time to configure the components to actually work together with vCenter to provision and manage desktop pools.

Logging into View Administrator

Before anything can be configured, though, we need to first log into Horizon View Administrator.  As I mentioned above, you will need to have Adobe Flash installed and enabled in your web browser.

The web browsers that VMware supports are:

  • Internet Explorer 8 or later (on Windows 8, IE is only supported in Desktop Mode)
  • FIrefox 6 or later

Although it is not officially supported, I have never had an issue with View Administrator when using Google Chrome.

To log in, take the following steps:

1. Open your web browser.

2. Navigate to https://<FQDN of connection server>/admin

3. Log in with the Administrator Account you designated (or with an account that is a member of the administrator group you selected) when you installed the Connection Server.

1. Login

4. After you log in, you will be prompted for a View License key.

2. License pt 1

Note:  The license keys are retrieved from your MyVMware site.  If you do not input a license key, you will not be able to connect to View Desktops after they are provisioned.  You can add or change a license key later under View Configuration –> Product Licensing and Usage.

5. Click Edit License.  Paste your license key from the MyVMware site into the license key box and click OK.

3. License pt 2

6. After your license key is installed, the Licensing area will show when your license expires and the features that are licensed in your deployment.

4. License pt 3

Configuring View for the First Time

Once you’ve logged in and configured your license, you can start setting up the Horizon View environment.  In this step, the Connection Server will be configured to talk to vCenter and View Composer.

1.   Expand View Configuration and select Servers.

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2.  Select the vCenter Servers tab and select Add…

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3, Enter your vCenter server information.  The service account that you use in this section should be the vCenter Service Account that you created in Part 6.

Note: If you are using vCenter 5.5 or later, the username should be entered in User Principal Name format – username@fqdn.

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4. If you have not updated the certificates on your vCenter Server, you will receive an Invalid Certificate Warning.  Click View Certificate to view and accept the certificate.

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5.  Select the View Composer option that you plan to use with this vCenter.  The options are:

A. Do not use View Composer – View Composer and Linked Clones will not be available for desktop pools that use this vCenter.

B. View Composer is co-installed with vCenter Server – View Composer is installed on the vCenter Server, and the vCenter Server credentials entered on the previous screen will be used for connecting.  This option is only available with the Windows vCenter Server.

C. Standalone View Composer Server – View Composer is installed on a standalone Windows Server, and credentials will be required to connect to the Composer instance.  This option will work with both the Windows vCenter Server and the vCenter Server virtual appliance.

Note: The account credentials used to connect to the View Composer server must have local administrator rights on the machine where Composer is installed.  If they account does not have local administrator rights, you will get an error that you cannot connect.

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6. If Composer is using an untrusted SSL certificate, you will receive a prompt that the certificate is invalid.  Click View Certificate and then accept.

For more information on installing a trusted certificate on your Composer server, please see Part 5.

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7. The next step is to set up the Active Directory domains that Composer will connect to when provisioning desktops.  Click Add to add a new domain.

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8. Enter the domain name, user account with rights to Active Directory, and the password and click OK.  The user account used for this step should be the account that was set up in Part 6.

Once all the domains have been added, click Next to continue.

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9. The next step is to configure the advanced storage settings used by Horizon.  The two options to select on this screen are:

  • Reclaim VM Disk Space – Allows Horizon to reclaim disk space allocated to linked-clone virtual machines.
  • Enable View Storage Accelerator – View Storage Accelerator is a RAMDISK cache that can be used to offload some storage requests to the local system.  Regenerating the cache can impact IO operations on the storage array, and maintenance blackout windows can be configured to avoid a long train of witnesses.  The max cache size is 2GB.

After you have made your selections, click Next to continue.

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10. Review the settings and click finish.

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Configuring the Horizon View Events Database

The last thing that we need to configure is the Horizon View Events Database.  As the name implies, the Events Database is a repository for events that happen with the View environment.  Some examples of events that are recorded include logon and logoff activity and Composer errors.

Part 6 described the steps for creating the database and the database user account.

1. In the View Configuration section, select Event Configuration.

4. Event Configuration

2. In the Event Database section, click Edit.

5. View Events Database Section

3. Enter the following information to set up the connection:

  • Database Server (if not installed to the default instance, enter as servername\instance)
  • Database Type
  • Port
  • Database name
  • Username
  • Password
  • Table Prefix (not needed unless you have multiple Connection Server environments that use the same events database – IE large “pod” environments)

6. Edit Events Database Settings

Note: The only SQL Server instance that uses port 1433 is the default instance.  Named instances use dynamic port assignment that assigns a random port number to the service upon startup.  If the Events database is installed to a named instance, it will need to have a static port number.  You can set up SQL Server to listen on a static port by using this TechNet article.  For the above example, I assigned the port 1433 to the Composer instance since I will not have a named instance on that server.

If you do not configure a static port assignment and try to connect to a named instance on port 1433, you may receive the error below.

7a. Bad Username or Password

5. If setup is successful, you should see a screen similar to the one below.  At this point, you can change your event retention settings by editing the event settings.

7b. Success!