Golden Master Best Practices with View

Matthew Honigford Technical Account Manager, VMware

mhonigford@vmware.com

2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Guess the Outcome

Read 30%
of Admin Deploy Manage
Guide
Best Practices for creating Golden images

Can be broken up into two main parts:

Optimizing the VM within ESX

Optimizing the Windows OS

Best Practices for creating Golden images

Optimizing the VM within ESX

Optimizing the VM within ESX

Use Hardware Version 7

Use as few vCPUs as possible while still maintaining good user

experience
Ensure average CPU usage is less than 70%
Ensure %RDY counter is less than 10%

Change the default SCSI controller

Default for Windows XP is BusLogic
Change to LSI Logic Parallel
Download LSI_U320_W2003_IT_MID1011438.zip from www.lsi.com
Create .flp file using WinImage or other disk imaging tool to create virtual floppy
Optimizing the VM within ESX

Disable Virtual Machine Logging

Change Parameter through GUI (shown below) or modify .vmx file to reflect
logging = FALSE
Optimizing the VM within ESX

Disable Serial and Parallel Ports

Edit Boot Options to boot into BIOS

In BIOS, go to Advanced I/O Device Configuration and disable serial and

parallel ports. Press F10 to save changes and Exit
Optimizing the VM within ESX

Align .VMDK to 64K block

Use mbralign, fdisk in ESX service console, diskpart, or vOptimizer
Since the free option is diskpart
Once VM is created, mount .VMDK on another Windows System (Dont format it or do
anything crazy to it)
Open a command prompt and run
diskpart select disk 1 (assuming you only have 1 .VMDK file already)
diskpart create partition align=64
Exit the command prompt and shut the VM down
Remove the .VMDK (dont delete it)

Install Windows using standard method

Press F6 to install driver from floppy, mount floppy image and load LSI logic
Driver (not required for Windows 7)
Best Practices for creating Golden images

Optimizing the Windows OS

Windows OS Optimizations

Install VMware Tools

Install Windows Patches, then turn OFF Automatic Update

Disable Serial and Parallel ports in Device Manager (if they exist)

Set Screensaver to None or Blank

Disable System Sounds (Set Sound scheme to None)

(Windows 7) Uninstall Tablet PC Components

Windows OS Optimizations

Disable Windows Error Reporting

Remove unnecessary boot applications (Quicktime, Real, Adobe

Acrobat Updater, etc.

Remove unneeded Windows components (Outlook Express,

Messenger, Games, etc.)

Disable unnecessary services

File System

Disable NTFS Last Accessed option

fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1 (Requires reboot)

Disable Windows Prefetcher

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher];
Set the value to 0 (Disable)

Disable System Restore

Right Click My Computer Properties, System Restore tab and select
Turn off System Restore

Disable Indexing
Double Click My Computer, Right click on C:\ Properties Click General
tab and clear Allow Indexing Service to Index
More File System

Disable Offline Files

Disable scheduled or background Defrag

Disable Windows Search

Disable Windows Disk Optimizer

Adjust the disk timeout value

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk]
TimeOutValue=REG_DWORD:0000000be(190)

Use User Profile Hive Cleanup Service to help prevent profile

corruption
Power Settings

Disable hibernation

Change power settings to High Performance and disable sleep

timer

Set HDDs to Never turn off

Open Control Panel Power Options Change Plan Settings Click
Change Advanced power settings set "Turn off hard disks after" setting to
Never

Disable the Logon Screen Saver

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
Edit ScreenSaverActive and change value to 0
Disable Notifications

Disable logging of informational Printing events

Open Printers and Faxes, Click File Server Properties Advanced and
clear Log spooler informational events

Disable Success Logging (login attempts, etc.)

Only do this if security policy allows it

Disable Toolbar Notifications

Disable the Windows XP Tour Notifier

Disable Balloon Tips

Shrink Event Logs and enable circular logging (registry keys)

Disable Desktop Cleanup Wizard

Internet Explorer

Disable Use Suggested Sites

Set home page to Intranet site, or blank, or something lightweight

Change IE to prevent programs from suggesting a change of the

search provider

Remove Webslice gallery and suggested sites from Toolbars on IE

Add trusted sites as necessary

Shrink the IE Temp File size

Common Applications

Install Adobe Flash Player (turning off automatic updates)

Install Adobe Reader and set to Do not download or install updates

automatically

Turn Java Updater off

Remove MS OneNote tray service (if installed)

Turn off Outlook Cached Mode

Remove the Language Bar

Regsvr32.exe /u msutb.dll
General OS Environment

Set Pagefile to static size

Change the default Windows Theme to Basic

Adjust visual effects for Best Performance

Enable ClearType Fonts

Turn off Windows Security Center

Turn off Automatic Computer Maintenance

Disable Allow users to browse for troubleshooters

Disable Allow troubleshooting to begin immediately when started

Network Optimizations

Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP

Disable IPv6

Join Master Image to Domain (if using View Composer)

Add any necessary DNS suffixes

Add any necessary HOSTS entries for custom applications

Disable Automatic Searching of Network Printers and Shares

When its all said and done, a few last steps

Optimize the Registry

RegScrub.exe Registry Cleaner
NTRegOpt.exe Registry Optimizer, removing white space in registry

Run disk cleanup

Defrag the HDD

Delete all event logs

Make the User profile the Default Profile

Windows 7, ensure KMS server is enabled

Make sure Floppy and CD-ROM drives are set to Client Device and
not set to Connect at Power On
View 4.0 Design Considerations
General View Best Practices

Validate size of User Data Disk

Provisioning too little disk for UDD can be detrimental
Outlook .OST will likely end up on UDD in Outlook cached mode (and UDDs are
difficult to resize)
Validate the cost and performance tradeoffs of Cached Outlook mode for VDI
Adjust browser cache size to lowest useful setting

Exclude Java Message Bus folder from AV scanner

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\MessageBus
Avoid running concurrent AV scans
Full systems scans cause major performance impacts
Stagger full systems scans (when full system scans are a corporate standard)
Pool Design: View VM Memory Considerations
VM Swap size = VM RAM
VM Swap size Local vs. shared datastore
and storage

TPS Optimization
Disk consumption
VM
Density
VM
Size of delta disk
Memory
IOPS
Size
Windows
pagefile
Balance between paging and
VM Swap file size

Memory for
Apps
Pool Design: Pool Type Considerations

Common Pool Types:

Persistent/non-persistent User Will users
Linked clone/non-linked clone installed need to install
apps apps?

Are users
User modifying
Pool Type initiated
machine registry keys or
changes environment
variables?

Available Is disk space

disk inexpensive or
space plentiful?
VI Design: View BlockvCenter and Clusters

One VC per 2,000 (VI4.x)

vCenter desktops
Servers

vCenter and Max Eight ESX hosts per

Cluster cluster serving linked clones
Cluster Hosts Leave room for failover and
Design maintenance

Keep within DRS limits (1280)

Cluster 100 (160 ESX 4 U1) VMs per

Settings host for HA
Example View Block and Pod Architecture
VI Design: ESX Server Considerations

Balance CPU and

memory needs
Density and Higher density DIMMs
RAM cost increase price

VMs/pNIC/VLANs 1 Port group per VLAN ID

ESX Server 1GBE vs. 10GBE
pNICs
Considerations Storage network 10GBE cost dropping
(NFS/iSCSI)
NFSBest performance
with jumbo frames

Type/protocol iSCSI vendors

Blades have Storage Size and Quantity optimizing performance
emerged as ideal Performance
platform for hosting Local diskgood storage
virtual desktops location for vSwp files
Storage Design: Sizing Considerations

Linked Clone Pool datastore size= 10GB (Same as

Parent VM)
Replica VM VMDK size
VM Swap and
Windows PF
+ (Desktop VM Memory Provisioned * 2)
Growth for delta
+ (Parent VM VMDK * 25%) files

+ Log File storage size Conservative ~100 MB

* Number of VMs per Datastore

Max per LUN: 64
+ Datastore free space allocation

Conservative 15% overhead

Operational Best Practices

Operations Common Sense

Dont reboot all VMs during operational hours
Perform Refresh and Recompose operations on a schedule, during off-peak
times
Track or limit user initiated changes, or plan on increasing cluster capacity over
time
User Application Virtualization to save on application licensing
costs
Dont include licensed apps in the base image whenever possible
Use an image build tool (i.e., MDT)
Structured build process and predefined modules drives consistency, fewer
untracked changes
Keep master image metadata outside of View/VI
Create and enforce strong naming conventions for Parent VMs and snapshots
Operational Best Practices

DHCP
Adjust default lease time (MS DHCP) from 8 days to 1 hour
Release DHCP script for floating pools that refresh on logoff

VLAN Usage
Avoid overloading VLANs used for View desktops to avoid running out of IP
addresses
This situation is difficult to troubleshoot

vCenter Management
Do not allow a vCenter VM to manage the ESX host its running on
Recommendations

User Data and Persona Management

Use folder redirection for My Documents
Easier to use existing file archival system, maintain multiple file versions
Evaluate Profile Management Applications

Turn off Outlook Cached Mode

VMs on same high speed network dont benefit as much from cached mode
Save on disk space and conserve storage IOPS

Never P2V a physical machine for a View master image

It would be more efficient to build a VM from scratch
References

http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h7168-performance-
optimization-windows-xp-vdi-wp.pdf
EMC Document on optimizing Windows XP
http://www.creedtek.com/?p=37
Some Best Practices for tuning Windows 7
www.VDI.COM
Independent online gathering of VDI gurus
www.vmware.com
VMware corporate web site. Collection of Best Practices guides, sizing guides,
and white papers
Q&A

Thank You!