By David G. Wooten, End-User-Computing Product Line Manager, vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View, VMware
Have you ever tried to diagnose a VMware Horizon View end-user virtual desktop issue? If so, you’ll know that it’s difficult because there are so many data sources involved, and so many “subject matter experts” (SMEs) advising you about the problem and its solution! So what do you do? Many people have found success by using vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View. But there are a few things you should know before you buy and implement a Horizon View monitoring-and-management solution, to ensure the highest possible operational and troubleshooting efficiency. This post will tell you what you need to know to select an effective Horizon View virtual-desktop operations-management solution that will let you successfully scale out your Horizon View virtual desktop deployment, while the tool manages the complexity and moving parts.
If you’re looking for a Horizon View desktop-operations-and-management solution, you want to maximize availability of the virtual desktops and the performance of virtual desktop infrastructure. Look for these criteria:
- Make sure your virtual-desktop monitoring-and-management solution organizes all of the relevant data around the end user. If it doesn’t, you’ll have trouble organizing, presenting, and analyzing all of the disparate data effectively. Virtual desktops are, after all, for end users—who are likely the ones on the other end of the phone! This focus on the end user is also critical for ensuring you can engage SMEs from different specialty areas to look at the data and have a complete and effective discussion to identify and resolve the actual problem.
- Ensure your Horizon View virtual-desktop monitoring-and-management solution reports on the entire VMware service delivery “stack” (infrastructure), as well as the network, applications, and application-data storage. This allows you to know you’re getting a complete picture of what’s affecting delivery to the end user!
- Any good monitoring-and-management solution should let you play back and zero in on a prior “slice” of time. This is important because, as we all know, failure events or problems don’t always occur during a prime shift when lots of expertise is available.
While not necessary, a great bonus feature of VMware vCenter Operations Manager for Horizon View is its ability to extend performance monitoring to all virtual elements in the enterprise—server, storage, network and the cloud—with the familiar style of VMware user interface, and, soon, from the same monitoring console!
Now that you know what’s important for choosing a tool to monitor and manage your Horizon View desktops, you’re ready to scale out your deployment without worrying about monitoring the impact of growth on your operations or help-desk staff!
