Free Load balancing for VMware View with Citrix Netscaler VPX Express
A load balancer for VMware View is not a requirement in a VMware View infrastructure with less than 2000 users. Even when there are multiple VMware View Connection servers for high availability, a single VMware View Connection server can handle up to 2000 connections so it’s not a big deal that the sessions are not evenly balanced. You do however want to have multiple VMware View Connection servers for high availability and to be able to access multiple VMware View Connection servers from a single point of access. A load balancer provides that functionality but is often expensive and gives additional functionality not needed for smaller deployments, like SSL Offloading. There is however a free “Enterprise-ready” load balancer available from Citrix: Netscaler VPX Express. There is a 5 Mbit throughput limit, but that is not an issue and in this article I explain why.
DISCALAIMER: I’m not a netscaler or “load-balancing” expert nor am I a networking guru. I’ve researched and tested the described solution and it works. I’ve not tested this solution with a large amount of users (yet). If you think information in this article is incorrect or if you think you know a better configuration or solution, please let me know.
Introduction to Vmware View 4
This week VMware will release VMware View 4, “the industry’s first purpose built solution for delivering desktops as a managed service” as VMware calls it. I don’t know about that, but at least this release is a step in the right direction. The 2 big improvements View 4 brings are the new display protocol PCoIP and support for VMware vSphere. In this blogpost, I will describe the features, the components and what’s missing. … Continue Reading
Bloggers-battle: Citrix Xendesktop vs VMware View
My blogging activities were very low last month (close to none actually) and I apologize for that. It must have been because I spend most of the time crying because my co-blogger Matthijs left the company I work for and he decided to work for the competition. Being competitors at the moment, I thought it was a good idea to do a bloggers-battle on VirtualFuture.info. What does that mean? … Continue Reading
VMworld 2009: notes
Just some notes about VMworld. I’m also working on a couple of other blogposts, but they take more time then I expected. VMworld was again a great experience for me. I was able to talk a lot of people (people I’ve met at previous VMworld conferences or people I follow on twitter), check out new/other vendors on the solution exchange, attend interesting sessions and get some hands-on experience on products I haven’t had the chance before. And off course, I found out at VMworld I passed my VCP4 beta exam! … Continue Reading
