Lowering the cost of storage for VDI using Windows Server 2012 R2 with Data Deduplication

The Microsoft Remote Desktop Virtualization team posted a new blog on Data Deduplication for VDI in Windows Server 2012 R2:

“..The File Server team just posted two great blogs on the value of live data deduplication for VDI (Extending Data Deduplication to New Workloads in Windows Server 2012 R2) and how to deploy it (Deploying Data Deduplication for VDI Storage in Windows Server 2012 R2).  As you can see, storing your personal virtual desktop collections on a Windows Server 2012 R2 file server just got A LOT cheaper, and in some cases, faster as well!  Coordinating downtime to turn off your virtual machines and deduplicating your virtual hard disks (VHDs) is a thing of the past, as now “live” VDI files can be deduplicated, meaning your VHDs can be deduplicated even while they are running.

To preempt a few follow-up questions you might have:

• The personal virtual desktop collection is the mainline scenario here, but if you have a session collection running as virtual machines, you should get similar benefits (both often have upwards of 90% duplicative content across the VHDs).
• User profile disks are now another great candidate for deduplication (often upwards of 50% duplicative content across the VHDs).
• Yes, Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) caching will continue to work on your file servers configured with data deduplication. At any given point in time your VDI file servers will contain some content that has been deduplicated and some that has not (i.e. new or modified content); the system cache will handle caching of files that have been deduplicated, and the CSV cache will handle everything else.

So if you haven’t done so already, now is the time to deploy a scale out file server cluster with Data Deduplication enabled by using the Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview…”

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2013/08/07/lowering-the-cost-of-storage-for-vdi-using-windows-server-2012-r2-with-data-deduplication.aspx

Retrieve usernames for files in a User Profile Disks (UPD) share in VDI environments

User Profile Disks (UPD) is a new technique introduced in Windows Server 2012 to deal with profiles on VDI deployments for Session-Based deployments as well as Virtual Machine-Based deployments.  For more information on setting up UPD also see this TechNet Wiki:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15304.installing-and-configuring-user-profile-disks-upd.aspx

If you have read through the wiki or have already been working with UPD you'll now that the files share that contains the UPD files (.vhdx files) are made up of the users Active Directory SID. To make it easier to identify what UPD file belong to what user, I created a simple PowerShell script that could help out.

Run the script from a PowerShell prompt and specify the parameter where the UPD files are stored.

NAME
    ShowUPDFolderDetails.ps1

SYNTAX
    ShowUPDFolderDetails.ps1 upd-path

EXAMPLE
    ShowUPDFolderDetails.ps1 \\sql01\upd

The output will look something like below and a export.csv file is also created containing the results.

You can find the file on Microsoft TechNet Gallery:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Retrieve-usernames-for-a-94780a9e

Microsoft RDV Team: Easier User Data Management with User Profile Disks in Windows Server 2012

Rob Leitman, a developer working on the Remote Desktop Virtualization team posted a new blog on MSDN about User Profile Disks. Some of the advantages and thinks to remember below.

“…User profile disks offer several advantages:

• Configuration and deployment is simpler than roaming profiles or folder redirection.
• User profiles can be maintained even on pooled virtual desktops that get rolled back after logoff.
• Logon and logoff times are reduced.
• Previously, profiles could be corrupted if used simultaneously on multiple computers. User profile disks are specific to the collection, so they can’t be used on multiple computers simultaneously.
• Administrators can have granular control of exactly which locations get saved to the virtual hard disk (VHDX).
• User profile disks can be stored on Server Message Block (SMB) shares, cluster shared volumes, SANs, or local storage.
• In pooled virtual desktop collections, user profile disks work with virtual machines running both Windows 8 and Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Some things to remember about user profile disks:

• User profile disks are available only in pooled virtual desktop collections and session collections—not in personal virtual desktop collections.
• Share permissions are automatically set up by the management tools.
• Use Server Manager or Windows PowerShell to manage user profile disks.
• User profile disks are for a single collection only. A user connecting to two different collections will have two separate profiles. If you want to synchronize settings, refer to Microsoft User Experience Virtualization…”

Source and complete blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rds/archive/2012/11/13/easier-user-data-management-with-user-profile-disks-in-windows-server-2012.aspx