VCE is announcing the latest of solutions called the AlwaysOn Point of Care Solution, creating a resilient VDI Deployment with VMware View and Vblock. This will be the ONLY HA solution from VMware once it has been given the VMware-Ready logo which is only a few short days away. This solution is geared towards the expanding market of VDI in healthcare related deployments for a desktop anywhere approach even though this will work in many different scenarios. More documents will be coming out next week at VMworld, but here is a sneak peek.
AlwaysOn utilizes Imprvata's Single Sign On (OneSign), Cisco's ACE load balancer and VMware View 4.6 with PCoIP all running on Vblock Infrastructure Platforms.
The master image is replicated between Vblocks at multiple sites using VNX storage arrays. The "golden" desktop image uses EMC's Celerra Replicator to asynchronously copy the data between sites giving an automated backup mechanism. The View Administrator can use this method to update the golden image on each site through a manual or scripted procedure. The user data is also replicated between sites for failure protection. EMC's Recoverpoint can also be used if desired. The active-active desktops are access via Imprivata's SSO with the tap of a proximity card at a Wyse thin client terminal. The users session hits a Cisco ACE load balancer to balance out the traffic between sites or will be routed to the site holding the users desktop. The user can tap into another terminal and his/her desktop will move to the new terminal with a 5-8 second delay. In a disaster scenario, Cisco's ACE will re-route all existing and new desktop sessions to a secondary site. This solution has been tested and certified in VCE labs.
Here is how the setup would function:
1. User taps prox card on to Prox card reader, connected via USB to Thin Client (VMware Follow me, Imprivata OneSign®)
2. User gets authenticated from imprivata’s server on site A which is running on Vblock A (VMware Follow me, Imprivata OneSign®)
3. Imprivata’s server on site B, Vblock B, gets updated it being secondary/standby server (Imprivata OnceSign ® HA)
4. Imprivata passes on credentials to view clients on Site A, Vblock A (VMware Follow me, Imprivata OneSign)
5. User gets desktop from SiteA,VblockA (VMware Follow me)
6. User can move to different end points in site A with tap of prox card (VMware Follow me, Imprivata OneSign®)
7. Site A goes down!
8. User gets desktop screen frozen for sub 25 seconds
9. ACE (Cisco load balancer) realizes (probe set to 3- 5 seconds, under 25 seconds from step 8) and will route new connections to site B (Cisco ACE load balancing, AlwaysOn). Imprivata’s OneSign ® agent realizes that Site A OneSign® server is unavailable, pre-assigned policies in OneSign Agent will try for OneSign® server on Site B,VblockB (Imprivata OneSign HA, AlwaysOn)
10. User taps on prox card on prox card reader and ACE routes connection to Site B (Cisco ACE load balancing, AlwaysOn)
11. Site B, Vblock B’s imprivata server authenticates the user and is logged on to a powered on desktop on site B (VMware Follow me, Imprivata OneSign®, AlwaysOn)
12. User will have all the access to applications as previous desktop (AlwaysOn)
13. Site A comes back
14. Another user taps on prox card and user gets desktop from Site A (Imprivata OneSign® HA, ACE fail back)
15. User in step 1 loges off and when logs back on, a new desktop will be offered from Site A
- User connects to a virtual IP address configured on the Cisco ACE
- Health monitoring of VMware View Connection Servers - direct the user request with the best performance and availability
- Session persistence - based on client IP address
- ACE performs SSL termination – offload CPU intensive task from the VMware View Connection Server
- High Availability – stateful redundant active-standby replicates both connection and persistence information
Here is a quick video of the diagram in action
Learn more at the VCE booth at VMworld 2011!