Large scale profile replication (and container replication) for VDI should be faster, easier, and resilient during outages. Yet implementing a reliable, continuously available, and high performance replication solution seems like the wild west. There are lots of options. And quite a few VDI experts out there who can help. Yet, what’s scary, is that most user profile management platforms (from VMware Horizon to Citrix UPM to Liquidware) have penciled in Microsoft DFSR (DFS Replication) as the de facto replication solution of choice (in their best practices manuals).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warning! If you\u2019re looking for multi-site, active-active HA and bidirectional profile replication, for large numbers of virtual desktops, please consider your alternatives to DFSR. (And I don\u2019t mean Robocopy!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re familiar with Microsoft DFSR<\/a> and all of its caveats, or are a storage guru, please contact us for a demo or free proof of concept<\/a>. If you\u2019re on a team leading or supporting decisions around VDI, or want to learn more, please read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio’s solution for VDI profile replication is intended for companies using VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM)<\/a>, Citrix User Profile Management (UPM)<\/a>, Ivanti Environment Manager<\/a> (AppSense), Liquidware ProfileUnity<\/a>, and\/or Microsoft FSLogix<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio\u2019s solution for VDI<\/a> provides an alternative to conventional replication tools like DFSR<\/a> that reduces recovery times from days to minutes\u2014and keeps files in sync within seconds across any number of sites\u2014for active-active HA\u2014that you centrally control, monitor, and manage through a single pane of glass console in the Resilio Active Everywhere management console.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use cases for Resilio\u2019s VDI profile replication solution include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, the benefits of using Resilio Active Everywhere for profile replication are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Active-Active High Availability (HA)<\/strong> means that all sites are continuously active and in use. If a failure occurs on one server or an entire site, users are rapidly redirected to the available site using the Microsoft DFS namespace or other failover tools. Optionally, you can just use Resilio Platform to keep profiles in sync and available without DFSN. For Windows, Files are managed directly in Windows File Explorer. For Mac environments, files are managed through the macOS Finder. And so forth…<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Improved productivity for end-users<\/strong>. Users load virtual desktops faster–within seconds. We hear from customers that they\u2019re seeing a 30-90 second speed up in logon times. Resilio reduces time to desktop by up to 5x over the competition by concurrently updated all profiles in real-time (across any number of locations). <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Fewer support tickets<\/strong>. Resilio reliably “just works” so you can ease the burden on your VDI and IT support team. Check out this blog from James Moore<\/a> on how his previous company supported 2500 concurrent and widely distributed VDI users. When it comes to IT support, James says \u201cno news is good news\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Warm to hot site Disaster Recovery<\/strong> in case of an outage. RTOs can go from days to minutes. RPOs can be measured in seconds. Cross-region and cross-zone replication extends availability globally. Replicate bidirectionally, many-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. IT infrastructure flexibility.<\/strong> Use any hybrid cloud (Azure, Citrix, VMware, AWS, and others)\u2014and any user profile management environment (VMware DEM, Citrix UPM, Liquidware ProfileAffinity, or Microsoft FSLogix). Use any device–and Windows Server or other resources running popular OS platforms like Linux, macOS, and a few strategic NAS systems, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Implementing VDI is no easy task. Each user profile management system (from VMware DEM to Citrix UPM to Liquidware and FSLogix) poses unique challenges replicating user profiles, apps, and other settings. Worse, conventional tools like Microsoft DFSR included with WIndows Server are error prone and break when replicating larger numbers of files, SMB shares, profiles (both local profiles and VDI user profiles) or virtual machines across storage locations and data centers. DFSR functionality usually fails at the worst possible time–when there’s an outage. Most enterprises need to reliably replicate large numbers of files and move from active-passive to active-active multi-site configs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some conventional profile replication tools like FSLogix Cloud Cache offer simplicity and active-active HA–but at the cost of performance–when deployed across sites or in larger deployments. And poor performance degrades the end-user experience, forcing users to wait longer during logon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In general, the challenges typically include but are not limited to: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Implementing Resilio Platform for VDI profile replication is pretty easy. We offer a free proof of concept to jumpstart your deployment and learn best practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In short, Resilio Platform is peer-to-peer. All endpoints (servers) play a role in replication; files are hashed across multiple endpoints in parallel to transfer and replicate files concurrently. As stated earlier, the solution is real-time and rapidly replicates user profiles, app data, and other settings\u2014across as many data centers and cloud regions as needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SO \u2026 if you\u2019re looking for active-active HA across multiple sites, we\u2019d be happy to show you a demo<\/a>. Resilio Platform is well suited to organizations with two (2) or more sites (data centers or cloud regions), and 100 or more user profiles. You would use Resilio Platform to enable bidirectional active-active HA across sites. The P2P system ensures resiliency and replicates file permissions and other metadata with all user profiles and containers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Resilio solution replaces DFSR or your conventional storage replication tools. Resilio is software-only, using agents<\/em> installed on VDI host servers (physical, virtual, or containerized). Resilio agents support popular operating systems, virtualization platforms, and cloud services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Resilio Platform management console gives administrators an easy to use, centralized system to visualize, monitor, and automate all file delivery operations. Administrators manage agents, create and run jobs, control bandwidth allocations, and deploy job instructions across the organization. It\u2019s easy to automate jobs through scripting and an API set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio Platform is also compatible with popular profile management tools such as Microsoft FSLogix, Citrix Profile Management, as well as VMware Horizon and Dynamic Environment Manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Active-active high availability enables fast failover across data centers for file servers and file shares using DFS\u2014while also speeding up time-to-desktop. Profile and Office containers are replicated in real-time. Sites can be located anywhere globally, and utilize multiple cloud regions and availability zones. All sites are always active and enabled for fast failover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio\u2019s non-disruptive, highly available architecture eliminates single point of failures (SPOFs) to give you peace of mind. Sync jobs reliably just work in predictable, measurable timeframes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio improves the overall end user experience by speeding logon and logoff times into the VHDX (virtual desktop). Compared to conventional replication solutions such as DFS replication (DFSR), Resilio speeds up site-to-site replication by 10-20x depending on the network conditions, while also reducing time-to-desktop<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Customers report a 2-5x speed up in time-to-desktop compared to conventional caching tools like FSLogix Cloud Cache<\/a> and Microsoft DFSR for VMware DEM<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Concurrently replicate profiles, user files, and application files to improve replication performance\u2014in any direction.\u00a0 Compared to DFSR, the performance improvement is closer to 10x across the LAN and 20x over the WAN.\u00a0 The more files and worse the network conditions, the bigger the benefit you will see with Resilio Active Everywhere (formerly Connect).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio\u2019s WAN optimization<\/a> capabilities offer end-to-end predictability for replication and sync using unreliable and high latency networks. Customers obtain full-utilization of bandwidth across any distance, using any IP network. Administrators simply allocate bandwidth policies based on available network capacity; increase bandwidth to increase performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ll see faster recovery times to meet or exceed RTOs and less data loss to improve RPOs. During logoff or when a file changes, updates on the target sites are propagated within seconds. File changes are synchronized in parallel across all sites, in real-time. Resilio has no dependencies on storage platforms or replication schedules. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through capabilities like cross-region replication, Resilio helps customers meet their objectives for warm and live DR. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use pretty much any IT or cloud environment as part of your DR solution. Another benefit is flexibility for DR\u2014because you can use any IT infrastructure hardware and pretty much any cloud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Citrix UPM replication, Resilio helped one VDI customer save $8.6 million in DR costs<\/a>. The customer also used Resilio Active Everywhere for cross-region replication on Azure <\/em>to keep replication traffic within their cloud provider\u2019s network to minimize data egress fees.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n With all user profiles concurrently synchronized across all sites, file recovery times are greatly reduced. Profiles are stored as files\u2014and kept in sync within seconds, once changes are propagated. Files are continuously accessible from any site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One joint VMware DEM and Resilio customer reported reducing recovery times from days to minutes<\/a>.\u00a0 “Using Resilio, we can restore a single file\u2014in some cases in less than a minute\u2014using the exact same IT infrastructure (servers, storage, and DFS namespace).”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Resilio\u2019s solution secures and protects files, end-to-end. Encryption protects files at rest and in flight. There\u2019s no reliance on 3rd-party software, VPNs, or cloud services. The solution can be air gapped as needed. An optional Proxy Server<\/a> also simplifies security for remote work and other VDI use cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One Resilio Citrix UPM customer is obtaining a 2-5x improvement in time-to-desktop. \u201cOur goal is 30 seconds for user login and load times,\u201d said the company\u2019s VDI project lead. \u201cPrior to Resilio, we were seeing 45 to 90 seconds using FSLogix Cloud Cache and it was taking up a lot of storage IO. Moving to Resilio\u2019s solution for Microsoft FSLogix<\/a> VHDLocations and Citrix, we were able to both achieve all-active HA and get our user login times down to 15-30 seconds.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n For larger scale scenarios you need faster time to desktops, active-active HA across multiple sites,\u00a0 consider Resilio Active Everywhere. When it comes to moving files fast and in real-time\u2013across multiple endpoints concurrently\u2013Resilio can\u2019t be beat in terms of speed, agility, resilience, and scalability. And of course, you have the flexibility of using storage you already own\u2013on your choice of IT and cloud infrastructure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019d appreciate the opportunity to learn more about your goals and needs. Please feel free to schedule a demo<\/a> to see if Resilio Active Everywhere<\/a> can help your company replicate file data faster.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Large scale profile replication (and container replication) for VDI should be faster, easier, and resilient during outages. Yet implementing a reliable, continuously available, and high performance replication solution seems like the wild west. There are lots of options. And quite a few VDI experts out there who can help. Yet, what’s scary, is that most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":10117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,225,228,227,226],"tags":[142,158,295],"class_list":["post-10116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comparisons","category-dfsr","category-remotework","category-serversync","category-vdi","tag-featured-secondary","tag-featured-tertiary","tag-post-with-sidebar-new-hero-section"],"yoast_head":"\nVDI Use Cases<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Challenges<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Resilio\u2019s Solution or VDI Profile Replication<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Resilio Platform Advantages over Conventional Replication<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Deliver active-active HA at full speed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Reduce time-to-desktop by up to 5x<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Improve site-to-site replication performance by 3x<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Meet and exceed your goals for DR <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Reduce recovery times from days to minutes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Secure and protect files globally<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n