7.0

Desktop Pools for Specific Types of Workers
View provides many features to help you conserve storage and reduce the amount of processing power
required for various use cases. Many of these features are available as pool settings.
The most fundamental question to consider is whether a certain type of user needs a stateful desktop image
or a stateless desktop image. Users who need a stateful desktop image have data in the operating system
image itself that must be preserved, maintained, and backed up. For example, these users install some of
their own applications or have data that cannot be saved outside of the virtual machine itself, such as on a
file server or in an application database.
Stateless desktop
images
Also known as nonpersistent desktops, stateless architectures have many
advantages, such as being easier to support and having lower storage costs.
Other benefits include a limited need to back up the virtual machines and
easier, less expensive disaster recovery and business continuity options.
Stateful desktop images
Also known as persistent desktops, these images might require traditional
image management techniques. Stateful images can have low storage costs in
conjunction with certain storage system technologies. Backup and recovery
technologies such as VMware Consolidated Backup and VMware Site
Recovery Manager are important when considering strategies for backup,
disaster recovery, and business continuity.
There are two ways to create stateless desktop images in View:
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You can create floating assignment pools of instant clone virtual machines. Folder redirection and
roaming profiles can optionally be used to store user data.
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You can use View Composer to create floating assignment pools of linked clone virtual machines.
Folder redirection and roaming profiles can optionally be used to store user data.
There are several ways to create stateful desktop images in View:
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You can create floating assignment pools of instant clone virtual machines and use App Volumes to
attach user data and user-installed apps. Folder redirection and roaming profile can optionally be used
to store user data.
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You can use View Composer to create dedicated assignment pools of linked clone virtual machines.
You can configure View Composer persistent disks.
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You can create full clones or full virtual machines. Some storage vendors have cost-effective storage
solutions for full clones. These vendors often have their own best practices and provisioning utilities.
Using one of these vendors might require that you create a manual dedicated-assignment pool.
Whether you use stateless or stateful desktops depends on the specific type of worker.
Pools for Task Workers
You can standardize on stateless desktop images for task workers so that the image is always in a well-
known, easily supportable configuration and so that workers can log in to any available desktop.
Because task workers perform repetitive tasks within a small set of applications, you can create stateless
desktop images, which help conserve storage space and processing requirements. Use the following pool
settings:
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Create an automated pool so that desktops can be created when the pool is created or can be generated
on demand based on pool usage.
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For instant clone pools, to optimize resource utilization, use on demand provisioning to grow or shrink
the pool based on usage. Be sure to specify enough spare desktops to satisfy the login rate.
Chapter 1 Introduction to Desktop and Application Pools
VMware, Inc. 11