Specifications

Desktop Pools for Specific Types of Workers
VMware 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
Stateless architectures have many advantages, such as being easier to support,
allowing View Composer based image management, and having lower storage
costs. Other benefits include a limited need to back up the linked-clone virtual
machines and easier, less expensive disaster recovery and business continuity
options.
Stateful desktop images
These images 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.
You create stateless desktop images by using View Composer and creating floating-assignment pools of linked-
clone virtual machines. You create stateful desktop images by creating dedicated-assignment pools of full
virtual machines. Some storage vendors have cost-effective storage solutions for stateful desktop images. 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.
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Pools for Task Workers on page 36
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.
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Pools for Knowledge Workers and Power Users on page 36
Knowledge workers need to be able to create complex documents and have them persist on the desktop.
Power users need to be able to install their own applications and have them persist. Depending on the
nature and amount of personal data that must be retained, the desktop can be stateful or stateless.
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Pools for Mobile Users on page 37
These users can check out a View desktop and run it locally on their laptop or desktop even without a
network connection.
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Pools for Kiosk Users on page 38
Kiosk users might include customers at airline check-in stations, students in classrooms or libraries,
medical personnel at medical data entry workstations, or customers at self-service points. Accounts
associated with client devices rather than users are entitled to use these desktop pools because users do
not need to log in to use the client device or the View desktop. Users can still be required to provide
authentication credentials for some applications.
Chapter 4 Architecture Design Elements and Planning Guidelines
VMware, Inc. 35