First of all I’m a massive fan of desktop virtualization and love vWorkspace especially as an admin. The whole management ecosystem is the best going in my opinion including the quirks While I love the product it’s there for a reason and that’s to deliver content to actual users and I guess that’s the bit I don’t like so much! I miss the POC days… Users answer back!
Well I’ll start it off with the main issues that came up from todays meeting/forum..
Text lag on the LAN. When onsite (LAN) there is no text lag at all. It’s perfect. When our users access from home on “good” broadband connections there is a slight lag on text input. I’ve personally found this myself but it’s never been enough to bother me. But I only type “hello world”. Our users do “real” work.
I’ve just done some testing on our external test machine (WAN) and the connection is successfully achieving the same level of bandwidth consumption as on the LAN (between 11kbs and 800kbs) and the lag occurs for me. Which is odd as the same bandwidth is being used.
Local text echo. Our users seem to disable this on the WAN as they find it annoying when it occurs. I found the text lag to be the same in MR1 but text echo pops up far less. This kept them happy for now.
Sound can be a bit disjointed and distorted…. I can’t replicate this on the LAN or WAN but general feedback suggests it’s intermittent.
It was clear users HATE IE! Nuff said on that one. Chrome seems to be on the most wanted list.
FLASH on the WAN can cause disconnection. This is without redirection from I’m told. I can replicate a bad connection with this but not a disconnection. I just said I’ll investigate and made no promises
Overall usage on the LAN was pretty good but complained that doing simple image manipulation within office products wasn’t smooth enough.
Users don’t like AppPortal. They think it looks outdated. They didn’t like my response “but it works”! I have to say I do agree with them.
USB connectivity seems to be confusing for some users (we have all sorts of users here). They would like it to be simplified but failed to explain how! See what I have to put up with?
They were the most consistent complaints… There were some others but I need to look into them first. While all that sounds negative… Users are supportive of the vWorkspace!
I have a similar meeting with the technical community here later today and will post feedback ASAP.
Dan
First of all I’m a massive fan of desktop virtualization and love vWorkspace especially as an admin. The whole management ecosystem is the best going in my opinion including the quirks While I love the product it’s there for a reason and that’s to deliver content to actual users and I guess that’s the bit I don’t like so much! I miss the POC days… Users answer back!
Well I’ll start it off with the main issues that came up from todays meeting/forum..
Text lag on the LAN. When onsite (LAN) there is no text lag at all. It’s perfect. When our users access from home on “good” broadband connections there is a slight lag on text input. I’ve personally found this myself but it’s never been enough to bother me. But I only type “hello world”. Our users do “real” work.
I’ve just done some testing on our external test machine (WAN) and the connection is successfully achieving the same level of bandwidth consumption as on the LAN (between 11kbs and 800kbs) and the lag occurs for me. Which is odd as the same bandwidth is being used.
Local text echo. Our users seem to disable this on the WAN as they find it annoying when it occurs. I found the text lag to be the same in MR1 but text echo pops up far less. This kept them happy for now.
Sound can be a bit disjointed and distorted…. I can’t replicate this on the LAN or WAN but general feedback suggests it’s intermittent.
It was clear users HATE IE! Nuff said on that one. Chrome seems to be on the most wanted list.
FLASH on the WAN can cause disconnection. This is without redirection from I’m told. I can replicate a bad connection with this but not a disconnection. I just said I’ll investigate and made no promises
Overall usage on the LAN was pretty good but complained that doing simple image manipulation within office products wasn’t smooth enough.
Users don’t like AppPortal. They think it looks outdated. They didn’t like my response “but it works”! I have to say I do agree with them.
USB connectivity seems to be confusing for some users (we have all sorts of users here). They would like it to be simplified but failed to explain how! See what I have to put up with?
They were the most consistent complaints. There were some others but I need to look into them first. While all that sounds negative… Users are supportive of vWorkspace!
I have a similar meeting with the technical community here later today and will post feedback ASAP.
What I seem to find is at the root of most user complaint's is losing "their" PC or laptop. The younger generation wants organizations to allow them to use their own device and is willing to accept a lower quality user experience. The group of users that think of the company's PC as their own find issues that are just not significant.
For instance, I went to one organization and the first thing the tester fired up was the HD Wildlife video found within Windows 7. It was choppy and not very suitable. SO I asked the tester how much video HD watching does your position require? Answer none.
Users complain about loss of admin rights to the PC in order to install what ever application they would like. There are now add-ons to the HVD stack that could assist with this but it increases the cost and complexity.
I've seem persons use the work\life issue as a complaint. For instance, user has a laptop that is taken home in order to use from the comfort of the Lazy Boy. Organization takes the laptop away and user complains because they have to use their own PC and it's not convenient. But looking at the user's at home usage data we found that 90% personal use as compared to 10% business use.
While I'm not convinced that a few additional seconds is worthy of complaint, our users complain that it takes longer to establish a session to a vWorkspace desktop that is powered on and waiting for them as opposed to connecting to a straight RDS environment. It does take a bit longer, but only just.
I also hear negative comments about the local text echo, and we've allowed people to turn it off instead of locking it on. Mostly, they find it disconcerting to see another window suddenly appear on the screen, where they have to now focus their attention. To make matters worse, the window moves about the screen as they continue to type. That's usually the point where they ask how to turn it off. It's a pipe dream, but when I first saw this feature, I envisioned something that actually superimposed local text in the very same spot where you were typing it in the session. That would be REALLY hard to do, I expect, but it's about the only way that I think our users would use it.
Most of the other stuff I hear about has more to do with working on Win7 instead of WinXP, or with heightened security, so they are not vWorkspace issues per se.
"superimposed local text in the very same spot where you were typing"
Now that would be good... And I agree very hard to do.
I've not had users complain about it yet but I find it annoying that you have to wait for the session to be established. This applies to all brokering solutions I guess?
I still like to think of myself as the "younger generation" and I agree for most apps/services, I'm willing to take a slight experience hit. Only slight though!
I work in a University so our academics pull their "academic freedom card" on us if we start suggesting that they can't justify watching HD videos, etc. Luckily the vast majority can use their local client/laptop for those sort of tasks and "user installed apps", etc.
Students on the other hand are another matter!
I guess in years to come DaaS will just become a way of life and these teething complaints wont occur. I guess as the technology improves so will the users. I really hope so anyway
My VDI desktop has been crashed this evening and now I can't work (we are using persistant desktops). Wouldn't it be great if I could reset my VDI desktop from the vworkspace web interface instead of calling our helpdesk?
Do we have to click OK on that annoying popup screen when our desktop is being started?
Why does it take 2 minutes before anything happens when we click on de 'vdi desktop' icon in the webinterface. No popup or whatever, it's just loading or waiting for something (this is only in IE, not firefox)
Why do I have to click on a yellow bar to download a .pit file everytime?
Hey, it's not me complaining Although I agree with the ability to reset a user's desktop from the web interface. That would be a real life safer for our helpdesk.
We use our RDS environment to provide completly outsourced terminal services for clients. Our first phase was straight Terminal Services using Native RDS client. For the most part people have been happy with that and its been working quiet well.
We are just moving to vworkspace and we use the complete RDP client (no app portal for PC users). Works much better and we can save passwords so we can add application to startup and then when user starts local pc, they auto login..nice and easy for them.
Our pain points to date have been:
Printing - RDP 7 Native easyprint driver is better then before but still stucks. The vworkspace Print redirector has been much better is giving remote users better printing through the ssl gateway and a consistent named printer (which makes Simply Accounting report users happier)
Flash - Plain RDP absolutely sucks for flash sites...some of our users goto business sites and it pretty much tanks the connection. We've found the flash redirection with vworkspace has made that functionality much much better. I've been able to wathc youtube video's ful screen with 720p with no lag...NOT that we are encouraging any business users to watch youtube using this..heh
Typing lag - funny enough, not even the client secretaries have really had much MS Word typing problems, where we have had problem is Excel...we have some clients with some damn big spreadsheets and you can see the formula's recaclulating when they type in a field. Not what I'd call a seamless experience.
MAC Support - we were compeltely dead in the water on MAC support before but with the vworkspace we at least have an option. Would love to see them kill that X11 interface though. Anxiously awating the iPad client...
Have you taken a look at vWorkspace 7.2 Beta 2? It has a feature called Virtual Desktop Failover Mode. This is the description of the feature:
You can use this mode for the following situation: if a persistent computer is not available, failover mode provides a user with a free temporary VM from the same group. Note that the user does not receive notification that they are receiving a temporary computer, so administrators may want to use a type of notification to the users, such as using a different Desktop background.
The registry entry for Failover mode is:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Provision Networks\Common\Load and License Manager
Virtual Desktop Failover is a nice new feature, but in our environment people install lots of different software to work with. Once they get a new VDI desktop, a set of applications is installed specificly for that user or group. This takes some time.
Sometimes a VDI desktop just hangs because it doesn't get out of suspend mode properly (windows XP). A hard reset solves the problem 99% of the time.
So Failover would be a solution in most cases, but giving the users the ability to reset their VDI as a first aid would be even better in our case.
Do we have to click OK on that annoying popup screen when our desktop is being started?
> If this is because of a virtual desktop resume?
Why does it take 2 minutes before anything happens when we click on de 'vdi desktop' icon in the webinterface. No popup or whatever, it's just loading or waiting for something (this is only in IE, not firefox)
> This should not be the case. Try launching an app via AppPortal. Does that also take two minutes?
Why do I have to click on a yellow bar to download a .pit file everytime?
> If you add your WA URL to the trusted sites, this problem should not occur...
I agree. It does not come up very often with us [knocking on wood], but sometimes a the virtual equivalent of yanking the cord out of the wall is the only answer. One of the plusses of the VDI approach is that this is now possible without impacting other users. We just need the choice available as to whether and to whom this capability is extended...
For us, we also see this on the physical side, primarily in one department with some less than stellar applications. I don't think that it has anything to do with vWorkspace specifically or virtualization in general, except that it's harder to "self-medicate" as a user on the VDI due to the inability to reset without help. Obviously, we'd like to fix the problem instead of work around it, but in the mean time, a user reset capability would be nice.
Local Text Echo - what exactly is this accomplishing anyhow, letting user see what they typed before the remote session displays it?...
We've also been getting reports of typing delay (no local text echo) and thought we'd try that local text echo...not something I'd ever recommend turning on as that looks like a horrible seamless user experience.
Guess the question is, how do we make the typing experience more seamless, since the goal of VDI is to get people working remotely. Shouldn't be too hard as currently network latency is pretty low for WAN (sub 30ms) and B/W is hardly being utilized (I'm talking 65 users online and less then 2Mbps being used out of the datacenter).
dbolton
180 Posts
0
October 12th, 2010 09:00
First of all I’m a massive fan of desktop virtualization and love vWorkspace especially as an admin. The whole management ecosystem is the best going in my opinion including the quirks While I love the product it’s there for a reason and that’s to deliver content to actual users and I guess that’s the bit I don’t like so much! I miss the POC days… Users answer back!
Well I’ll start it off with the main issues that came up from todays meeting/forum..
I’ve just done some testing on our external test machine (WAN) and the connection is successfully achieving the same level of bandwidth consumption as on the LAN (between 11kbs and 800kbs) and the lag occurs for me. Which is odd as the same bandwidth is being used.
They were the most consistent complaints. There were some others but I need to look into them first. While all that sounds negative… Users are supportive of vWorkspace!
I have a similar meeting with the technical community here later today and will post feedback ASAP.
Dan
vtscott1
19 Posts
0
October 12th, 2010 12:00
Dan - I luv your thought on this thread.
What I seem to find is at the root of most user complaint's is losing "their" PC or laptop. The younger generation wants organizations to allow them to use their own device and is willing to accept a lower quality user experience. The group of users that think of the company's PC as their own find issues that are just not significant.
For instance, I went to one organization and the first thing the tester fired up was the HD Wildlife video found within Windows 7. It was choppy and not very suitable. SO I asked the tester how much video HD watching does your position require? Answer none.
Users complain about loss of admin rights to the PC in order to install what ever application they would like. There are now add-ons to the HVD stack that could assist with this but it increases the cost and complexity.
I've seem persons use the work\life issue as a complaint. For instance, user has a laptop that is taken home in order to use from the comfort of the Lazy Boy. Organization takes the laptop away and user complains because they have to use their own PC and it's not convenient. But looking at the user's at home usage data we found that 90% personal use as compared to 10% business use.
sgravel
34 Posts
0
October 14th, 2010 14:00
While I'm not convinced that a few additional seconds is worthy of complaint, our users complain that it takes longer to establish a session to a vWorkspace desktop that is powered on and waiting for them as opposed to connecting to a straight RDS environment. It does take a bit longer, but only just.
I also hear negative comments about the local text echo, and we've allowed people to turn it off instead of locking it on. Mostly, they find it disconcerting to see another window suddenly appear on the screen, where they have to now focus their attention. To make matters worse, the window moves about the screen as they continue to type. That's usually the point where they ask how to turn it off. It's a pipe dream, but when I first saw this feature, I envisioned something that actually superimposed local text in the very same spot where you were typing it in the session. That would be REALLY hard to do, I expect, but it's about the only way that I think our users would use it.
Most of the other stuff I hear about has more to do with working on Win7 instead of WinXP, or with heightened security, so they are not vWorkspace issues per se.
dbolton
180 Posts
0
October 14th, 2010 19:00
"superimposed local text in the very same spot where you were typing"
Now that would be good... And I agree very hard to do.
I've not had users complain about it yet but I find it annoying that you have to wait for the session to be established. This applies to all brokering solutions I guess?
Dan.
dbolton
180 Posts
0
October 14th, 2010 19:00
Cheers
I still like to think of myself as the "younger generation" and I agree for most apps/services, I'm willing to take a slight experience hit. Only slight though!
I work in a University so our academics pull their "academic freedom card" on us if we start suggesting that they can't justify watching HD videos, etc. Luckily the vast majority can use their local client/laptop for those sort of tasks and "user installed apps", etc.
Students on the other hand are another matter!
I guess in years to come DaaS will just become a way of life and these teething complaints wont occur. I guess as the technology improves so will the users. I really hope so anyway
Dan.
rene11
1 Rookie
•
74 Posts
0
October 15th, 2010 19:00
We use vWorkspace 7.1 with windows XP VDI's.
Some complaints from our users:
Hey, it's not me complaining Although I agree with the ability to reset a user's desktop from the web interface. That would be a real life safer for our helpdesk.
markh21
1 Rookie
•
98 Posts
0
October 17th, 2010 22:00
We use our RDS environment to provide completly outsourced terminal services for clients. Our first phase was straight Terminal Services using Native RDS client. For the most part people have been happy with that and its been working quiet well.
We are just moving to vworkspace and we use the complete RDP client (no app portal for PC users). Works much better and we can save passwords so we can add application to startup and then when user starts local pc, they auto login..nice and easy for them.
Our pain points to date have been:
Printing - RDP 7 Native easyprint driver is better then before but still stucks. The vworkspace Print redirector has been much better is giving remote users better printing through the ssl gateway and a consistent named printer (which makes Simply Accounting report users happier)
Flash - Plain RDP absolutely sucks for flash sites...some of our users goto business sites and it pretty much tanks the connection. We've found the flash redirection with vworkspace has made that functionality much much better. I've been able to wathc youtube video's ful screen with 720p with no lag...NOT that we are encouraging any business users to watch youtube using this..heh
Typing lag - funny enough, not even the client secretaries have really had much MS Word typing problems, where we have had problem is Excel...we have some clients with some damn big spreadsheets and you can see the formula's recaclulating when they type in a field. Not what I'd call a seamless experience.
MAC Support - we were compeltely dead in the water on MAC support before but with the vworkspace we at least have an option. Would love to see them kill that X11 interface though. Anxiously awating the iPad client...
Michel Roth
173 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 13:00
Have you taken a look at vWorkspace 7.2 Beta 2? It has a feature called Virtual Desktop Failover Mode. This is the description of the feature:
rene11
1 Rookie
•
74 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 14:00
Virtual Desktop Failover is a nice new feature, but in our environment people install lots of different software to work with.
Once they get a new VDI desktop, a set of applications is installed specificly for that user or group. This takes some time.
Sometimes a VDI desktop just hangs because it doesn't get out of suspend mode properly (windows XP). A hard reset solves the problem 99% of the time.
So Failover would be a solution in most cases, but giving the users the ability to reset their VDI as a first aid would be even better in our case.
Michel Roth
173 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 14:00
> If this is because of a virtual desktop resume?
> This should not be the case. Try launching an app via AppPortal. Does that also take two minutes?
> If you add your WA URL to the trusted sites, this problem should not occur...
sgravel
34 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 15:00
I agree. It does not come up very often with us [knocking on wood], but sometimes a the virtual equivalent of yanking the cord out of the wall is the only answer. One of the plusses of the VDI approach is that this is now possible without impacting other users. We just need the choice available as to whether and to whom this capability is extended...
Michel Roth
173 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 17:00
That is interesting…. Have you ever found out what causes the VDIs to ‘hang’?
sgravel
34 Posts
0
October 18th, 2010 17:00
For us, we also see this on the physical side, primarily in one department with some less than stellar applications. I don't think that it has anything to do with vWorkspace specifically or virtualization in general, except that it's harder to "self-medicate" as a user on the VDI due to the inability to reset without help. Obviously, we'd like to fix the problem instead of work around it, but in the mean time, a user reset capability would be nice.
rene11
1 Rookie
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74 Posts
0
October 19th, 2010 18:00
VDI's could hang for various reasons, especially in XP.
Things I have seen are blue screens as a result of bad applications, or crashed desktops as a result of a full c: drive or memory leak.
Also, after getting out of supsend mode, sometimes the broker just can't reach the client (or the other way).
Or a desktop that is completely frozen for unknown reason.
It doesn't happen that often, but the more desktops you have, the bigger the change it goes wrong.
ps: 'view' has already included a reset option in the latest release, I saw it on vmworld's hands-on-lab
markh21
1 Rookie
•
98 Posts
0
January 10th, 2011 01:00
Local Text Echo - what exactly is this accomplishing anyhow, letting user see what they typed before the remote session displays it?...
We've also been getting reports of typing delay (no local text echo) and thought we'd try that local text echo...not something I'd ever recommend turning on as that looks like a horrible seamless user experience.
Guess the question is, how do we make the typing experience more seamless, since the goal of VDI is to get people working remotely. Shouldn't be too hard as currently network latency is pretty low for WAN (sub 30ms) and B/W is hardly being utilized (I'm talking 65 users online and less then 2Mbps being used out of the datacenter).