Just got back from a Boston trip for Ardence training. (Notes on Boston: Great town. Great Seafood. Bring a GPS to travel around.) Ardence is pretty interesting. It is actually a fairly simple solution when you break it down and can be pretty powerful in the correct circumstances. Here is some info and my thoughts on
So what is Ardence Streaming Server
Ardence Streaming Server streams on Operating System to a server, workstation or VM from the Ardence Streamig Server itself. You would have an image or vDisk of each OS or type of server/workstation you wish to support (Example: 1 vDisk for W2K3/CPS 4.5 that are all the same, 1 vDisk for Win XP workstations with the HR/Finance Apps, 1 vDisk for Win XP workstations with the engineering Apps). Also depending on how much time you want to put into a "Single Image for all Hardware", you will need a vDisk for each Hardware type (Standard Windows HAL stuff). That vDisk can then be deployed to any number of server or workstations as you see fit. A vDisk can be Read Only (Shared) or Read/Write (Private) depending on your desired results. A single Ardence Streaming Server can to stream 50-200+ servers/workstations depending on how the Cache is set and whether you are delivering Shared or Private vDisks. (The cache is where data is stored specific to each server/workstation during the last boot.)
So how does Ardence Streaming Server work
Each server/workstations boots and starts a PXE boot process from the NIC (all of the latest virtualization technolgies support this). A DHCP delivers a dynamic IP Address (this of course can be set with reservation for security or administrative reasons based on your requirements). Also as part of the DHCP scope you will deliver two options via DHCP - Option 66 and Option 67 - which deliver the IP Address of a TFTP Server and bootstrap image file name. PXE will then use Option 66 and 67 to TFTP the Bootstrap image. This will then load the Ardence PXE Boot Environment which will contact the Ardence server to determine its boot configuration (if the config - MAC Address, Workstation Name, which vDisk to use and what boot order - does not exist, the user may be prompted for the config information the 1st time). In this example, the server/workstation will boot into a Shared (Read Only) vdisk. Upon reboot any changes are lost. An administrator can make a new vDisk and assign to the workstation in the admin console and set the boot priority. On next reboot, the new vDisk (whether it has newer OS or a has newer software/updates etc). And you can failback to the previous OS just as easy.
- This can be combined with Citrix Application Streaming or Microsoft SoftGrid to deliver applications on the fly that are not part of the base vDisk.
- Ardence licensing is based on how many OSes will be concurrently up and running at any time.
- Ardence has steps to perform some "magic". Like joining the Shared (Read Only) machine to the domain, getting the domain drop down list, having the Citrix Presentation Server join the farm and get its published apps, etc.
So what does it take to setup Ardence Streaming Server
Note: Ardence Streaming Server can be setup in multiple configurations but based on the training, this is what i see as the most common configuration.
- An Ardence Streaming Server
- For High Availability of this service, you will need shared storage, a second Ardence Streaming Server, and HA Licensing
- A DHCP Server (though they deliver a DHCP Server with the product, most common deployments will be Microsoft DHCP or a DHCP device)
- Option 66 and Option 67 must be set correctly in the DHCP Scope Options. This may be specific to a certain subnet or local depending on the design of the environment.
- Reservations are not required, but can be used for high security or ease of administration
- TFTP Server - Delivered with Ardence Streaming Server
- A vDisk Image for each type of server/workstation
- A client PC with a PXE compatible NIC
- Client must be set to boot from PXE first in the BIOS
- Some BIOS versions require "Boot from NIC" and "PXE Enabled" both be set.
So where is the "Biggest Bang for Your Buck"
Well Ardence can definetely help in administration and maintaining a base image across a group of workstations and/or servers. But to get your biggest bang for your buck, each of the servers/workstations will need to be identical in hardware so that a single vDisk can be deployed a larger number of times. But to get that same benefit, most of your servers/workstations would need to use a Shared (Read Only) vDisk since otherwise you will be setting up a whole bunch of Private (Read Write) vDisk making administration more complex.
Citrix Presentation Servers, Web Servers and Desktops are great viable options for Ardence with the ROI going to depend on how different is the hardware within each category and how many vDisk images are needed to be built.
Time will tell.