Implementing VMware Dynamic Environment Manager

Manage, Administer and Control VMware DEM, Dynamic Desktop, User Policies and Complete Troubleshooting

Peter von Oven

• Publisher: BPB Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789390684670
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: System Administration
• Index: Computer Science

A step-by-step guide to installing and managing desktops with VMware Dynamic Environment Manager

Key Features
? A deeper look into the expert configuration of VMware Dynamic Environment Manager.
? Expert troubleshooting guide to managing user profiles, Horizon smart policies, app configurations, and migration of applications.
? Includes JMP solutions, FlexEngine working, DirectFlex, and configuring DEM entirely.

Description
Implementing VMware Dynamic Environment Manager is the definitive guide to installing and managing end-user desktop environments using the VMware Dynamic Environment Manager solution and tools.To begin with, you will be able to explore what environment management is, and why you need it in your business infrastructure before discussing the VMware solutions. You will quickly get speedy with installing and configuring the DEM in real-time, using screenshots, and step-by-step directions. You will then be able to explore how to manage end-user environments, wherein you can focus on personalization, configuring the end-user environment, and creating condition sets for triggering when certain policies get applied. You will be able to create XML-based config files, configure application migration, and see how to restore and backup user settings. In this book, you will get handy with the best solutions on how to troubleshoot your VMware environment along with how to upgrade FlexEngine, DEM console, and ADMX templates. Overall, this book gives you an in-depth knowledge of VMware DEM, using real-time examples based on the latest versions of the VMware Manager.

What you will learn
? Understand the end-user environment management and how to manage end-user profiles.
? How to architect and install VMware DEM in a production environment.
? Manage your end-user desktop environment, both virtual and physical.
? Learn to deliver environment personalization and application migration.

Who this book is for
This book is for desktop administrators, IT administrators, and VMware administrators who are looking to deliver the end-user experience by managing desktop environments and simplified management of physical desktops.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction to the End-user Environment Management
2. Introduction to VMware Dynamic Environment Manager
3. Installing VMware DEM
4. Initial Configuration and Setup
5. Managing the Desktop – Personalization
6. Managing the Desktop – User Environment
7. Managing the Desktop – Conditions and Condition Sets
8. Application Migration Tool
9. Helpdesk Support Tool
10. Troubleshooting
11. Upgrading
12. Additional DEM Tools: SyncTool
13. Additional DEM Tools: Application Profiler

About the Authors
Peter von Oven is an experienced technical consultant and has spent the past 25 years of his IT career working with customers and partners in designing end-user-based technology solutions. During his career, he has been involved in numerous large-scale enterprise projects and deployments. He has presented at key IT events such as VMworld, IP EXPO, and various VMUGs and CCUG events across the UK and has worked in senior presales roles and presales management roles for household-name vendors, including Fujitsu, HP, Citrix, and VMware.He has been awarded the VMware vExpert award for seven consecutive years, and he has been part of the VMware EUC vExpert specialist program for the last two years. He has authored 14 other courses focusing on end-user computing, and in particular, the VMware solution stack for delivering the digital workspace.He spends his spare time as a STEM ambassador helping, coaching, and mentoring young people in taking up careers in technology and engineering. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petervonoven/

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to User Environment Management

In desktop computing, managing the end user environment is the key to delivering a great end-user experience. The end users need to have their applications and data delivered to them, no matter where they log in from. It is also regardless to whether they use the physical desktops or the virtual desktops. When they login, they expect to see all the correct icons on the desktop for the applications they use – such as, whether their favorite printer (or the most convenient one) is connected to the desk location, and whether they have access to their documents, data, and files. All of this keeps the end users productive, and the number of calls to the helpdesk down for simple issues.

When it comes to the support and the IT admin teams, having a solution that allows them to centrally manage their end user and desktop estate frees them up to work on the more strategic projects. The changes can simply be made centrally that will be propagated to all the end users that are targeted for the changes. The IT can centrally manage the end user settings and access to the applications, which the printer users can access along with any other policy and security-based settings.

Structure

In this chapter, we will look at the following topics:

• An overview of the end user environment management
  • User profiles – a brief history and background
  • Managing the end user profiles with the end-user environment management (UEM) solutions
• How does the UEM management work?
• Why do you need UEM?
• Delivering the stateless desktops in the virtual desktop infrastructure solutions
  • The composite desktop model
• VMware solutions for the end user environment management
  • Horizon Persona Manager
• VMware Dynamic Environment Manager

Objectives

In this chapter, we will explore what we mean when we talk about user environment management, or user profiles as it was previously more commonly known. As part of this, we will talk about the user profiles and what they are used for.

Once you understand the concept of UEM, we will look at how it works and why you would look to deploy this within your desktop environment, whether it is with the physical desktop machine or the virtual desktop machines. For the virtual desktop machines, we will take a deeper look at the deployment methods and how UEM can help reduce the cost and infrastructure requirements by enabling an organization to deploy a fully stateless virtual desktop environment.

This will enable you to understand the theory, and also help you work alongside the practical elements and start to build your own test environment, whether for a proof of concept, pilot, or production deployment.

Now that you understand the UEM and where and why to use it, we will look at the VMware specific solution – the VMware Dynamic Environment Manager (DEM), and also the VMware Horizon Persona Manager which was used previously as a more basic version for managing the end user profiles.

An overview of end user management

In this section, we will look a little more closely at what the end user management is all about when it comes to creating the end user environment. But before we do that, we will briefly talk about what an end user profile is and how they came about.

What is a user profile?

The purpose of a user profile is to save an individual end user’s configuration information to a secure location, from where it will be available to the end user every time that they login to a desktop machine.

This configuration information, or the user profile, includes the Windows desktop settings and the icon placement, the mapped network drive, the network printer connections, the personal program groups, and the program items within the personal program groups.

It can also store the less important configuration information, such as the screen colors, screen savers, mouse settings, and window size, and position. When an end user logs in to their desktop, Windows loads that end user's profile and configures the Windows environment according to the settings for that user. It basically adds the personalization to the desktop to make it theirs.

Before we get into the more technical details of what exactly an end user profile is, let’s start with a brief history.

A brief history of user profiles

If you go back in time, as far as Windows 95 and 98, you will find that they did not have any form of profile management features. This was primarily due to these versions of the Windows operating system not being multi-user enabled. This meant that all the documents and settings were shared regardless of who was using the desktop. So, for example, if one user changed the screensaver, background colors, or any of the desktop icons, then the next user that would use the machine would see those changes too. There was no way of having a personalized desktop for each user. Likewise, if the second user changed anything, it would also remain for whosoever used the machine next. Basically, all the settings were shared. There was however, a feature in the control panel that, when activated, provided the basic profile management, although it was rarely ever used.

It wasn’t until the Windows NT came along that the profiles really came into being. Windows NT had its own profile folder in the form of C:\WINNT\Profiles. This was later updated in Windows 2000 to the Documents and Settings folders, as we have in Windows 10 today, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.1: Windows 10 profile folders

You will also see another pointer harking back to the past, demonstrating the heritage of profiles and their link back to the days of Windows NT. That link is in the file name that is used to store the settings information. The file is called NTUSER.DAT, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.2: NTUSER.DAT file in the end users profile folder

The next question is, what exactly is stored as part of the end user’s profile? As mentioned earlier, the NTUSER.DAT file; so let’s start with that? Basically, the NTUSER.DAT file is a log file that contains the settings, configuration, and preferences for all the users of the machine, including the operating system settings, such as the mapped network drives or the printer.

The other parts of the end user profile consist of a registry hive and a group of folders and files that contains the user settings and data. When the end user logs in, Windows loads the registry hive into the HKEY_CURRENT_USER and merges NTUSER.DAT. The hive, and any subtrees to that hive, contain the registry-based settings and preferences for the end user’s environment. The registry then keeps track of the end user and saves any setting changes and maintains the multi-profile structure.

How is the profile created?

At the first login, a folder will typically be created under Documents and Settings which shares the login name of the end user. If a folder already exists for that username, then the profile-creation process will create a new folder. This new folder will be named username.computername. If the machine is part of a domain, then it will use the format username.domainname for the folder name.

Once the end user’s profile folder has been created, Windows will not automatically rename that folder. If you change the username, then the original profile folder will keep the original username.

The new profile is created by making a copy of a special profile called the default user. This default user profile can be modified to deliver a customized and personalized environment for each new user. If you want to modify the default user profile, then you should do this before the end user logs in to their desktop machine. If an end user has already logged into their desktop machine, then the default profile will not work for that end user.

For every end user profile that gets created, an associated NTUSER.DAT file is created for that end user containing their specific user environment configuration.

Once created, another question that often comes up is the size of the profile and how much disk space it takes up. The size of the profile file depends on the amount of personal data and settings that the user adds to their profile.

For example, if they save the files in the Documents folder that are GBs in size, then the profile will equally be as large. You need to bear this in mind when loading the larger profiles over the network, and take note of the time it takes for them to load. The slow login times can be the direct result of larger profiles that are taking time to be delivered, but we will talk about this in a later section with a different type of user profile.

The NTUSER.DAT file

We have mentioned the NTUSER.DAT file a few times now; but let’s see what exactly it is and what makes up the file contents.

When an end user makes any change to their Windows OS, either by changing the system settings, the desktop themes, or installing an app, this information is stored in the registry of the machine.

When they log out from the desktop machine, these configuration changes on how they have configured their desktop environment are saved in the NTUSER.DAT file.

When the end user next logs in to their desktop machine, or another desktop machine on the network, the NTUSER.DAT file is loaded into the memory of that desktop machine. This means that all the preferences and settings related to that end user’s environment are again loaded into the registry.

Deleting the NTUSER.DAT file will result in the loss of all these end user specific settings and it will return to the default profile; the end user will then need to configure their desktop environment from scratch. However, when an end user makes the configuration changes to their desktop environment, Windows creates a log of this and then keeps the previous settings as a backup.

Types of user profiles

Now that we have discussed what an end user profile is, in this section, we will look at the different type of profiles and understand what each one is used for:

• Local profiles: The local profiles are created the first time that an end user logs in to a computer. As the name suggests, the profile is stored on the computer's local hard disk. Any changes that are made to a local user profile are specific to that end user and to the computer on which the changes are made.
• Roaming profiles: The roaming profiles are copies of the local profile that is copied and stored on a centralized shared folder on a file server. The profile is then downloaded to any network-enabled desktop machine that an end user logs in to. If the end user makes any changes to their roaming profile, then these changes get synchronized with the copy that is stored on the server. This synchronization occurs when the end user logs out of their desktop machine. The advantage of deploying the roaming profiles is that the end users do not need to create an individual user profile on each computer that they log in to. As the name implies, their profile roams with them to whichever desktop machine they use.
• Mandatory profiles: A mandatory profile is a profile that the administrators use to specify the settings for the end users. These settings are those that every...