Citrix held their launch event on Twitter this week and I participated as much as I could, asking a bunch of questions and receiving a couple of answers. The "new" Personal vDisk sounded like one of the more beneficial enhancements I've heard in a while, so I decided to test it out.

Here's a quick overview on the Personal vDisk feature.

The PVD attaches as a separate "disk" to a virtual desktop and "intercepts" IO requests from the user logged in. It then takes these requests and writes them to the PVD instead of the base image disk. Because of this, users can store their profiles, download files, and even install applications with 100%  "personalization persistence" maintained across base image updates.

PVD Desktops use a "pooled" model instead of the Dedicated model, maintaining the simplicity of managing a single base image for updates, patches, standard business applications, etc. and greatly reduces the cost of storage that would be required for the Dedicated desktop model.

<strong>Important: </strong>However, it's important to note that while the desktops are pooled, the users are still assigned to a desktop in a 1:1 fashion, and receive the same desktop every time they log in. This assignment is done automatically on the first login.

<strong><img src="//9448D709-F79C-4B06-9EE9-1DD2F304E7C1/image.tiff" alt="" /></strong>

While admittedly a bit weak in this area, my understanding of the "pre-PVD" pain points were as follows:
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	<li>If the user needed to make changes or install apps to their virtual desktop, you used Dedicated desktops.</li>
	<li>Dedicated desktops lose the storage benefits of using a single "master" image, as each desktop can occupy the same size of the original "golden desktop". If you had a 30GB base image, each virtual desktop could occupy  30GB . Scale that to 1,000 users? Ouch!</li>
	<li>Dedicated desktops also lose the management benefits of having a single image, a single place to install apps, patches, hot fixes and Service Packs, as they're managed individually like you would in the physical desktop world.</li>
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You can see from the list above that while there's a need and a use case for Dedicated desktops, it's certainly not the best solution, and it's here that the PVD can be very useful. In fact, Citrix tweeted that the PVD technology was intended to replace the need and use case for persistent desktops entirely. Check their twitter feed if you don't believe me. http://www.twitter.com/xendesktop
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<div>@david_obrien "who really needs dedicated desktops now that PvD is integrated?can't think of a use case?! #XDLaunch"</div>
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<div>‏@XenDesktop "@david_obrien Agree on that trend. That is the intent and goal of PvD ... and will continue to be the focus."</div>
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<div>After spending a few hours testing it, I can say I'm a fan of the technology-- it works great, and it solves a real problem. But it's NOT the end game yet. I'll elaborate in Part II.</div>
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