How do you guys add persistent VDIs in vmware to Citrix Cloud? I don't think that MCS should be used in this case and thought about using sccm to deploy the VDIs instead. MCS is working with snapshots and I noticed that the VDIs take up a lot of space and issues can occur when using MCS with single session persistent VMs.

Manual ones? Deployed via SCCM? Just create a manual catalog and add the VMs. Check out "Images". You can create persistent VDIs from that specific base disk. In general, you can create VDIs via images and it reduces storage significantly.

Unfortunately I think that there is a misunderstanding. What you are saying is to create a master image in vmware and use it to create an image definition in Citrix Cloud to then use it with a machine catalog. When doing that, a snapshot is required in vmware which means that the image definition in Citrix Cloud will be using that snapshot so that you can create new persistent VDIs through the Citrix Cloud machine catalog. Now the issue with this is that if I assign 200GB to a VM in vmware, Citrix cloud will use the snapshot of this VM and add it to the new VM created through the MCS in Citrix Cloud. That means each new VM will have 200GB disk space from master image and a base disk from the snapshot of another 200GB which takes up a total of 400 GB of space for one VM if you assign 200GB to the master image. You are saying that you guys are locking double the disk space in vmware to create VDIs? thats insane costs if we are going to create 50-100 VDIs let alone 200+

You can create machine catalogs, w/o the need for provisioning.

It's a different way how you install the VDA. You can install the VDA as a master or as a single VDI, like a remote PC.

There are new MCS options to full clone your persistent machine. With the image option listed above you can create a "now" state, and have the machines connect to sccm for all feature updates. Once the machine is made from the MCS image it is divorced from that original clone and for all sakes and purposes exists as a stand alone entity.

Thanks Jeff! the full clone machine catalog did the job. I saved 100% of diskspace on this which is a lot of money! 😄

@Jeff Riechers - is this a Vmware specific thing? I've done persistent VDI for years and unless I'm missing something, that's how it's always been - once created, the MCS machine is a standalone machine with no tieback to the original image. It's been on Nutanix that I've done that for most of the past 5 years, but I swear we did the same on Xen. What am I missing?

So previously they would read from the base image, and then store their independent writes in their dedicated disk. This process instead clones the drive to a unique identity for each machine built and just writes directly into that same disk, Kind of like if you cloned a vm in vmware directly. It does all the generalization and customization into that singular disk image.

So this eliminates the identity disk and instead makes a new clone? Is that an option available even on Nutanix? Ours clones the full disk and creates an identity disk. Is this only available on cloud, or in onprem as well?

Its in all current release, but in the long run it actually can lead to more disk usage, as instead of everyone sharing that one base disk for the read, it needs to be cloned with everyone. Where it is a great benefit is that you can replicate that image around to different data stores, hypervisor stacks, etc which you can't do with standard mcs images. I am not sure what all hypervisors it accepts.

hmm, my understanding at least in nutanix, is that the data dedupe handles the storage piece since you have hundreds of copies of the same disk, and we currently use Protection domains to move the image to different clusters which works well (hopefully they get that working with win11 vtpm!). I'll check in my lab to see if that new option is available for nutanix. Thanks!

It's also available for LTSR, not only CR

Hijacking this thread: So it is possible to create a single full clone from a prepared image in onprem Webstudio? I can't see this option in 2402CU2 LTSR

The Image prep portion is there. The full copy clone I believe will be in 2507 LTSR and 2503.

Ah then I'll upgrade thx @Jeff Riechers