Building Frame on Nutanix hardware for on campus private cloud learning desktops

  • 6 August 2019
  • 4 replies
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I am Robby Daniels the Xi Frame administrator at Creighton University in Omaha Nebraska.
We are doing a proof of concept project to provide full Windows 10 pro VDI desktops for three of our eight colleges here at the university. We have been using "Classic Frame" hosted on AWS for two and a half years hosted in a AWS data center in Ohio. Our only issue has been network response time to and from the hosting sites. What our goal is to run all of the VDI network traffic on our LAN network. We will be using Nutanix hardware only running 4 node cluster to support XI Frame instances only. If it works out great we will be replacing lots of PC high end custom hardware / software systems with XI Frame DaaS / VDI full desktops. I would like to invite you all to chime in on any XI Frame insights you may have as this will be a game changer! Go Jays! Go Nutanix!

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Project is going well, had a little issue getting our firewall rules installed, not a Nutanix issue. Win 10 Pro performance is great! We have full control of the UI /GUI / and default settings, added a few basic apps, Adobe DC reader, tested printing to our Canon fleet on campus without any issues, 1 gig wired connections fly! Working on SSO and domain bound instance setups. Will try to update you with more information when I have it. Go Jays! Go Nutanix!

How did your project go, any performance issues while running full Windows 10 pro VDI desktops on your LAN.

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The Xi-Frame VDI project is going great! We have completed fully domain bound systems build that run Windows 10 desktops that have Axium and MiPACS denial programs installed. We have tested the data record access to all SQL and IIS backend servers hosted in or data center. Also completed off campus Xi-Frame usage from non Creighton owned Mac Book Pro laptop using our VPN connector software to provide anytime, anywhere access to the Xi-Frame Nutanix hosted systems running 24/7. No problems yet, it looks like we are winning!

Go Jays! Go Nutanix! Go Creighton University!

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POC Project for School of Dentistry Xi Frame by Nutanix Report.

Goal, to provide secure anytime, anywhere access to School of Dentistry IT resources using only an HTML5 browser and an Internet connection.

Resources provided by Nutanix, one NX-3060-G5 4 node host server, 1.9 Tera Bytes of ram, 6.14 Tear Bytes of SSD disk, 4-10 Gig up link connections with 12 1 Gig crossover connections. Full install team for hardware install and base line server setup and config. Completed install and config support for Xi-Frame system software install and testing. Nutanix support team Bill Roberts Senior Systems Engineer SLED Central, and Terry Homan SLED Central Account Manager. Completed without errors in 6 hours.

Resources provided by Nutanix software support personal, complete setup and testing of Xi-Frame operating system for on-perm private cloud services. Full networking config and testing for integration into “blue.jays.creighton.edu” active directory domain. Nutanix software support personal Damian Genie Xi-Frame Technical Account Manager, and Dan Simmons Sr. Solutions Architect Nutanix- Frame. Completed without errors in 6 hours.

Resources provided by ITLS networking personal, complete design and connection config completed by Chris Vaverek   Lead IT Architect to connect the Nutanix system to our LAN and switching systems. Completed without errors in 6 hours.

Resources provided by ITLS CSA / RadLab personal, completed install of Axium and MiPacs denial software into the Xi-Frame VDI windows 10 computer platform completed by Steve Maaske, Isaac Inkabi, and Sean Malone. Completed without errors in 5 hours.

Resources provided by Sirius Network Team, completed all firewall rule changes to provide access to MiPacs and Axium database files on SQL and IIS servers. Total time changing the rules was 9-man hours but took 5 weeks of wait time as CAB approval only happens once a week. Completed without errors in 9 hours.

End user testing resources provided by School of Dentistry personal directed by Lead Technologist Mark Ramet and 33 students, faculty and clinic staff.  Testing of 25 VDI systems on 24/7 rotation completed over three weeks proved that Xi-Frame running on Nutanix hardware was better than expected. Students stated that “they could do all their work from anywhere at any time using Xi-Frame” Build time for capacity to add new systems was reduced to an hour to stand up 25 systems.

Conclusion, Xi-Frame completed all functions of current desktop systems being used now on campus without having to buy any PC’s and allowed School of Dentistry personal to work anytime, anywhere with only an internet connection and an HTML 5 browser.

Go Jays! Go Nutanix!

Robby Daniels Xi-Frame Administrator.