After you finish the setup for using Mirage to manage View desktops, you can update base or app layers.

About this task

Note:

Because Mirage does not protect virtual desktops, you should test the layer updates on a small scale deployment before proceeding to a large-scale deployment. You can use the layer conflict reports to check if there are any conflicts with user installed applications. See the VMware Mirage Administrator's Guide for more information about layer reports.

View uses concurrent layer updates to maintain a high level end-user experience during the time in which Mirage is performing updates. The setting also enables you to balance between the end-user experience and the urgency of the update.

  • Use the default value, or a value close to the default, to provide a good user experience.

  • Use a value that is 20-25% of the pool size for faster image deployment.

    Such a setting allocates more resources to the virtual machines and underlying ESX hosts to perform the update, resulting in a smaller resource share being available to the end user.

  • Use the maximum value when the entire system is offline for maintenance and the underlying resources are exclusively available for the update process.

By default, the degradation of the user experience when layers are being updated is, at most, 20%. With large pools, the machines that you are updating might be distributed across different ESX hosts and storage devices. In that case, you can set higher concurrency values.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the concurrent desktop operations threshold is set. See Set the Concurrent Desktop Operations Threshold.

  • Verify that the View setup performance concurrency value is appropriate.

  • Verify that all the virtual machines are powered on.

  • Capture a new base layer or app layer, as required for your layer update.

Procedure

  1. Use the Mirage Management console to assign the new base layer or app layers to the CVD collection of the View pool. When you select which layer updates to perform, make sure that, after the updates are completed, the CVDs are still assigned to at least one layer, base or app, that contains View Agent.
  2. Wait for the layer assignment task to finish successfully.