Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

1. Omaha InfoTech 2012 Conference Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

2. Who is Black Hills Corporation? • A diversified energy company based in Rapid City, SD • 201,300 Electric utility customers in South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado • 561,500 Natural Gas utility customers in Wyoming, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska • Fleet of power generation facilities in Wyoming, Colorado and South Dakota • Black Hills Exploration & Production produces oil and natural gas in New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota • Wyodak mine in Gillette, WY supports BHC’s mine-mouth generation

3. BHC Office Locations • Corporate offices in Rapid City, Denver and Papillion • Most utility service offices are in rural communities • Branch offices are not well connected. T1 MPLS (if available) and VPN connections through local ISP (cable and dsl) • Low bandwidth, high latency connections present challenges delivering a good user experience to remote offices

4. What is VDI? • Often referred to as Hosted Virtual Desktops • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an alternative desktop delivery model that allows users to run a Windows desktop inside a virtual machine running in the data center. • VDI is the evolution of server virtualization taken to the client level, and uses the same underlying principles • VDI has the same look and feel of a traditional desktop computer, but all actions are happening remotely in the data center

5. Why is BHC Deploying Virtual Desktops? • Centralized management • Enhanced security and compliance • Deliver a managed desktop to unmanaged devices • Efficient bandwidth utilization • Support for mobile devices – Blackberry, Android, iPad • Virtual Desktops offer options for both flexibility and control. Finding the right balance will be our priority • Positions us for much simpler future desktop upgrades • Hard dollar cost savings may not be attainable

6. Terminology • Persistent Desktop • Each user has full desktop image • Individual applications can be installed per desktop • Separate storage is required for each individual desktop • Managed the same way as traditional desktops • Provisioned Desktop • Golden image of desktop environment • Streamed to users on demand • Greatly reduced storage requirement • Protected from unintentional changes • Requires unique anti-virus configuration

7. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure • Benefits • Much greater control for Policy enforcement (users can’t unplug NIC to prevent policies from applying) • Centralized patch management and software distribution on fast networks • Access to data is much improved as it is happening over fast networks within the datacenter • Security and regulatory compliance: data never leaves the datacenter • Recoverability:  VMs and data are backed up & snapshots occur in data center so local desktop data can be easily recovered. • Mobility: Users can connect from any device anywhere and have same desktop experience. • Control over application licensing compliance

8. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure • Benefits, continued • Reduce field support travel. Thin clients with no moving parts are less likely to fail. • Strong competition in this market means vendors are actively enhancing and improving their products • Live migration of VMs for availability and similar High Availability solutions like we use with servers. • VDI can offload Flash and Windows Media content to render on local device. This creates a much improved user experience at remote sites. • Reduces power consumption by using thin clients on the desktop and energy efficient servers in the Data Center • Additional Advantages for Provisioned Desktop • Single image to manage • Fast deployments with on demand provisioning  • Relatively easy upgrades

9. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure • Challenges • Requires additional MS licensing through Software Assurance or VDA • Virtual Desktop technology is dependent on a highly available and low latency networks • User support model changes significantly. May require realignment of IT resources • Windows mobile devices create a challenge. Users need the ability to work in an offline mode. This will be Phase 2 for us • Must get management buy-in in order to be successful • Ensuring we have identified all the user applications that will need to be available as published applications outside of the standard Windows 7 & Office 2010 image

10. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure • Challenges, continued • Must be connected • Offline capabilities are immature • User experience around multimedia can be unpredictable. We are actively working to address this concern. • Additional Challenges for Provisioned Desktops • Limited control for users. Users cannot install applications • Roaming profiles are essential for provisioned desktops • Limited personalization of individual settings and appearance • Non-standard drivers for printers and USB devices need to be installed by system administrators • No immediate image updates. After an image is updated, user needs to logoff for changes to be applied

11. Supporting Infrastructure Components • HP BL490c Blade servers – Dual 6-core, 144GB – Sized to host 50 desktop sessions per server • NetApp v3240 storage, 1TB cache, 600GB 15k drives • Citrix XenDesktop 5.5 with Provisioning Server • Desktops configured with 2 CPUs and 3GB RAM • Citrix XenApp delivers applications to VDI desktops • All Citrix servers built on XenServer 6.0 • HP t5740e thin clients • Citrix Netscalers for external access • Silver Peak WAN accelerators at T1 locations • QOS implementation to prioritize ICA traffic

12. 2-factor Authentication

13. Virtual Desktop Deployment • Part of Windows 7 and Office 2012 Deployment • 2200 Users across 7 states • VDI will be the preferred desktop delivery method for non-laptop users • Base image contain Windows 7 Enterprise, Office 2010 Professional and basic plugins only • All other applications are delivered with Citrix XenApp • Goal is 40% adoption across entire user population by year end • 2 Systems Engineers support Citrix infrastructure full-time, 2 part-time

14. VDI Deployment Progress • Used for Office 2010 training for all users. • Used for Office 2010 compatibility testing. Provisioned BH Desktop assigned to 615 users (so far) for testing • Used for application compatibility testing with Windows 7 across enterprise • 130 users of Provisioned Desktop daily as primary desktop environment • 40 users of Persistent Desktop daily as primary desktop environment • Current environment built to support 550 concurrent users • Can failover to secondary site for maintenance or DR. This site currently built to support 300 user desktops

15. Questions?