Thin Client connection brokering (VDI)

[Itamar Heim]

On 10/16/2013 12:36 PM, Bob Doolittle wrote:
> Let's think about building a SPICE-based thin client for a moment. What
> minimum set of basic capabilities would it require (i.e. how thin could
> it be) in order to get an experience similar to the User Portal:
> - authenticate
> - allocate a new VM from a Pool
> - select from existing VMs
>
> and then of course connect to the VM in question.
>
> It would clearly need more than just the SPICE protocol, since that's
> all about talking to the VM once it is running. What else?
>
> Most VDI models (e.g. VMware, Citrix, Sun Ray, etc) call this Connection
> Brokering or Session Brokering. They might have a simple GUI in the
> client to authenticate the user using some protocol to communicate to an
> authentication manager of some sort, and then they communicate via a
> protocol to the Broker to discover and finally connect to VMs. What's
> the model for a SPICE client?

well, connection brokering to me is if the session is brokered.
in this case, you're mostly talking about adding to the client ability 
to choose the destination VM to connect to. maybe start/stop it.

gnome-boxes is doing this from client side.
we have sample user portals in java/ruby/python for the code you'd need[1]
and the libgovirt for C which iirc is what gnome-boxes uses.

does this cover the question/use case?

thanks,
    Itamar

[1]http://gerrit.ovirt.org/gitweb?p=samples-portals.git;a=tree

>
> Thanks,
>     Bob
>
> On 10/15/2013 05:02 PM, Itamar Heim wrote:
>> On 10/13/2013 02:49 PM, Bob wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm exploring thin client connections to oVirt in a VDI context, and
>>> after having read the overviews I've found I still have some questions,
>>> and hope you can point me to the right place for more information.
>>>
>>> It appears that oVirt supports a VDI model where thin client sessions
>>> can be load balanced to a set of VMs, or directed to VMs with existing
>>> sessions for the user. Is this correct?
>>
>> they can get a VM from a pool or a specific VM.
>>
>>>
>>> At what level of the architecture does the connection brokering take
>>> place (i.e. where is it determined which VM a thin client should be
>>> connected to, and what pieces of the system are involved)? Can it work
>>> for both VNC and SPICE based clients?
>>
>> vnc, spice or rdp.
>> rdp is to the guest.
>> vnc and spice to the host, or for spice via a proxy, or for
>> novnc/spice.html5 via a websocket proxy.
>>
>>>
>>> If a developer were interested in adding support for connection
>>> brokering of new thin client protocols, where would they start looking?
>>
>> can you elaborate on which protocol? is it to the host (qemu), or to
>> the guest?
>>
>>>
>>> Pointers to relevant documentation or mailing lists would be much
>>> appreciated. Is this more of an engine or a node question (or does it
>>> span both)?
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> -Bob Doolittle
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Arch mailing list
>>> Arch at ovirt.org
>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
>>
>