Join VDI Migration Challenge! Share Your Thoughts and Get 1000 Coins!
  

Sangfor Jojo Posted May-07-2025 16:36

1. Introduction

We are excited to announce an interactive community event focused on the best practices for replacing VMware VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure). This document provides instructions for migrating from VMware Horizon to Sangfor VDI. It outlines the steps for migrating both persistent and pool mode virtual machines, including uninstalling VMware components, migrating VMs using HCI, installing Sangfor components, and configuring the VMs within the Sangfor VDC environment.
  
You are warmly welcome to talk about your thoughts on the best practices for VMware replacement. You can share your objective evaluation of this migration solution, improvement suggestions, or analysis of the pain points not covered.
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2. How to Participate
Step 1. Read this best practice below:

Sangfor Virtual Desktop Infrastructure V5.9.6 Replacement VMware Horizon Guide

Step 2. Reply to this post like #Thoughts on VMware Replacement + your detailed opinion. Your opinion should not be less than 50 words.

Note: Feedback on grammar, spelling, and format issues of the best practice will not be adopted. Please focus on whether the solution is useful or covers your industry or application scenario.

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3. Activity Duration

May 8th, 2025 – October 25th, 2025

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4. Rewards & Criteria
1) Basic Reward: 200 to 500 coins for all eligible submissions (one per user).
2) Outstanding Reward: 1000 coins for excellent and high-quality feedback or suggestions.

The coins can be exchanged for physical gifts, an electronic gift card, or the specified gifts you requested in the Sangfor Store.

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5. Rules for Opinion Sharing

To ensure high-quality, actionable insights and avoid generic comments, participants must adhere to the following rules:

Cite Document Sections: Reference specific chapters, pages, or steps (e.g., "Section 4.1: Migration (Persistent Mode) lacks clarity on post-migration IP configuration").

Propose Solutions: For improvement suggestions, add concrete action items (e.g., "Add a troubleshooting flowchart for VMOptimization Tools installation errors in Section 5.1").

Organize feedback into numbered points or subheadings (e.g., "Issue 1: Template Conversion Limitations").

Vague statements like "Good guide" or "Needs more details" without context will be disqualified.

Minimum 100 words for in-depth analysis (excludes code/images).

Imitation, adaptation, or copying of other participants' content will be disqualified.

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You can also join in this activity:



Sangfor Jojo Posted May-07-2025 16:48
  
Reply to this post like #Thoughts on VMware Replacement + your detailed opinion.
Muhammad Shiraz Lv2Posted May-09-2025 14:40
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement
- The migration guide is generally well-structured, especially in Sections 4.1 and 5.1.
- Some steps, like IP configuration and domain join, need more clarity for less experienced users.
- The issue with VMOptimization Tools not installing (Section 5.1, Step 9) lacks detailed troubleshooting advice.
- The guide relies heavily on manual steps, which could be challenging in large-scale environments.
- It would benefit from adding options for automation or scripting bulk VM migrations.
- Reusing templates is a helpful and time-saving feature.
By the way it's good for small migrations but needs improvements for complex or enterprise setups.
Ken Nava Lv1Posted May-16-2025 11:04
  
This community event on replacing VMware VDI with Sangfor VDI is a great opportunity to explore alternative virtualization solutions amid changing licensing models and costs.

1. Suggestions for Improvement:

1). Include rollback or contingency planning in case of migration issues.

2). Provide a side-by-side feature comparison (VMware vs Sangfor) to help stakeholders understand trade-offs.

3). Highlight licensing and cost benefits in practical terms.

2. Best Practices & Thoughts:

1). Pre-Migration Assessment:
Assess compatibility of applications, user profiles, and system requirements to ensure a smooth transition.

2). Persistent vs. Pool Mode Strategy:
Treat persistent VMs (user-customized) with caution—ensure data backup and user profile synchronization. Pool VMs can be rebuilt, so focus on efficient image creation.

3). Network and Security Policies:
Recheck firewall rules, VLAN settings, and endpoint configurations, especially if Sangfor introduces new network behaviors.

4). End-User Experience Testing:
Pilot test with select users to catch performance or UI issues early.

5). Training and Documentation:
Ensure IT staff and end users are trained on the new interface and operations
Sameena Jameel Lv1Posted Jun-19-2025 18:35
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement

The migration guide from VMware Horizon to Sangfor VDI V5.9.6 provides a detailed, step-by-step approach for both persistent and pool mode VMs. It’s a technically sound and structured guide, especially beneficial for environments where cost, vendor consolidation, or tighter integration with Sangfor HCI is a priority.

One of the strengths is its emphasis on practical procedures—uninstalling VMware components, converting templates with aDesk Tools, and preparing for domain and SSO integration. However, more insight into handling real-time user session migration or downtime minimization would improve the guide. Also, migration impact on end-user experience (latency, interface adaptation, performance) deserves more attention.

In high-security or regulated industries (e.g., finance or healthcare), further detail on data integrity validation and compliance checks during migration would be valuable.

Overall, the guide is quite useful and covers key tasks, but enriching it with risk handling, rollback strategies, and change management best practices would make it even more robust and enterprise-ready.
Newbie337989 Lv2Posted Aug-14-2025 19:50
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement

- Persistent desktops: The guide should explain how to preserve or reassign IPs and rejoin AD after migration.
- Bulk pool migrations: Processes are manual; automation examples using PowerCLI or aDesk API would reduce risk at scale.
- Agent installation: A compatibility matrix and pre-check scripts would help avoid driver conflicts.
- User profiles: More guidance on container strategies, Office cache handling, and DR patterns is needed.
- Cutover planning: A runbook for downtime and final session migration would make transitions smoother.
- GPU workloads: Add vGPU mapping, NVIDIA licensing, and validation steps for graphics-heavy environments.
- Security & SSO: Post-migration MFA and aTrust steps are missing.
- Industry-specific needs: Include tailored annexes for finance, healthcare, and education.
- Network checks: A validation checklist per VLAN/ACL is recommended.
- Troubleshooting: A clear decision tree for agent install or enrollment failures would speed resolution.
NewBau072712 Lv1Posted Aug-15-2025 02:02
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement

Step #3 - Migration Target
Step #4 - Migration Step

In relation to the steps mentioned, it would be better to include relevant configuration snippets and detailed examples within the documentation. Providing such references, consistent with the format used in other migration tasks will significantly aid integrators, particularly those with limited familiarity or hands-on experience. This approach will enhance clarity, reduce potential misconfigurations, and support a more streamlined migration process.

pmateus Lv3Posted Sep-02-2025 21:59
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement

There is a very importante missing information that is the lack of Rollback Procedure. The guide does not include a rollback plan in case of migration failure. For enterprise environments like mine, having a documented revert strategy is critical.

I suggest adding a appendix or section outlining steps to fall back to the original VMware environment without data loss.

Thanks.
pmateus Lv3Posted Sep-02-2025 22:04
  
#Thoughts on VMware Replacement

While VLANs are mentioned, the network guidance is superficial. The migration will change the hypervisor and likely the MAC addresses and traffic patterns.

The document should include a checklist for network security teams: updating firewall rules, ACLs, and any IDS/IPS signatures that may be triggered by the new Sangfor environment.

Thanks.
Newbie691355 Lv1Posted Oct-16-2025 18:54
  
Sangfor's ecosystem can be powerful, but as always, the devil is in the configuration details.
One tip: whenever you’re troubleshooting, try replicating the issue in a clean test environment to isolate configuration vs. hardware vs. network issues. Also, logging at different verbosity levels (warn → info → debug) really helps pin down where things break.
If anyone’s interested, I’ve seen similar patterns in security appliance deployments (especially with overlapping rulesets / policy inheritance) happy to share examples or configs if that helps.