EMC VSPEX END-USER COMPUTING

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EMC VSPEX END-USER COMPUTING

Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO

Enabled by EMC VNX and EMC Data Protection

EMC VSPEX

Abstract

This Design Guide describes how to design an EMC®_VSPEX®_{End-User-Computing} solution for Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. EMC XtremIOTM_{, EMC VNX}®_{, and Microsoft} Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V provide the storage and virtualization platforms.

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EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

EMC2_{, EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC} Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com.

EMC VSPEX End-User Computing

Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Enabled by EMC VNX and EMC Data Protection

Design Guide

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3 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide

Chapter 1 Introduction

9

Purpose of this guide ... 10

Business value ... 10

Scope ... 11

Audience ... 11

Terminology... 12

Chapter 2 Before You Start

13

Deployment workflow ... 14

Essential reading ... 14

VSPEX Solution Overview ... 14

VSPEX Implementation Guide ... 14

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide ... 14

Chapter 3 Solution Overview

15

Overview ... 16

VSPEX Proven Infrastructures ... 16

Solution architecture ... 17

High-level architecture ... 17

Logical architecture ... 19

Key components ... 20

Desktop virtualization broker ... 21

Overview ... 21

Citrix ... 21

XenDesktop 7.5 ... 21

Machine Creation Services ... 23

Citrix Provisioning Services ... 23

Citrix Personal vDisk ... 23

Citrix Profile Management ... 23

Virtualization layer ... 24

Microsoft Hyper-V ... 24

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager ... 24

Microsoft Hyper-V high availability ... 24

Compute layer ... 25

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Storage layer ... 25

EMC XtremIO ... 25

EMC VNX ... 27

Virtualization management ... 30

Data protection layer ... 30

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones solution ... 31

Chapter 4 Sizing the Solution

33

Overview ... 34

Reference workload ... 34

VSPEX Private Cloud requirements... 35

Private cloud storage layout ... 35

VSPEX/XtremIO array configurations ... 35

Validated XtremIO configurations ... 35

XtremIO storage layout ... 36

Expanding existing VSPEX end-user computing environments ... 37

VNX array configurations ... 37

User data storage VNX building block ... 37

EMC FAST VP ... 38

VNX shared file systems... 38

Choosing the appropriate reference architecture ... 38

Using the Customer Sizing Worksheet ... 38

Selecting a reference architecture ... 40

Fine tuning hardware resources ... 41

Summary ... 42

Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices

43

Overview ... 44

Server design considerations ... 44

Server best practices ... 45

Validated server hardware ... 46

Hyper-V memory virtualization ... 47

Memory configuration guidelines ... 48

Network design considerations ... 49

Validated network hardware ... 50

Network configuration guidelines ... 50

Storage design considerations ... 54

Overview ... 54

Validated storage hardware and configuration ... 54

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High availability and failover ... 57

Virtualization layer ... 57

Compute layer ... 57

Network layer ... 58

Storage layer ... 59

Validation test profile ... 60

Profile characteristics ... 60

EMC Data Protection configuration guidelines ... 61

Data protection profile characteristics ... 61

Data protection layout ... 61

VSPEX for Citrix XenDesktop with ShareFile StorageZones solution ... 62

ShareFile StorageZones architecture ... 62

StorageZones ... 63

Design considerations ... 63

VSPEX for ShareFile StorageZones architecture ... 63

Chapter 6 Reference Documentation

67

EMC documentation ... 68

Figures

Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures ... 17

Figure 2. Architecture of the validated solution ... 18

Figure 3. Logical architecture for both block and file storage ... 19

Figure 4. XenDesktop 7.5 architecture components ... 21

Figure 5. New Unisphere Management Suite ... 29

Figure 6. Optional user data storage building block for 1,750 virtual desktops .. 37

Figure 7. Compute layer flexibility ... 44

Figure 8. Hypervisor memory consumption ... 47

Figure 9. Highly-available XtremIO FC network design example ... 51

Figure 10. Highly-available VNX Ethernet network design example ... 52

Figure 11. Required networks ... 53

Figure 12. Hyper-V virtual disk types ... 56

Figure 13. High availability at the virtualization layer ... 57

Figure 14. Redundant power supplies ... 57

Figure 15. VNX Ethernet network layer high availability ... 58

Figure 16. XtremIO series high availability ... 59

Figure 17. VNX series high availability ... 59

Figure 18. ShareFile high-level architecture... 62

Figure 19. VSPEX for Citrix XenDesktop with ShareFile StorageZones: Logical architecture ... 64

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Tables

Table 1. Terminology... 12

Table 2. Deployment workflow ... 14

Table 3. Solution components ... 20

Table 4. VSPEX end-user computing: Design process ... 34

Table 5. Reference virtual desktop characteristics ... 34

Table 6. Infrastructure server minimum requirements ... 35

Table 7. XtremIO storage layout ... 36

Table 8. Example Customer Sizing Worksheet ... 38

Table 9. Reference virtual desktop resources ... 40

Table 10. Server resource component totals ... 42

Table 11. Server hardware ... 46

Table 12. Minimum switching capacity ... 50

Table 13. Storage hardware ... 55

Table 14. Validated environment profile ... 60

Table 15. Data protection profile characteristics ... 61

Table 16. Recommended VNX storage for ShareFile StorageZones CIFS share ... 65

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Chapter 1 Introduction

This chapter presents the following topics:

Purpose of this guide ... 10

Business value ... 10

Scope ... 11

Audience ... 11

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Purpose of this guide

The EMC®_VSPEX®_{End-User-Computing Proven Infrastructure provides the customer} with a modern system capable of hosting a large number of virtual desktops at a consistent performance level. This VSPEX End-User-Computing solution for Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 runs on a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V virtualization layer backed by the highly available EMC XtremIO™ family, which provides the storage. In this solution, the desktop virtualization infrastructure components are layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud that uses a Microsoft Hyper-V Proven Infrastructure, while the desktops are hosted on dedicated resources.

The compute and network components, which are defined by the VSPEX partners, are designed to be redundant and sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of a large virtual desktop environment. XtremIO solutions provide storage for virtual desktops, EMC VNX®_{solutions provide storage for user data, and EMC} Avamar®_{data protection solutions provide data protection for Citrix XenDesktop data.} This VSPEX End-User-Computing solution is validated for up to 1,750 Citrix

XenDesktop Machine Creation Services (MCS) linked clone or Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) streamed virtual desktops for an XtremIO Starter X-Brick, and up to 3,500 MCS linked clone or PVS streamed virtual desktops for an X-Brick. These validated configurations are based on a reference desktop workload and form the basis for creating cost-effective, custom solutions for individual customers.

An end-user-computing or virtual desktop infrastructure is a complex system offering. This Design Guide describes how to design an end-user-computing solution

according to best practices for Citrix XenDesktop for Microsoft Hyper-V enabled by XtremIO, VNX, and EMC Data Protection.

Business value

Employees are more mobile than ever, and they expect access to business-critical data and applications from any location and any device. They want the flexibility to bring their own devices to work, which means IT departments are increasingly investigating and supporting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives. This adds layers of complexity to safeguarding sensitive information. Deploying a virtual desktop project is one way to do this.

Implementing large-scale virtual desktop environments presents many challenges, however. Administrators must rapidly roll out persistent or non-persistent desktops for all users—task workers, knowledge workers, and power users—while offering an outstanding user experience that outperforms physical desktops.

In addition to performance, a virtual desktop solution must be simple to deploy, manage, and scale, with substantial cost savings over physical desktops. Storage is also a critical component of an effective virtual desktop solution.

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11 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide The business benefits of the VSPEX End-User-Computing solution for Citrix

XenDesktop include:

 An end-to-end virtualization solution to use the capabilities of the unified infrastructure components

 Efficient virtualization for varied customer use cases, such as

 A Starter X-Brick supporting up to 1,750 MCS linked clone or PVS streamed virtual desktops

 An X-Brick supporting up to 3,500 MCS linked clone or PVS streamed virtual desktops

 Reliable, flexible, and scalable reference architectures

Scope

This Design Guide describes how to plan a simple, effective, and flexible VSPEX End-User-Computing solution for Citrix XenDesktop 7.5. It provides a deployment example of virtual desktop storage on XtremIO and user data storage on a VNX storage array. The same principles and guidelines apply to the XtremIO and VNX arrays that have been validated as part of the EMC VSPEX program.

The desktop virtualization infrastructure components of the solution are layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud that uses a Microsoft Hyper-V Proven Infrastructure. This guide illustrates how to size XenDesktop on the VSPEX infrastructure, allocate resources following best practice, and use all the benefits that VSPEX offers.

Audience

This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel and qualified EMC VSPEX Partners. The guide assumes that VSPEX partners who intend to deploy this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop have the necessary training and background to install and configure an end-user-computing solution based on Citrix XenDesktop with Microsoft Hyper-V as the hypervisor, XtremIO and VNX series storage systems, and associated infrastructure.

Readers should also be familiar with the infrastructure and database security policies of the customer installation.

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Terminology

Table 1 lists the terminology used in this guide.

Table 1. Terminology

Term Definition

Data deduplication Reduces physical storage utilization by eliminating redundant blocks of data.

PVS streamed desktops

Desktops provisioned to stream their base image data from Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) servers, writing any changes to a local write cache or Citrix Personal vDisk, depending on the desktop configuration.

MCS linked clones Desktops provisioned to share a common base image within a desktop pool, thereby having a minimal storage footprint. Reference

architecture The validated architecture that supports this VSPEX end-user-computing solution at different points of scale. Reference workload For VSPEX end-user-computing solutions, the reference workload

is defined as a single virtual desktop—the reference virtual desktop—with the workload characteristics indicated in Table 5. By comparing the customer’s actual usage to this reference workload, you can determine which reference architecture to choose as the basis for the customer’s VSPEX deployment. Refer to Reference workload for details.

Storage processor

(SP) The compute component of the VNX storage array. SPs are used for all aspects of moving data into, out of, and between VNX arrays. Storage controller

(SC) The compute component of the XtremIO storage array. SCs are used for all aspects of moving data into, out of, and between XtremIO arrays.

Virtual Desktop

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Chapter 2 Before You Start

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Deployment workflow

To design and implement your end-user computing solution, refer to the process flow in Table 2.

Table 2. Deployment workflow

Step Action

1 Use the Customer Sizing Worksheet to collect customer requirements. Refer to

Appendix A of this Design Guide.

2 Use the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX reference architecture for your end-user-computing solution, based on the customer requirements collected in Step 1.

For more information about the Sizing Tool, refer to the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool portal.

Note: If the Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size the application using the guidelines inChapter 4.

3 Use this Design Guide to determine the final design for your VSPEX solution. Note: Ensure that all resource requirements are considered and not just the requirements for end-user computing.

4 Select and order the right VSPEX reference architecture and Proven Infrastructure. Refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading for guidance on selecting a Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure. 5 Deploy and test your VSPEX solution. Refer to the VSPEX Implementation Guide

in Essential reading for guidance.

Essential reading

EMC recommends that you read the following documents, available from the VSPEX space in the EMC Community Network or from EMC.com or the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure partner portal.

Refer to the EMC VSPEX End User Computing Solution Overview.

Refer to the EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Implementation Guide.

Refer to the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V for up to 1,000 Hyper-Virtual Machines Proven Infrastructure Guide.

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Chapter 3 Solution Overview

Overview ... 16

VSPEX Proven Infrastructures... 16

Solution architecture ... 17

Key components ... 20

Desktop virtualization broker ... 21

Virtualization layer ... 24

Compute layer ... 25

Network layer ... 25

Storage layer ... 25

Data protection layer... 30

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones solution ... 31

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Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the VSPEX End-User-Computing solution and the key technologies used in the solution. The solution has been designed and proven by EMC to provide the desktop virtualization, server, network, storage, and data

protection resources to support reference architectures of up to 1,750 virtual desktops for a Starter X-Brick, and up to 3,500 virtual desktops for an X-Brick. Although the desktop virtualization infrastructure components of the solution shown in Figure 3 are designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud solution, the

reference architectures do not include configuration details for the underlying Proven Infrastructure. Refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading for information on configuring the required infrastructure components.

VSPEX Proven Infrastructures

EMC has joined forces with IT infrastructure providers to create a complete

virtualization solution that accelerates the deployment of the private cloud and Citrix XenDesktop virtual desktops. VSPEX enables customers to accelerate their IT

transformation with faster deployment, greater simplicity and choice, higher

efficiency, and lower risk, compared to the challenges and complexity of building an IT infrastructure themselves.

VSPEX validation by EMC ensures predictable performance and enables customers to select technology that uses their existing or newly acquired IT infrastructure while eliminating planning, sizing, and configuration burdens. VSPEX provides a virtual infrastructure for customers who want the simplicity characteristic of truly converged infrastructures, with more choice in individual stack components.

VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, as shown in Figure 1, are modular, virtualized

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Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures

Solution architecture

The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing for Citrix XenDesktop solution provides a complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 1,750 MCS linked clone or PVS streamed virtual desktops for a Starter X-Brick, and up to 3,500 MCS linked clone or PVS streamed virtual desktops for an X-Brick. The solution supports block storage for virtual desktops, and optional file storage for user data.

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Figure 2 shows the high-level architecture of the validated solution.

Figure 2. Architecture of the validated solution

The solution uses EMC XtremIO, EMC VNX, and Microsoft Hyper-V to provide the storage and virtualization platforms for a Citrix XenDesktop environment of Microsoft Windows 8.1 virtual desktops provisioned by Citrix XenDesktop MCS or Citrix PVS. For the solution, we1_{deployed an XtremIO array in multiple configurations (Starter} X-Brick and X-X-Brick) to support up to 3,500 virtual desktops. We also deployed a VNX array for hosting user data.

The highly available XtremIO array provides the storage for the desktop virtualization components. The infrastructure services for the solution, as shown in Figure 2, can be provided by existing infrastructure at the customer site, by the VSPEX Private Cloud, or by deploying them as dedicated resources as part of the solution. The virtual desktops require dedicated end-user-computing resources and are not intended to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud.

Planning and designing the storage infrastructure for a Citrix XenDesktop environment is critical because the shared storage must be able to absorb large

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19 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide bursts of I/O that occur during a day. These bursts can lead to periods of erratic and unpredictable virtual desktop performance. Users can adapt to slow performance, but unpredictable performance frustrates users and reduces efficiency.

To provide predictable performance for end-user-computing solutions, the storage system must be able to handle the peak I/O load from the clients while keeping response time to a minimum. This solution uses the XtremIO array to provide the sub-millisecond response times the clients require, while the real-time, inline

deduplication features of the platform reduce the amount of physical storage needed. EMC Data Protection solutions enable user data protection and end-user

recoverability. This Citrix XenDesktop solution uses Avamar and its desktop client to achieve this.

The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing for Citrix XenDesktop solution supports block storage for the virtual desktops. Figure 3 shows the logical architecture of the solution for both variants.

Figure 3. Logical architecture for both block and file storage

This solution uses two networks: a storage network for carrying virtual desktop and virtual server OS data, and a 10 Gb Ethernet (GbE) network for carrying all other traffic. The storage network can use 8 Gb FC, 10 Gb CEE with FCoE, or 10 GbE with iSCSI protocol.

Note: The solution also supports 1 Gb Ethernet if the bandwidth requirements are met.

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Key components

This section provides an overview of the key technologies used in this solution, as outlined in Table 3.

Table 3. Solution components

Component Description

Desktop virtualization broker

Manages the provisioning, allocation, maintenance, and eventual removal of the virtual desktop images that are provided to users of the system. This software is critical to enable on-demand creation of desktop images, allow maintenance to the image without affecting user productivity, and prevent the environment from growing in an unconstrained way.

The desktop broker in this solution is Citrix XenDesktop 7.5.

Virtualization layer

Enables the physical implementation of resources to be decoupled from the applications that use them. In other words, the application’s view of the resources available is no longer directly tied to the hardware. This enables many key features in the end-user-computing concept.

This solution uses Microsoft Hyper-V for the virtualization layer.

Compute layer

Provides memory and processing resources for the virtualization layer software and for the applications running in the infrastructure. The VSPEX program defines the minimum amount of compute layer resources required but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any server hardware that meets these requirements.

Network layer Connects the users of the environment to the resources they need and connects the storage layer to the compute layer. The VSPEX program defines the minimum number of network ports required for the solution and provides general guidance on network architecture, but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any network hardware that meets these requirements.

Storage layer A critical resource for the implementation of the end-user-computing environment, the storage layer must be able to absorb large bursts of activity as they occur without unduly affecting the user experience. This solution uses XtremIO and VNX arrays to efficiently handle this workload.

Data protection An optional solution component that provides data protection if data in the primary system is deleted, damaged, or otherwise unusable. This solution uses Avamar for data protection.

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones solution

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Desktop virtualization broker

Desktop virtualization encapsulates and hosts desktop services on centralized computing resources at remote data centers. This enables end users to connect to their virtual desktops from different types of devices across a network connection. Devices can include desktops, laptops, thin clients, zero (ultra-thin) clients, smart phones, and tablets.

In this solution, we used Citrix XenDesktop to provision, manage, broker, and monitor the desktop virtualization environment.

XenDesktop is the desktop virtualization solution from Citrix that enables virtual desktops to run on the Hyper-V virtualization environment. Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 integrates Citrix XenApp application delivery technologies and XenDesktop desktop virtualization technologies into a single architecture and management experience. This architecture unifies both management and delivery components to enable a scalable, simple, efficient, and manageable solution for delivering Windows applications and desktops as secure mobile services to users anywhere on any device.

Figure 4 shows the XenDesktop 7.5 architecture components.

Figure 4. XenDesktop 7.5 architecture components

Overview

Citrix

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The XenDesktop 7.5 architecture includes the following components:

 Citrix Director—A web-based tool that enables IT support and help desk teams to monitor an environment, troubleshoot issues before they become system-critical, and perform support tasks for end users.

 Citrix Receiver—Installed on user devices, Citrix Receiver provides users with quick, secure, self-service access to documents, applications, and desktops from any of their devices including smart phones, tablets, and computers. Receiver provides on-demand access to Windows, web, and software as a service (SaaS) applications.

 Citrix StoreFront—Provides authentication and resource delivery services for Citrix Receiver. It enables centralized control of resources and provides users with on-demand, self-service access to their desktops and applications.  Citrix Studio—Enables the configuration and management of the deployment,

eliminating the need for separate consoles for managing delivery of

applications and desktops. Studio provides wizards to guide you through the process of setting up your environment, creating your workloads to host applications and desktops, and assigning applications and desktops to users.  Delivery Controller—Installed on servers in the data center, Delivery Controller

consists of services that communicate with the hypervisor to:  Distribute applications and desktops

 Authenticate and manage user access

 Broker connections between users and their virtual desktops and applications

Delivery Controller manages the state of the desktops, starting and stopping them based on demand and administrative configuration. In some editions, the controller enables you to install profile management to manage user

personalization settings in virtualized or physical Windows environments.  License Server—Assigns user or device licenses to the XenDesktop

environment. License Server can be installed along with other Citrix XenDesktop components or on a separate virtual or physical machine.  Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)—Installed on server or workstation operating

systems (OSs), the VDA enables connections for desktops and applications. For remote computer access, you install the VDA on your office computer.

 Server OS machines—Virtual machines or physical machines, based on the Windows Server OS, used for delivering applications or hosted-shared desktops (HSDs) to users.

 Desktop OS machines—Virtual machines or physical machines, based on a Windows desktop OS, used for delivering personalized desktops to users, or applications from desktop operating systems.

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23 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide Machine Creation Services (MCS) is a provisioning mechanism that is integrated with the XenDesktop management interface, Citrix Studio, to provision, manage, and decommission desktops throughout the desktop lifecycle from a centralized point of management.

MCS enables several types of machines to be managed within a catalog in Citrix Studio. Desktop customization is persistent for machines that use the Personal vDisk (PvD) feature, while non-PvD machines are appropriate if desktop changes are to be discarded when the user logs off.

Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) takes a different approach from traditional desktop imaging solutions by fundamentally changing the relationship between hardware and the software that runs on it. By streaming a single shared disk image (vDisk) instead of copying images to individual machines, PVS enables organizations to reduce the number of disk images that they manage. As the number of machines continues to grow, PVS provides the efficiency of centralized management with the benefits of distributed processing.

Because machines stream disk data dynamically in real time from a single shared image, machine image consistency is ensured. In addition, large pools of machines can completely change their configuration, applications, and even OS during a reboot operation.

The Citrix PvD feature enables users to preserve customization settings and user-installed applications in a pooled desktop by redirecting the changes from the user’s pooled virtual machine to a separate PvD. During runtime, the content of the PvD is blended with the content from the base virtual machine to provide a unified

experience to the end user. The PvD data is preserved during reboot and refresh operations.

Citrix Profile Management preserves user profiles and dynamically synchronizes them with a remote profile repository. Profile Management downloads a user’s remote profile dynamically when the user logs in to XenDesktop, and applies personal settings to desktops and applications regardless of the user’s login location or client device.

The combination of Profile Management and pooled desktops provides the experience of a dedicated desktop while potentially minimizing the amount of storage required in an organization.

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Virtualization layer

Microsoft Hyper-V provides a complete virtualization platform that provides flexibility and cost savings by enabling the consolidation of large, inefficient server farms into nimble and reliable cloud infrastructures. The core Microsoft virtualization

components are the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor and the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager for system management.

The Hyper-V hypervisor transforms a computer’s physical resources by virtualizing the CPU, memory, storage, and network. This transformation creates fully functional virtual machines that run isolated and encapsulated operating systems and applications, just like physical computers do.

Hyper-V runs on a dedicated server and enables multiple operating systems to execute simultaneously on the system as virtual machines. Microsoft clustered services enable multiple Hyper-V servers to operate in a clustered configuration. The Hyper-V cluster configuration is managed as a larger resource pool through the Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. This enables dynamic allocation of CPU, memory, and storage across the cluster.

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) is a scalable, extensible, centralized management platform for the Hyper-V infrastructure. It provides

administrators with a single interface that they can access from multiple devices for all aspects of monitoring, managing, and maintaining the virtual infrastructure.

Microsoft Hyper-V’s high-availability features—such as Failover Clustering, Live Migration, and Storage Migration—enable seamless migration of virtual machines and stored files from one Hyper-V server to another with minimal or no performance impact.

 Hyper-V Failover Clustering enables the virtualization layer to automatically restart virtual machines in various failure conditions. If the physical hardware has an error, the impacted virtual machines can be restarted automatically on other servers in the cluster. You can configure policies to determine which machines are restarted automatically and under what conditions these operations are performed.

Note: For Hyper-V Failover Clustering to restart virtual machines on different hardware, those servers must have resources available. The Server design considerations

section provides specific recommendations to enable this functionality.

 Live Migration provides migration of virtual machines within clustered and non-clustered servers with no virtual machine downtime or service disruption.  Storage Migration provides migration of virtual machine disk files within and

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Compute layer

VSPEX defines the minimum amount of compute layer resources required, but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any server hardware that meets these requirements. For details, refer to Chapter 5.

Network layer

VSPEX defines the minimum number of network ports required for the solution and provides general guidance on network architecture, but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any network hardware that meets these requirements. For details, refer to Chapter 5.

Storage layer

The storage layer is a key component of any cloud infrastructure solution that serves data generated by applications and operating systems in a data center storage processing system. This VSPEX solution uses EMC XtremIO storage arrays to provide virtualization at the storage layer. The XtremIO platform provides the required storage performance, increases storage efficiency and management flexibility, and reduces total cost of ownership. This solution also uses the EMC VNX family arrays to provide storage for user data.

The EMC XtremIO all-flash array is deployed in one of two specialized configurations known as either a Starter X-Brick or an X-Brick, and is designed to maximize the use of flash storage media. Key attributes of the XtremIO platform are:

 Extremely high levels of I/O performance, particularly for random I/O workloads that are typical in virtualized environments

 Consistently low (sub-millisecond) latency

 True inline data reduction, which is the ability to remove redundant information in the data path and write only unique data on the storage array, thus reducing the capacity required

 A full suite of enterprise array capabilities, including N-way active controllers, high availability, strong data protection, writeable snapshots, and thin provisioning

The XtremIO array is a scale-out design, in which additional performance and capacity are added in a building-block approach, with all blocks forming a single clustered system.

XtremIO storage includes the following components:

 Host adapter ports—Provide host connectivity through fabric into the array.  Storage controllers (SCs)—The compute component of the XtremIO storage

array. SCs handle all aspects of data moving into, out of, and between arrays.  Disk drives—Solid-state drives (SSDs) that contain the host/application data,

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 Infiniband switches—A switched, high-throughput, low-latency

communications link used in multi-X-Brick configurations. Infiniband also provides quality of service, scalability, and failover capability.

XtremIO Operating System (XIOS)

The XtremIO storage cluster is managed by the powerful XtremIO Operating System (XIOS), which ensures that the system remains balanced and always delivers the highest levels of performance without any administrator intervention.

 XIOS ensures that all SSDs in the system are evenly loaded, providing the highest possible performance, as well as endurance that stands up to demanding workloads for the entire life of the array.

 XIOS eliminates the complex configuration tasks that need to be performed on traditional arrays. There is no need to set RAID levels, determine drive group sizes, set stripe widths and caching policies, or build aggregates.

 With XIOS, every volume is automatically and optimally configured at all times. I/O performance on existing volumes and data sets automatically increases with large cluster sizes. Every volume is capable of receiving the full

performance potential of the entire XtremIO system. Standards-based enterprise storage system

The XtremIO system interfaces with Hyper-V hosts using standard Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI block interfaces. The system supports complete high-availability features, including support for native Hyper-V multipath I/O, protection against failed SSDs, non-disruptive software and firmware upgrades, no single point of failure (SPOF), and hot-swappable components.

Real-time, inline data reduction

The XtremIO storage system deduplicates desktop images in real time, enabling very large numbers of virtual desktops to reside in a small and economical amount of flash capacity. Also, data reduction on the XtremIO array does not adversely affect input/output per second (IOPS) or latency performance, but actually enhances the performance of the end-user computing environment.

Agile writeable snapshots

XtremIO snapshots are purpose-built for flash and optimize the use of array memory and SSD space, enabling businesses to achieve petabyte-scale effective capacity in an optimal footprint with unprecedented performance throughout the entire

application life cycle.

XtremIO snapshots are unique in that they are:

 Instantly created as full-performance, writeable copies  Space-efficient with neither data nor metadata bloat

 Enabled with full data services such as inline deduplication and compression, encryption, and thin provisioning

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27 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide With these features and capabilities, XtremIO snapshots enable the consolidation of different application silos into a smaller footprint, faster application development and deployment (by giving each engineer a high-performance development/test sandbox), and the creation of on-demand analytics and reporting.

Scale-out design

The X-Brick is the fundamental building block of a scaled-out XtremIO clustered system. Virtual desktop deployments can start small with a Starter X-Brick, can be upgraded to an Brick, and then expanded to nearly any scale by adding further X-Bricks. System capacity and performance expand linearly as building blocks are added, making EUC sizing and management of future growth extremely simple. Massive performance

The XtremIO array is designed to handle very high, sustained levels of small, random, mixed read and write I/O as is typical in virtual desktops, and to do so with

consistent, extremely low latency. Ease of use

The XtremIO storage system requires only a few basic setup steps that can be completed in minutes and absolutely no tuning or ongoing administration is needed to achieve and maintain high performance levels. In fact, you can take the XtremIO system from shipping box to deployment readiness in less than an hour.

Data center economics

Up to 3,500 desktops are easily supported on a single Brick (1,750 on a Starter X-Brick), and the compact device requires just a few rack units of space and

approximately 750 W of power.

The EMC VNX flash-optimized unified storage platform is ideal for storing user data and Windows profiles in a Citrix XenDesktop infrastructure, and delivers innovation and enterprise capabilities for file, block, and object storage in a single, scalable, and easy-to-use solution. Ideal for mixed workloads in physical or virtual environments, VNX combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency,

management, and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today’s virtualized application environments.

VNX storage includes the following components:

 Host adapter ports (for block)—Provide host connectivity through fabric into the array.

 Data Movers (for file)—Front-end appliances that provide file services to hosts (optional if providing CIFS/SMB or NFS services).

 Storage processors (SPs)—The compute component of the storage array. SPs handle all aspects of data moving into, out of, and between arrays.

 Disk drives—Disk spindles and solid-state drives that contain the host/application data, and their enclosures.

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Note: Data Mover refers to a VNX hardware component, which has a CPU, memory, and input/output (I/O) ports. It enables the CIFS (SMB) and NFS protocols on the VNX array. EMC VNX series

VNX includes many features and enhancements designed and built on the first generation’s success, including:

 More capacity and better optimization with the VNX MCx™ technology components Multicore Cache, Multicore RAID, and Multicore Fully Automated Storage Tiering™ (FAST) Cache

 Greater efficiency with a flash-optimized hybrid array

 Better protection by increasing application availability with active/active storage processors

 Easier administration and deployment with the new EMC Unisphere® Management Suite

VSPEX is built with VNX to deliver even greater efficiency, performance, and scale than ever before.

Flash-optimized hybrid array

VNX is a flash-optimized hybrid array that provides automated tiering to deliver the best performance to your critical data, while intelligently moving less frequently accessed data to lower-cost disks.

In this hybrid approach, a small percentage of flash drives in the overall system can provide a high percentage of the overall IOPS. Flash-optimized VNX takes full advantage of the low latency of flash to deliver cost-saving optimization and high performance scalability. EMC FAST Suite (FAST Cache and FAST VP) tiers both block and file data across heterogeneous drives. It also boosts the most active data to the flash drives, ensuring that customers never have to make concessions for cost or performance.

Data generally is accessed most frequently at the time it is created; therefore, new data is first stored on flash drives to provide the best performance. As the data ages and becomes less active over time, FAST VP tiers the data from high-performance to high-capacity drives automatically, based on customer-defined policies. This functionality has been enhanced with four times better granularity and with new FAST VP SSDs based on enterprise multilevel cell (eMLC) technology to lower the cost per gigabyte.

FAST Cache uses flash drives as an expanded cache layer for the array to dynamically absorb unpredicted spikes in system workloads. Frequently accessed data is copied to the FAST Cache in 64 KB increments. Subsequent reads and/or writes to the data chunk are serviced by FAST Cache. This enables immediate promotion of very active data to flash drives, dramatically improving the response times for the active data and reducing data hot spots that can occur within the LUN.

All VSPEX use cases benefit from the increased efficiency provided by the FAST Suite. Furthermore, VNX provides out-of-band, block-based deduplication that can

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29 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide Unisphere Management Suite

EMC Unisphere is the central management platform for the VNX series, providing a single, combined view of file and block systems, with all features and functions available through a common interface. Unisphere is optimized for virtual applications and provides Hyper-V integration, automatically discovering virtual machines and ESX servers, and providing end-to-end, virtual-to-physical mapping. Unisphere also simplifies configuration of FAST Cache and FAST VP on VNX platforms.

The Unisphere Management Suite extends the easy-to-use interface of Unisphere to include VNX Monitoring and Reporting for validating performance and anticipating capacity requirements. As shown in Figure 5, the suite also includes Unisphere Remote for centrally managing thousands of VNX and VNXe systems with new support for EMC XtremCache™.

Figure 5. EMC Unisphere Management Suite

EMC VNX Virtual Provisioning

EMC VNX Virtual Provisioning™ enables organizations to reduce storage costs by increasing capacity utilization, simplifying storage management, and reducing application downtime. Virtual Provisioning also helps companies to reduce power and cooling requirements and reduce capital expenditures.

Virtual Provisioning provides pool-based storage provisioning by implementing pool LUNs that can be either thin or thick. Thin LUNs provide on-demand storage that maximizes the utilization of your storage by allocating storage only as needed. Thick LUNs provide predictable high performance for your applications. Both LUN types benefit from the ease-of-use features of pool-based provisioning.

Pools and pool LUNs are the building blocks for advanced data services such as FAST VP, VNX Snapshots, and compression. Pool LUNs also support a variety of additional features, such as LUN shrink, online expansion, and user-capacity threshold setting.

VNX file shares

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server, provide this ability. VNX storage arrays can provide this service along with centralized management, client integration, advanced security options, and efficiency improvement features. For more information about VNX file shares, refer to EMC VNX Series: Configuring and Managing CIFS on VNX.

EMC SnapSure

EMC SnapSure™ is a VNX software feature that lets you create and manage checkpoints that are point-in-time logical images of a production file system (PFS). SnapSure uses a copy-on-first-modify principle. A PFS consists of blocks; when a block within the PFS is modified, a copy containing the block's original contents is saved to a separate volume called SavVol.

Subsequent changes made to the same block in the PFS are not copied into the SavVol. SnapSure reads the original blocks from the PFS in the SavVol, and the unchanged PFS blocks remaining in the PFS, according to a bitmap and blockmap data-tracking structure. These blocks combine to provide a complete point-in-time image called a checkpoint.

A checkpoint reflects the state of a PFS at the time the checkpoint is created. SnapSure supports the following checkpoint types:

 Read-only checkpoints—Read-only file systems created from a PFS  Writeable checkpoints—Read/write file systems created from a read-only

checkpoint

SnapSure can maintain a maximum of 96 read-only checkpoints and 16 writeable checkpoints per PFS, while allowing PFS applications continued access to real-time data.

Note: Each writeable checkpoint is associated with a read-only checkpoint, referred to as the baseline checkpoint. Each baseline checkpoint can have only one associated writeable checkpoint.

For more details refer to Using VNX SnapSure.

EMC Storage Integrator for Windows

EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) for Windows is a management interface that lets you view, provision, and manage block and file storage for Windows environments. ESI simplifies the process for creating and provisioning storage to Hyper-V servers as a local disk or a mapped share. ESI also supports storage discovery and provisioning through PowerShell.

For more information, refer to the ESI for Windows documentation, available on EMC Online Support.

Data protection layer

Backup and recovery provides data protection by backing up data files or volumes to defined schedules and restoring data from the backup if recovery is needed after a Virtualization

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31 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide disaster. Avamar delivers the protection confidence needed to accelerate deployment of VSPEX end-user-computing solutions.

Avamar empowers administrators to centrally back up and manage policies and end-user-computing infrastructure components, while enabling end users to efficiently recover their own files from a simple and intuitive web-based interface. By moving only new, unique sub-file data segments, Avamar delivers fast full backups daily, with up to 90 percent reduction in backup times, while reducing the required daily network bandwidth by up to 99 percent. All Avamar recoveries are single-step for simplicity.

With Avamar, you can choose to back up virtual desktops using either image-level or guest-based operations. Avamar runs the deduplication engine at the virtual machine disk (VMDK) level for image backup and at the file level for guest-based backups.

 Image-level protection enables backup clients to make a copy of all the virtual disks and configuration files associated with the particular virtual desktop in the event of hardware failure, corruption, or accidental deletion. Avamar significantly reduces the backup and recovery time of the virtual desktop by using change block tracking (CBT) on both backup and recovery.

 Guest-based protection runs like traditional backup solutions. Guest-based backup can be used on any virtual machine running an OS for which an Avamar backup client is available. It enables fine-grained control over the content and inclusion/exclusion patterns. This can be used to prevent data loss due to user errors, such as accidental file deletion. Installing the desktop/laptop agent on the system to be protected enables end-user, self-service recovery of data.

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones solution

Citrix ShareFile is a cloud-based file sharing and storage service for enterprise-class storage and security. ShareFile enables users to securely share documents with other users. ShareFile users include employees and users who are outside of the enterprise directory (referred to as clients).

ShareFile StorageZones enables businesses to share files across the organization while meeting compliance and regulatory concerns. StorageZones enables customers to keep their data on their own on-premises storage systems. It facilitates sharing of large files with full encryption and enables the synchronization of files with multiple devices.

By keeping data on-premises and closer to users than data residing on the public cloud, StorageZones can provide improved performance and security.

The main features available to ShareFile StorageZones users are:

 Use of StorageZones with or instead of ShareFile-managed cloud storage.  Ability to configure Citrix CloudGateway Enterprise to integrate ShareFile

services with Citrix Receiver for user authentication and user provisioning.  Automated reconciliation between the ShareFile cloud and an organization’s

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 Automated antivirus scans of uploaded files.

 File recovery from Storage Center backup (Storage Center is the server component of StorageZones). StorageZones enables you to browse the file records for a particular date and time and tag any files and folders to restore from Storage Center backup.

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Chapter 4 Sizing the Solution

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Overview

This chapter describes how to design a VSPEX End-User Computing for Citrix

XenDesktop solution and how to size it to fit the customer’s needs. It introduces the concepts of a reference workload, building blocks, and validated end-user-computing maximums, and describes how to use these to design your solution. Table 4 outlines the high-level steps you need to complete when sizing the solution.

Table 4. VSPEX end-user computing: Design process

Step Action

1 Use the Customer Sizing Worksheet in Appendix A to collect the customer requirements for the end-user computing environment.

2 Use the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX reference architecture for your end-user-computing solution, based on the customer requirements collected in Step 1.

Note: If the Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size the end-user-computing solution using the guidelines in this chapter.

Reference workload

VSPEX defines a reference workload to represent a unit of measure for quantifying the resources in the solution reference architectures. By comparing the customer’s actual usage to this reference workload, you can determine which reference architecture to choose as the basis for the customer’s VSPEX deployment.

For VSPEX end-user-computing solutions, the reference workload is defined as a single virtual desktop—the reference virtual desktop—with the workload

characteristics listed in Table 5.

To determine the equivalent number of reference virtual desktops for a particular resource requirement, use the VSPEX Customer Sizing Worksheet to convert the total actual resources required for all desktops into the reference virtual desktop format.

Table 5. Reference virtual desktop characteristics

Characteristic Value

Virtual desktop OS Microsoft Windows 8.1 Enterprise Edition (32-bit)

Virtual processors per virtual desktop 1

RAM per virtual desktop 2 GB

Average storage available for each MCS linked clone virtual desktop

6 GB (VMDK and VSWP) Average storage available for each PVS

streamed virtual desktop

20 GB (PVS write cache and personal vDisk VMDK and VSWP)

Average IOPS per virtual desktop at steady

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35 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide This desktop definition is based on user data that resides on shared storage. The I/O profile is defined by using a test framework that runs all desktops concurrently with a steady load generated by the constant use of office-based applications such as browsers and office productivity software.

VSPEX Private Cloud requirements

This VSPEX End User Computing Proven Infrastructure requires multiple application servers. Unless otherwise specified, all servers use Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 as the base OS. Table 6 lists the minimum requirements of each infrastructure server required.

Table 6. Infrastructure server minimum requirements

Server CPU RAM (GB) IOPS Storage

capacity (GB)

Domain controllers (each) 2 vCPUs 4 25 32

SQL Server 2 vCPUs 6 100 200

SCVMM server 2 vCPUs 4 100 60

Citrix XenDesktop

Controllers (each) 2 vCPUs 8 50 32

Citrix PVS servers (each) 4 vCPUs 20 75 150 VSPEX for Citrix XenDesktop with ShareFile StorageZones solution on page 62 provides the requirements for the optional Citrix ShareFile component.

This solution requires a 1.5 TB volume to host the infrastructure virtual machines, which can include the Microsoft SCVMM server, Citrix XenDesktop Controllers, Citrix PVS servers, optional Citrix ShareFile servers, Microsoft Active Directory Server, and Microsoft SQL Server.

VSPEX/XtremIO array configurations

We validated the VSPEX/XtremIO end-user-computing configurations on the Starter X-Brick and X-X-Brick platforms, which vary according to the number of SSDs they include and their total available capacity. For each array, EMC recommends a maximum VSPEX end-user-computing configuration as outlined in this section.

The following XtremIO validated disk layouts provide support for a specified number of virtual desktops at a defined performance level. This VSPEX solution supports two XtremIO configurations, which are selected based on the number of desktops being deployed:

Private cloud storage layout

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 XtremIO Starter X-Brick—Includes 13 SSD drives, and is validated to support up to 1,750 MCS linked-clone or PVS-streamed virtual desktops

 XtremIO X-Brick—Includes 25 SSD drives, and is validated to support up to 3,500 MCS linked-clone or PVS-streamed virtual desktops

The XtremIO storage configuration required for this solution is in addition to the storage required by the VSPEX private cloud that supports the solution’s

infrastructure services. For more information about the VSPEX private cloud storage pool, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading.

Table 7 shows the number and size of the XtremIO volumes that will be presented to the Hyper-V servers to host the virtual desktops. Two datastore configurations are listed for each desktop type: one that includes the space required to use the Citrix Personal vDisk (PvD) feature, and one that does not for solutions that will not use that component of Citrix XenDesktop. Please note that when deploying Citrix desktops using PVS, the following values are configured by default:

 PVS write cache disk = 6 GB  Citrix Personal vDisk (PvD) = 10 GB

If either of these values is changed from the default, the datastore sizes must also be changed as a result.

Table 7. XtremIO storage layout

XtremIO configuration Number of desktops Number of volumes Type of

desktop Volume size (GB)

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37 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide The EMC VSPEX End User Computing solution supports a flexible implementation model where it is easy to expand your environment as the needs of the business change.

To support future expansion, the XtremIO Starter X-Brick can be non-disruptively upgraded to an X-Brick by installing the XtremIO expansion kit, which adds an additional twelve 400 GB SSD drives. The resulting X-Brick supports up to 3,500 desktops.

VNX array configurations

The following optional VNX validated disk layouts provide support for user data storage. You can modify a validated storage layout by adding drives for greater capacity and performance and adding features such as FAST Cache and FAST VP for improved user data performance. However, decreasing the number of recommended drives or stepping down an array type can result in lower IOPS per desktop and a less satisfactory user experience due to higher response times.

Our building block for optional user data storage is verified on an EMC VNX5400™ and provides a flexible solution for VNX sizing.

The user data storage building block shown in Figure 6 can support up to 1,750 desktops, using a VNX5400 with 32 NL-SAS drives in a FAST Cache-enabled storage pool. FAST Cache should be configured with two flash drives.

Figure 6. Optional user data storage building block for 1,750 virtual desktops

To support 3,500 users, you need to add a second identical user data storage building block and a second Data Mover. This configuration then includes a total of 64 NL-SAS drives, 4 flash drives for FAST Cache, and 2 Data Movers.

Expanding existing VSPEX end-user computing environments

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If multiple drive types have been implemented, FAST VP can be enabled to automatically tier data to balance differences in performance and capacity.

Note: FAST VP can provide performance improvements when implemented for user data and roaming profiles. Do not use FAST VP for virtual desktop datastores.

The virtual desktops use four shared file systems—two for the Citrix XenDesktop Profile Management repositories and two to redirect user storage that resides in home directories. In general, redirecting users’ data out of the base image to VNX for File enables centralized administration and data protection and makes the desktops more stateless. Each file system is exported to the environment through a CIFS share. Each Persona Management repository share and home directory share serves an equal number of users.

Choosing the appropriate reference architecture

To choose the appropriate reference architecture for a customer environment, you must determine the resource requirements of the environment and then translate these requirements to an equivalent number of reference virtual desktops that have the characteristics defined in Table 8. This section describes how to use the

Customer Sizing Worksheet to simplify the sizing calculations as well as additional factors you should take into consideration when deciding which architecture to deploy.

The Customer Sizing Worksheet helps you to assess the customer environment and calculate the sizing requirements of the environment.

Table 8 shows a completed worksheet for a sample customer environment. Appendix A provides a blank Customer Sizing Worksheet that you can print out and use to help size the solution for a customer.

Table 8. Example Customer Sizing Worksheet

User type vCPUs Memory IOPS Equivalent reference _{virtual desktops} No. of _users Total reference _desktops

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User type vCPUs Memory IOPS Equivalent reference _{virtual desktops} No. of _users Total reference _desktops

users Equivalent

reference virtual

desktops 1 1 1 1 1,200 1,200

Total 2,400

To complete the Customer Sizing Worksheet:

1. Identify the user types planned for migration into the VSPEX end-user-computing environment and the number of users of each type.

2. For each user type, determine the compute resource requirements in terms of vCPUs, memory (GB), storage performance (IOPS), and storage capacity. 3. For each resource type and user type, determine the equivalent reference

virtual desktops requirements—that is, the number of reference virtual desktops required to meet the specified resource requirements.

4. Determine the total number of reference desktops needed from the resource pool for the customer environment.

Determining the resource requirements CPU

The reference virtual desktop outlined in Table 5 assumes that most desktop applications are optimized for a single CPU. If one type of user requires a desktop with multiple virtual CPUs, modify the proposed virtual desktop count to account for the additional resources. For example, if you virtualize 100 desktops, but 20 users require two CPUs instead of one, consider that your pool needs to provide 120 virtual desktops of capability.

Memory

Memory plays a key role in ensuring application functionality and performance. Each group of desktops will have different targets for the available memory that is

considered acceptable. Like the CPU calculation, if a group of users requires additional memory resources, simply adjust the number of planned desktops to accommodate the additional resource requirements.

For example, if there are 200 desktops to be virtualized, but each one needs 4 GB of memory instead of the 2 GB that the reference virtual desktop provides, plan for 400 reference virtual desktops.

IOPS

The storage performance requirements for desktops are usually the least understood aspect of performance. The reference virtual desktop uses a workload generated by an industry-recognized tool to execute a wide variety of office productivity

applications that should be representative of the majority of virtual desktop implementations.

Storage capacity

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this solution rely on additional shared storage for user profile data and user documents. This requirement is an optional component that can be met by the addition of specific storage hardware defined in the solution. It can also be met by using existing file shares in the environment.

Determining the equivalent reference virtual desktops

With all of the resources defined, you determine the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops by using the relationships indicated in Table 9. Round all values up to the closest whole number.

Table 9. Reference virtual desktop resources

Resource Value for reference _{virtual desktop} Relationship between requirements and _{equivalent reference virtual desktops}

CPU 1 Equivalent reference virtual desktops =

resource requirements

Memory 2 Equivalent reference virtual desktops =

(resource requirements)/2

IOPS 10 Equivalent reference virtual desktops =

(resource requirements)/10

For example, the heavy user type in Table 8 requires 2 virtual CPUs, 12 IOPS, and 8 GB of memory for each desktop. This translates to two reference virtual desktops of CPU, four reference virtual desktops of memory, and two reference virtual desktops of IOPS.

The number of reference virtual desktops required for each user type then equals the maximum required for an individual resource. For example, the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops for the heavy user type in Table 8 is four, as this number will meet the all resource requirements—IOPS, vCPU, and memory.

To calculate the total number of reference desktops for a user type, you multiply the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops for that user type by the number of users.

Determining the total reference virtual desktops

After the worksheet is completed for each user type that the customer wants to migrate into the virtual infrastructure, you compute the total number of reference virtual desktops required in the resource pool by calculating the sum of the total reference virtual desktops for all user types. In the example in Table 8, the total is 2,400 virtual desktops.

This VSPEX end-user computing reference architecture supports two separate points of scale, a Starter X-Brick capable of supporting up to 1,750 reference desktops, and an X-Brick capable of hosting up to 3,500 reference desktops. The total reference virtual desktops value from the completed Customer Sizing Worksheet can be used to verify that this reference architecture would be adequate for the customer

requirements. In the example in Table 8, the customer requires 2,400 virtual Selecting a

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41 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.5 and Microsoft Hyper-V with EMC XtremIO Design Guide desktops of capability from the pool. Therefore, this reference architecture provides sufficient resources for current needs as well as some room for growth.

However, there may be other factors to consider when verifying that this reference architecture will perform as intended. These factors can include concurrency and desktop workload.

Concurrency

The reference workload used to validate this solution assumes that all desktop users are active at all times. In other words, we tested this 3,500-desktop reference

architecture with 3,500 desktops, all generating workload in parallel, all booted at the same time, and so on. If the customer expects to have 3,500 users, but only 50 percent of them are logged on at any given time due to time zone differences or alternate shifts, the reference architecture may be able to support additional desktops in this case.

Heavier desktop workloads

The reference workload is considered a typical office worker load. However, some customers’ users might have a more active profile.

If a company has 3,500 users and, due to custom corporate applications, each user generates 50 predominantly write IOPS as compared to the 10 IOPS used in the reference workload, this customer will need 175,000 IOPS (3,500 users x 50 IOPS per desktop). This configuration would be underpowered in this case because the

proposed IO load is greater than the array maximum of 100,000 write IOPS. This company would need to deploy an additional X-Brick, reduce their current IO load, or reduce the total number of desktops to ensure that the storage array performs as required.

In most cases, the Customer Sizing Worksheet suggests a reference architecture adequate for the customer‘s needs. However, in some cases you may want to further customize the hardware resources available to the system. A complete description of the system architecture is beyond the scope of this document but you can customize your solution further at this point.

Storage resources

The XtremIO array is deployed in one of two specialized configurations, one being a Starter X-Brick, the other an X-Brick. While more X-Bricks can be added to increase the capacity or performance capabilities of the XtremIO cluster, this solution is based on a either a Starter X-Brick or a single X-Brick. The XtremIO array requires no tuning, and the number of SSDs available in the array is fixed. The VSPEX Sizing Tool or Customer Sizing Worksheet should be used to verify that the XtremIO array can provided the necessary levels of capacity and performance.

Server resources

For the server resources in the solution, it is possible to customize the hardware resources more effectively. To do this, first total the resource requirements for the server components as shown in Table 10. We added Total CPU resources and Total memory resources columns to the worksheet.

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Table 10. Server resource component totals

User types vCPUs Memory

(GB) Number of users Total CPU resources Total memory resources (GB) Heavy users Resource requirements 2 8 200 400 1,600 Moderate users Resource requirements 2 4 200 400 800 Typical users Resource requirements 1 2 1,200 1,200 2,400 Total 2,000 4,800

The example in Table 10 requires 2,000 virtual vCPUs and 4,800 GB of memory. The reference architectures assume five desktops per physical processor core and no memory over-provisioning. This converts to 500 processor cores and 4,800 GB of memory for this example. Use these calculations to more accurately determine the total server resources required.

Note: Keep high availability requirements in mind when customizing the resource pool hardware.

EMC considers the requirements stated in this solution to be the minimum set of resources needed to handle the workloads defined for a reference virtual desktop. In any customer implementation, the load of a system can vary over time as users interact with the system. If the number of customer virtual desktops differs

significantly from the reference definition and varies in the same resource group, you might need to add more of that resource to the system.

EMC VSPEX END-USER COMPUTING