emc infrastructure for citrix xendesktop 7 · vmware vsphere 5.1 • simplify management and...

Proven Solution Guide

EMC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CITRIX XENDESKTOP 7.1 Enabled by the EMC XtremIO All-Flash Array and VMware vSphere 5.1

• Simplify management and decrease TCO

• Guarantee a superior desktop experience • Ensure a successful virtual desktop deployment

EMC Solutions

Abstract

The detailed test summaries validate an EMC® infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 that is enabled by the EMC XtremIO™ all-flash array and VMware vSphere 5.1. This guide focuses on sizing and scalability and highlights new product features.

March 2014

2 EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Enabled by the EMC XtremIO All-Flash Array and VMware vSphere 5.1 Proven Solution Guide

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.

Published March 2014

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EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Enabled by EMC XtremIO All-Flash Array and VMware vSphere 5.1 Proven Solution Guide

Part Number H12367

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Contents

3 EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Enabled by the EMC XtremIO All-Flash Array and VMware vSphere 5.1


Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 9 Business case .......................................................................................................... 10 Solution overview ..................................................................................................... 11 Key results and recommendations ............................................................................ 12

Chapter 2 Introduction 13 Introduction to the EMC XtremIO all-flash array ......................................................... 14 Document overview .................................................................................................. 15

Use case definition .............................................................................................. 15 Purpose ............................................................................................................... 15 Scope .................................................................................................................. 15 Not in scope ........................................................................................................ 16 Audience ............................................................................................................. 16 Prerequisites ....................................................................................................... 16 Terminology ......................................................................................................... 16

Reference architecture .............................................................................................. 17 Corresponding Reference Architecture ................................................................. 17 Reference architecture diagram ........................................................................... 17

Configuration ........................................................................................................... 18 Hardware resources ............................................................................................. 18 Software resources .............................................................................................. 18

Chapter 3 Citrix XenDesktop Infrastructure 21 Overview .................................................................................................................. 22 Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 ............................................................................................... 22

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 22 Deploying Citrix XenDesktop components ............................................................ 23 Citrix Machine Creation Services .......................................................................... 24 Virtual clone desktops ......................................................................................... 24 Citrix Personal vDisk ............................................................................................ 24 Citrix XenDesktop machine catalog ...................................................................... 24 Citrix Profile Management .................................................................................... 25

VMware vSphere 5.1 infrastructure ........................................................................... 25 VMware vSphere 5.1 overview ............................................................................. 25

Contents


Desktop vSphere clusters .................................................................................... 25 Infrastructure vSphere cluster .............................................................................. 25

Windows infrastructure............................................................................................. 26 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 26 Microsoft Active Directory .................................................................................... 26 Microsoft SQL Server ........................................................................................... 26 DNS server ........................................................................................................... 26 DHCP server ......................................................................................................... 26

Chapter 4 Storage Design 27 EMC XtremIO storage architecture ............................................................................ 28

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 28 Storage layout ..................................................................................................... 28 VSI for VMware vSphere ....................................................................................... 28 EMC PowerPath Virtual Edition ............................................................................. 29 XtremIO storage layout overview .......................................................................... 29

Chapter 5 Network Design 31 Considerations ......................................................................................................... 32

Storage network layout overview ......................................................................... 32 Logical design considerations.............................................................................. 32

XtremIO storage controller configuration .................................................................. 33 Storage controller interfaces ................................................................................ 33

vSphere network configuration ................................................................................. 33 NIC teaming ......................................................................................................... 33 Increasing the number of vSwitch virtual ports ..................................................... 34

Cisco Nexus 5020 Ethernet configuration ................................................................. 35 Overview .............................................................................................................. 35 Cabling ................................................................................................................ 35

Cisco Nexus 5020 FC configuration ........................................................................... 35 Overview .............................................................................................................. 35 Cabling ................................................................................................................ 35 FC uplinks ............................................................................................................ 35

Chapter 6 Installation and Configuration 39 Installation overview ................................................................................................ 40 Provisioning XtremIO storage ................................................................................... 40

XtremIO Initiator Group and LUN provisioning ...................................................... 40

Contents



Citrix XenDesktop components ................................................................................. 42 Citrix XenDesktop installation overview ............................................................... 42 Citrix XenDesktop setup ....................................................................................... 42 Provisioning virtual desktops with MCS ............................................................... 42

Chapter 7 Testing and Validation with vCenter Cloning 45 Overview .................................................................................................................. 46 Validated environment profile .................................................................................. 46

Profile components .............................................................................................. 46 Use cases ............................................................................................................ 47

Boot storm results .................................................................................................... 47 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 47 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 48 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 48 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 49 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 49

Antivirus results ....................................................................................................... 50 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 50 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 50 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 51 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 51 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 52

Patch install results .................................................................................................. 53 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 53 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 53 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 54 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 54 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 55

Login VSI results ....................................................................................................... 55 Login VSI ............................................................................................................. 55 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 55 Desktop logon time .............................................................................................. 56 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 56 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 57 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 57 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 58

Contents


Chapter 8 Testing and Validation with MCS 59 Overview .................................................................................................................. 60 Validated environment profile .................................................................................. 60

Profile characteristics .......................................................................................... 60 Use cases ............................................................................................................ 61

Boot storm results .................................................................................................... 61 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 61 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 62 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 62 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 63 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 63

Antivirus results ....................................................................................................... 64 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 64 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 64 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 65 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 65 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 66

Patch install results .................................................................................................. 67 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 67 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 67 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 68 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 68 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 69

Login VSI results ....................................................................................................... 70 Login VSI ............................................................................................................. 70 Test methodology ................................................................................................ 70 Desktop logon time .............................................................................................. 70 Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................................................ 71 XtremIO array IOPS .............................................................................................. 71 Storage controller utilization ................................................................................ 72 vSphere CPU load ................................................................................................ 72 I/O difference with Personal vDisk ....................................................................... 73

Chapter 9 Conclusion 75 Summary .................................................................................................................. 76

Findings ............................................................................................................... 76 References ............................................................................................................... 78

Supporting documents ........................................................................................ 78 VMware documents ............................................................................................. 78

Contents



Citrix documentation ........................................................................................... 78 Login VSI documentation ..................................................................................... 78

Figures Figure 1. Citrix XenDesktop reference architecture ............................................. 17 Figure 2. Citrix XenDesktop architecture components ........................................ 22 Figure 3. Citrix XenDesktop: Storage network layout overview ............................ 32 Figure 4. XtremIO storage controllers ................................................................. 33 Figure 5. vSphere vSwitch configuration ............................................................ 33 Figure 6. vSphere Load Balancing policy ............................................................ 34 Figure 7. vSphere vSwitch virtual ports .............................................................. 34 Figure 8. Example of single initiator zoning ........................................................ 36 Figure 9. XtremIO: Add initiator group ................................................................ 40 Figure 10. XtremIO: Add new volumes .................................................................. 41 Figure 11. XtremIO: Add LUN mapping ................................................................. 41 Figure 12. XtremIO: LUN mapping configuration ................................................... 42 Figure 13. Boot storm: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ............................. 48 Figure 14. Boot storm: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency ................................ 48 Figure 15. Boot storm: Storage controller utilization ............................................ 49 Figure 16. Boot storm: vSphere CPU load ............................................................. 49 Figure 17. Antivirus: Front-end and back-end I/O difference................................. 50 Figure 18. Antivirus: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency .................................... 51 Figure 19. Antivirus: Storage controller utilization ................................................ 51 Figure 20. Antivirus: vSphere CPU load ................................................................ 52 Figure 21. Patch install: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ........................... 53 Figure 22. Patch install: XtremIO array total IOPS ................................................. 54 Figure 23. Patch install: Storage controller utilization .......................................... 54 Figure 24. Patch install: vSphere CPU load ........................................................... 55 Figure 25. Login VSI: Desktop login time .............................................................. 56 Figure 26. Login VSI: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................ 56 Figure 27. Login VSI: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency ................................... 57 Figure 28. Login VSI: Storage controller utilization ............................................... 57 Figure 29. Login VSI: vSphere CPU load................................................................ 58 Figure 30. Boot storm: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ............................. 62 Figure 31. Boot storm: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency ................................ 62 Figure 32. Boot storm: Storage controller utilization ............................................ 63 Figure 33. Boot storm: vSphere CPU load ............................................................. 63 Figure 34. Antivirus: Front-end and back-end I/O difference................................. 64

Contents


Figure 35. Antivirus: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency .................................... 65 Figure 36. Antivirus: Storage controller utilization ................................................ 65 Figure 37. Antivirus: vSphere CPU load ................................................................ 66 Figure 38. Patch install: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ........................... 67 Figure 39. Patch install: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency .............................. 68 Figure 40. Patch install: Storage controller utilization .......................................... 68 Figure 41. Patch install: vSphere CPU load ........................................................... 69 Figure 42. Login VSI: Desktop login time .............................................................. 70 Figure 43. Login VSI: Front-end and back-end I/O difference ................................ 71 Figure 44. Login VSI: XtremIO array total IOPS ...................................................... 71 Figure 45. Login VSI: Storage controller utilization ............................................... 72 Figure 46. Login VSI: vSphere CPU load................................................................ 72 Figure 47. Login VSI I/O difference: With and without PvD.................................... 73 Figure 48. Login VSI array CPU difference: With and without PvD .......................... 73

Tables Table 1. Terminology......................................................................................... 16 Table 2. Citrix XenDesktop solution hardware ................................................... 18 Table 3. Citrix XenDesktop solution software .................................................... 18 Table 4. Storage requirements .......................................................................... 29 Table 5. vSphere vSwitch port groups ............................................................... 33 Table 6. Citrix XenDesktop environment profile ................................................. 46 Table 7. Citrix XenDesktop environment profile ................................................. 60

Chapter 1: Executive Summary



Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Business case .......................................................................................................... 10

Solution overview .................................................................................................... 11

Key results and recommendations ........................................................................... 12



Business case

User experience (how responsively the virtual desktop performs) is critical to successful end-user computing (EUC) project rollouts. Today, user experience expectations are increasingly based on devices such as ultrabooks and tablets that use flash memory. For example, the rapid application response time of a modern ultrabook is due in large part to its use of a solid-state drive (SSD). Knowledge workers accustomed to working with an ultrabook that easily handles peaks of over 2,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS) may have performance problems using a virtual desktop that delivers between 7 and 25 IOPS only (the common planning assumption range in previous EUC reference architectures). This can lead to calls to the help desk from unhappy users complaining that performance is unacceptably slow. A modern EUC deployment must deliver a better-than-local desktop user experience, and a better cost per desktop relative to a physical machine. It must also enable IT to continue using existing desktop management tools and applications.

EUC exacerbates this need for higher desktop IOPS by centrally serving potentially tens of thousands of virtual operating systems and applications running concurrently. EUC also introduces its own unique challenges such as boot storms and login storms, which have peak IOPS requirements that often exceed the typical operational parameters of storage arrays. These factors, combined with the desire to build an economical solution, have led to sub-par EUC infrastructures, such as those that undersize storage and downgrade desktop functionality by disabling various software components, which results in a less-than-desirable user experience.

Using the EMC® XtremIO™ all-flash array as the foundation for EUC deployments creates several unique advantages that cannot be achieved with any other EUC deployment architecture:

• Complete flexibility in EUC deployments—Administrators can use persistent or non-persistent desktops, deployed by using VMware vCenter Server cloning or Citrix XenDesktop Machine Creation Services (MCS), or any combination thereof, without regard to underlying I/O performance or excessive capacity consumption. The XtremIO platform gives administrators the flexibility to use whichever deployment method is appropriate for their business because there is no inherent advantage or disadvantage in performance or cost with either method or any combination of methods.

• Superior EUC user experience—Every desktop in an XtremIO deployment gets an all-SSD experience with reliable and massive I/O potential both in sustained IOPS and the ability to burst to much higher levels as dictated by demanding applications, such as Microsoft Outlook, desktop search, and antivirus scanning. Downgrading desktops is no longer necessary, so users can run on fully functional desktops. Even during scale testing, every simulated application operation was completed in half or less of the acceptable user experience boundaries. This performance was superior by a wide margin to any previously tested shared storage array.

• Lowest cost per virtual desktop—XtremIO EUC deployments are surprisingly affordable. Due to the inline data reduction and massive performance density of XtremIO, the cost per desktop is lower than with other EUC solutions,




enabling virtual desktops to be deployed for less cost than their physical desktop counterparts.

• Rapid provisioning and rollout—XtremIO is simple to set up and requires no tuning, supports any EUC deployment model, and eliminates complex planning. EUC deployments can be designed and rolled out quickly with assured success.

• No need for third-party tools—XtremIO solves most I/O-related EUC deployment challenges. Deployments with XtremIO do not require additional caching or host-based deduplication schemes, or any other point solutions that increase expense and complexity.

• No change to desktop administration—Whatever methods administrators are using to manage their existing physical desktops can be directly applied to the EUC deployment when XtremIO is used. No software updates, operating system patching, antivirus scanning, or other procedures are required in order to lighten the I/O load on shared storage. Rather, administrators can confidently rely on XtremIO’s high performance levels.

• No change to desktop features—Virtual desktop best practices currently dictate numerous changes to the desktop image to reduce the I/O load on the shared storage. None of these changes are required with XtremIO, which enables the desktop to remain fully functional while maintaining a strong user experience.

Solution overview

EMC's commitment to consistently maintain and improve quality is led by the Total Customer Experience (TCE) program, which is driven by Six Sigma methodologies. As a result, EMC has built Customer Integration Labs in its Global Solutions Centers to reflect real-world deployments in which TCE use cases are developed and executed. These use cases provide EMC with an insight into the challenges currently faced by its customers.

This Proven Solution Guide summarizes a series of best practices that were discovered or validated during testing of the EMC infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 solution with the following products:

• EMC XtremIO all-flash array

• Citrix XenDesktop 7.1

• VMware vSphere 5.1

This solution aids in the design and successful deployment of virtual desktops on Citrix XenDesktop 7.1. The solution provides ultimate performance, while delivering a highly attractive cost per desktop—not just for storage, but for the overall infrastructure.

Desktop virtualization enables organizations to exploit additional benefits, such as:

• Increased security by centralizing business-critical information

• Increased compliance as information is moved from endpoints into the data center



• Simplified and centralized management of desktops

Customers will realize:

• A user experience that is superior to that of a physical desktop equipped with a dedicated SSD

• Increased control and security of their global, mobile desktop environment, which is typically their most at-risk environment

• Better end-user productivity with a more consistent environment

• Simplified management with the environment contained in the data center

• Better support of service-level agreements and compliance initiatives

• Lower operational and maintenance costs

Key results and recommendations

The solution testing demonstrated the following conclusions:

• The EMC XtremIO array is capable of delivering outstanding user experience to each virtual desktop user by servicing I/O at sub-millisecond latency at high I/O levels for 2,500 desktops across a wide variety of desktop workloads. These desktops can be deployed by vCenter cloning or XenDesktop MCS (with or without Personal vDisk) or a combination of these. Based on utilization statistics recorded during testing, a two X-Brick™ XtremIO cluster is capable of scaling up to 8,000 virtual desktops with MCS provisioning. One X-Brick can scale up to 4,000 virtual desktops with MCS provisioning.

• As the IOPS read/write ratio changes, the responsiveness of the EMC XtremIO remains virtually unchanged. The EMC XtremIO array does not require any system-level post-process garbage collection, nor does XtremIO exclusively lock SSDs being written to—both commonly implemented in all-flash arrays. As a result, XtremIO can provide consistent performance for any mix of read/write IOPS.

• The user experience of the virtual desktops is not degraded over time as the desktops fill up and must overwrite existing capacity in the array. Citrix XenDesktop stakeholders (including end users, storage administrators, virtualization administrators, and desktop administrators) benefit from the predictable, consistent performance of XtremIO.

This proven solution provides a blueprint for a validated Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 virtualization solution enabled by EMC XtremIO storage and the VMware vSphere 5.1 virtualization platform. The solution can support and scale to thousands of virtual desktops.

Chapter 2: Introduction



Chapter 2 Introduction


Introduction to the EMC XtremIO all-flash array ....................................................... 14

Document overview .................................................................................................. 15

Reference architecture ............................................................................................. 17

Configuration ........................................................................................................... 18



Introduction to the EMC XtremIO all-flash array

The EMC XtremIO all-flash array is designed to maximize the use of flash storage media. Key attributes of the XtremIO platform are:

• Incredibly 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—the ability to remove redundant information in the data path and write only unique data on the storage array, thus lowering the amount of capacity required

• A full suite of enterprise array capabilities, such as integration with VMware through VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI), N-way active controllers, high availability, strong data protection, and thin provisioning

Furthermore, the XtremIO array is a scale-out design, in which additional performance and capacity are added in a building block approach, with all building blocks forming a single clustered system. The following are some of the benefits of the EMC XtremIO platform:

• Standards-based enterprise storage system—The XtremIO system interfaces with vSphere hosts using standard Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI block interfaces. The system supports complete high-availability features, including support for native VMware 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, allowing a massive number of virtual desktops to reside in a small and economical amount of flash capacity. Furthermore, data reduction on the XtremIO array does not adversely affect IOPS or latency performance; rather it enhances the performance of the EUC environment.

• Scale-out design—A single X-Brick is the fundamental building block of a scaled out XtremIO clustered system. Virtual desktop deployments can start small and grow to nearly any scale required by simply configuring a larger XtremIO cluster. The system expands capacity and performance linearly as building blocks are added, making EUC sizing and management of future growth extremely simple.

• VAAI integration—The XtremIO array is fully integrated with vSphere through VAAI. All API commands are supported, including ATS, Clone Blocks/Full Copy/XCOPY, Zero Blocks/Write Same, Thin Provisioning, and Block Delete. This, in combination with the array’s inline data reduction and in-memory metadata management, enables nearly instantaneous virtual machine provisioning and cloning and the ability to use large volume sizes for management simplicity.

• 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 extraordinarily low latency.




• Ease of use—The XtremIO storage system requires only a few basic setup steps. These can be completed in minutes with absolutely no tuning or ongoing administration in order to achieve and maintain high performance levels. In fact, the XtremIO system can be taken from shipping box to deployment readiness in less than an hour.

• Data center economics—2,500 or more desktops are easily supported on an X-Brick, which requires just a few rack units of space and approximately 750 W of power.

Document overview

This solution examines the following use cases:

• Boot storm

• Antivirus scan

• Microsoft security patch install

• User workload, simulated with the Login Virtual Session Indexer (VSI) 4.0 tool from Login Consultants

• Login storm (as part of the Login VSI user workload simulation)

Chapter 7, Testing and Validation with vCenter Cloning and Chapter 8, Testing and Validation with MCS present the test definitions and results for each use case.

The purpose of this solution is to provide a virtualized infrastructure for virtual desktops powered by Citrix XenDesktop 7.1, VMware vSphere 5.1, and the EMC XtremIO all-flash array.

This solution includes all the components required to run this environment, such as the infrastructure hardware, software platforms including Microsoft Active Directory, and the required Citrix XenDesktop configuration.

You can use the information in this Proven Solution Guide as the basis for a solution build, white paper, best practices document, or training.

This Proven Solution Guide contains the results observed from testing the EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 solution. The objectives of this testing were to establish:

• A reference architecture of validated hardware and software that permits easy and repeatable deployment of the solution.

• The best practices for storage configuration provide optimal performance, scalability, and protection in the context of the mid-tier enterprise market.

Use case definition

Purpose

Scope



Implementation instructions are beyond the scope of this document. Information on how to install and configure Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 components, vSphere 5.1, and the required EMC products is outside the scope of this document. References to supporting documentation for these products are provided where applicable.

The intended audience for this Proven Solution Guide is:

• Internal EMC personnel

• EMC partners

• Customers

The guide assumes that the reader has a general knowledge of the following products:

• VMware vSphere 5.1

• Citrix XenDesktop 7.1

• EMC XtremIO all-flash array

• Cisco Nexus switches

Table 1 lists the terms that are frequently used in this document.

Table 1. Terminology

Term Definition

vCenter cloning A vCenter virtual machine deployment method that creates a full copy of a source virtual machine and uses Sysprep to customize Windows virtual machines.

Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS)

MCS is a collection of services that integrates effectively with Citrix XenDesktop Delivery Controller to provide advanced image management and storage optimization.

Base Image A read-only copy of a master image that is used to deploy virtual desktops.

Personal vDisk (PvD) PvD is a Citrix feature, introduced in Citrix XenDesktop 5.6, that enables users to preserve customization settings and user-installed applications in a pooled desktop.

Login Virtual Session Indexer (VSI)

A third-party benchmarking tool, developed by Login Consultants that simulates real world EUC workloads. Login VSI uses an AutoIT script and determines the maximum system capacity based on the response time of the users.

Not in scope

Audience

Prerequisites

Terminology




Reference architecture

This Proven Solution Guide has a corresponding Reference Architecture document that is available on EMC.com. The EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7: EMC XtremIO, VMware vSphere 5.1, and Citrix XenDesktop 7 Reference Architecture provides more details.

If you do not have access to these documents, contact your EMC representative.

The reference architecture and the results in this Proven Solution Guide are valid for 2,500 Windows 7 virtual desktops conforming to the workload described in the following sections:

• Chapter 7, Validated environment profile for vCenter-cloned virtual desktops

• Chapter 8, Validated environment profile for MCS-provisioned virtual desktops

Figure 1 shows the reference architecture of the solution.

Figure 1. Citrix XenDesktop reference architecture

Corresponding Reference Architecture

Reference architecture diagram

http://www.emc.com/



Configuration

Table 2 lists the hardware used to validate the solution.

Table 2. Citrix XenDesktop solution hardware

Hardware Quantity Configuration Notes

EMC XtremIO 1 • 1 X-Brick

• 25 x 400 GB eMLC SSD drives per X-Brick

Shared storage for virtual desktops and infrastructure servers

Intel-based servers 25 • Memory: 384 GB of RAM

• CPU: 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2690 with 2.90 GHz 8-core processors

• Internal storage: 1 x 146 GB internal SAS disk

• External storage: XtremIO (FC)

• NIC: Dual-port 10 GbE adapter

• FC HBA: Dual-port 8 Gb/s adapter

• 23 servers for vSphere desktop clusters 1 and 2.

• 2 servers for the vSphere cluster to host infrastructure virtual machines

Cisco Nexus 5020 switches

2 40 x 10 Gb ports with:

• 2 Ethernet ports per switch

• 2 FC ports per switch

Redundant FC and LAN configuration

Table 3 lists the software used to validate the solution.

Table 3. Citrix XenDesktop solution software

Software Configuration

XtremIO (FC-connected shared storage for vSphere datastores)

XtremIO XIOS Operating System Release 2.2.1

Cisco Nexus switches

Cisco Nexus 5020 Version 4.2(1) N1(1)

VMware vSphere servers

vSphere 5.1.0 update 1

VMware vCenter Server

vCenter 5.1.0 update 1a

OS Windows 2008 R2 SP1

Hardware resources

Software resources




Software Configuration

Desktop Broker

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1

Virtual desktops

Note: This software was used to generate the test load.

OS MS Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (32-bit)

VMware Tools 9.0.5 build-1065307

Microsoft Office Office Enterprise 2010 Service Pack 2

Internet Explorer 10

Adobe Reader 11

McAfee Virus Scan 8.7 Enterprise

Adobe Flash Player 11

Doro PDF Printer 1.8

Login VSI (EUC workload generator) 4.0 Professional Edition

Chapter 3: Citrix XenDesktop Infrastructure



Chapter 3 Citrix XenDesktop Infrastructure


Overview .................................................................................................................. 22

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 .............................................................................................. 22

VMware vSphere 5.1 infrastructure .......................................................................... 25

Windows infrastructure ............................................................................................ 26



Overview

This chapter describes the general design and layout of the Citrix XenDesktop components used during the development of this solution.

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1

XenDesktop is the desktop virtualization solution from Citrix that enables virtual desktops to run on the vSphere virtualization environment. Citrix XenDesktop 7 integrates Citrix XenApp application delivery technologies and XenDesktop desktop virtualization technologies into a single architecture and management experience. This new 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 2 shows the XenDesktop 7.1 architecture components.

Figure 2. Citrix XenDesktop architecture components

The XenDesktop 7 architecture includes the following components:

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

• Citrix Receiver—Is installed on user devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and PCs. It provides users with quick, secure, self-service access to documents, applications, and desktops from any of these user devices. It also provides on-demand access to Windows, the web, and software-as-a-service applications.

• Citrix StoreFront—Authenticates users to sites hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications that users access.

Introduction




• Citrix Studio—Is the management console that enables you to configure and manage your deployment, eliminating the need for separate consoles for managing delivery of applications and desktops. Studio provides various 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.

• Citrix Delivery Controller—Is installed on servers in the data center. It consists of services that communicate with the hypervisor to distribute applications and desktops, authenticate and manage user access, and broker connections between users and their virtual desktops and applications. The 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 Citrix Profile Management to manage user personalization settings in virtualized or physical Windows environments. Each site has one or more installations of Delivery Controller.

• Citrix Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)—Is installed on server or workstation operating systems. It enables connections for desktops and applications. For remote PC access, install VDA on the office PC.

• Citrix Remote PC access—Are user devices that are included for XenDesktop management, enabling users to access resources on their office PCs remotely from any device running Citrix Receiver.

• Microsoft Windows Server OS machines—Are virtual machines or physical machines based on a Windows Server OS that are used for delivering applications or hosted shared desktops (HSDs) to users.

• Microsoft Windows Desktop OS machines—Are virtual machines or physical machines based on a Windows Desktop OS that are used for delivering personalized desktops to users or applications from a desktop OS.

The core elements of this Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 implementation are as follows:

• Delivery Controller

• StoreFront

• Studio

Additionally, the following components are required to provide the infrastructure for a Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 deployment:

• Microsoft Active Directory

• Microsoft SQL Server

• Domain Name System (DNS) server

• Dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server

This solution uses four installations of Citrix XenDesktop Delivery Controller, each capable of scaling up to 2,000 virtual desktops.

Deploying Citrix XenDesktop components



MCS is a set of provisioning tools 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 Personal vDisk (PvD), while desktops without PvD are appropriate if changes are to be discarded when the user logs off.

This solution uses MCS to deploy 2,500 static virtual desktops running Windows 7.

Citrix XenDesktop MCS does not support creating full-clone desktops for virtual desktop deployments. This solution uses VMware vSphere PowerCLI scripts with traditional vSphere Customization Specifications and the Microsoft Sysprep utility to customize each desktop after it is cloned from a master desktop template. Desktops are added to XenDesktop management after provisioning.

Personal vDisk (PvD) enables users to preserve customization settings and user-installed applications in a pooled desktop. This capability is accomplished by redirecting the changes from the user’s pooled virtual machine to a separate disk called Personal vDisk. 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 restart and refresh operations.

Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 provides several options to create a machine catalog through Citrix Provisioning Services by using Desktop and Server OS as follows:

• Random with Desktop OS—End users are connected to desktops randomly. When a user logs out, the desktop is available for another user to log in. Any changes made to the desktop are lost when it is restarted.

• Static with Desktop OS—End users are assigned to a certain desktop every time they log in. When a user logs out, only that user can log back in to that particular desktop. Any changes made to the desktop are lost when it is restarted.

• Personal vDisk with Desktop OS—End users are assigned to a certain desktop every time they log in. When the user logs out, only that user can log back in to that particular desktop. Any changes made to the desktop are saved on the PvD regardless of whether it is restarted or refreshed.

• Hosted shared Desktops with Server OS—End users are connected to a hosted shared desktop session on the Server OS. When a user logs out, the session is closed. Any changes made to the hosted shared desktop session are lost when the user logs out.

Citrix Machine Creation Services

Virtual clone desktops

Citrix Personal vDisk

Citrix XenDesktop machine catalog




Citrix Profile Management preserves user profiles and dynamically synchronizes them with a remote profile repository. Profile Management ensures that personal settings are applied to desktops and applications regardless of the user’s login location or client device.

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

With Profile Management, a user’s remote profile is downloaded dynamically when the user logs in to a Citrix XenDesktop. Profile Management downloads user profile information only when the user needs it.

VMware vSphere 5.1 infrastructure

VMware vSphere 5.1 is the market-leading hypervisor that is used for virtualization across thousands of IT environments around the world. vSphere 5.1 can transform or virtualize computer hardware resources, including the CPUs, RAM, hard disks, and network controllers, to create fully functional virtual machines, each of which run their own OS and applications.

The high-availability features in vSphere 5.1, including the VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware vSphere Storage vMotion, enable seamless migration of virtual desktops from one vSphere server to another with minimal or no disruption to customers.

The clusters were built using 23 dual eight-core vSphere 5.1 servers that support 2,500 desktops each, which equals approximately 108 virtual machines per vSphere server. Each cluster has access to five FC datastores.

This solution deploys two vSphere clusters to host virtual desktops. These servers were chosen because of availability. Similar results are achievable with a variety of server configurations when the ratio of server RAM per desktop and the number of desktops per CPU core are upheld.

This solution deploys one vSphere cluster for hosting the infrastructure servers.

Note: This cluster is not required if the resources needed to host the infrastructure servers are already present within the host environment.

The infrastructure vSphere 5.1 clusters consist of two dual eight-core vSphere 5.1 servers. The cluster has access to a single datastore used for storing the infrastructure server virtual machines.

The infrastructure cluster hosts the following virtual machines:

• Two Windows 2012 R2 domain controllers—Provide DNS, Active Directory, and DHCP services.

Citrix Profile Management

VMware vSphere 5.1 overview

Desktop vSphere clusters

Infrastructure vSphere cluster



• One vCenter 5.1 Server running on Windows 2008 R2 SP1—Provides management services for the VMware clusters. This server also runs vSphere Update Manager.

• Four Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Delivery Controllers each running on Windows 2012—Provide services to manage the virtual desktops.

• SQL Server 2012 on Windows 2008 R2 SP1—Hosts databases for vCenter Server and Citrix XenDesktop.

• Windows 7 Key Management Service (KMS)—Provides a method to activate Windows 7 virtual clone desktops.

Windows infrastructure

Microsoft Windows provides the infrastructure that is used to support the virtual desktops. The Windows infrastructure includes the following components:

• Active Directory

• SQL Server

• DNS server

• DHCP server

The Windows domain controllers run the Active Directory service that provides the framework to manage and support the virtual desktop environment. Active Directory performs the following functions:

• Manages the identities of users and their information

• Applies group policy objects

• Deploys software and updates

Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS). A dedicated instance of SQL Server 2012 provides the required databases for vCenter Server and XenDesktop.

DNS is the backbone of Active Directory and provides the primary name resolution mechanism for Windows servers and clients.

In this solution, the DNS role is enabled on the domain controllers.

The DHCP server provides the IP address, DNS server name, gateway address, and other information to the virtual desktops.

In this solution, the DHCP role is enabled on one of the domain controllers. The DHCP scope is configured with an IP range large enough to support 2,500 virtual desktops.

Introduction

Microsoft Active Directory

Microsoft SQL Server

DNS server

DHCP server

Chapter 4: Storage Design



Chapter 4 Storage Design

This chapter presents the following topic:

EMC XtremIO storage architecture ........................................................................... 28



EMC XtremIO storage architecture

The EMC XtremIO all-flash array features include a scale-out clustered design, in which additional capacity and performance can be configured to meet any requirement. Each cluster building block is a high-availability, high-performance, fully active/active storage system with no SPOF. With multiple building blocks forming a cluster, XtremIO automatically stays in balance so all desktops benefit from the entire performance potential of the cluster at all times.

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

• XIOS ensures that all SSDs in the system are evenly loaded, providing both the highest possible performance as well as endurance for demanding workloads during the entire life of the array.

• XIOS eliminates the need to perform the complex configuration steps required on traditional arrays. It eliminates the need to set RAID levels, determine drive group sizes, set stripe widths, set caching policies, build aggregates, and so on.

• With XIOS, every volume is automatically and optimally configured at all times. I/O performance on existing volumes and data sets automatically increases when a cluster scales out. Every volume is capable of receiving the full performance potential of the entire XtremIO system.

The following sections describe the configuration of the storage provisioned over FC for the vSphere hosts in this solution.

After it is deployed, the XtremIO all-flash array does not require any further configuration prior to creating LUNs. During deployment, the XtremIO array creates the required number of Data Protection Groups, which are a proprietary form of RAID group used to protect data in the event of a failed enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) drive.

EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for VMware vSphere is a plug-in to the vSphere Client that provides a single management interface for managing XtremIO storage within the vSphere environment. Features can be added and removed from VSI independently, which provides flexibility to customize VSI user environments. The features are managed by using the VSI Feature Manager. VSI provides a unified user experience that allows new features to be introduced rapidly in response to changing customer requirements.

The following EMC VSI features were used during the validation testing:

• Storage Viewer—Extends the vSphere Client to facilitate the discovery and identification of XtremIO storage devices that are allocated to vSphere hosts and virtual machines. Storage Viewer presents the underlying storage details to the virtual data center administrator, merging the data of several different storage mapping tools into a few seamless vSphere Client views.

Introduction

Storage layout

VSI for VMware vSphere




• Unified Storage Management—Simplifies storage administration of the XtremIO platform. It enables VMware administrators to provision new Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) datastores and raw device mapping (RDM) volumes seamlessly within the vSphere Client.

The EMC VSI for VMware vSphere product documentation, available on EMC Online Support, provide more details.

EMC PowerPath is host-based software that provides automated data path management and load-balancing capabilities for heterogeneous server, network, and storage deployed in physical and virtual environments. PowerPath uses multiple I/O data paths to share the workload and automated load balancing to ensure that data paths are used efficiently.

The XtremIO array is configured with the following LUNs for desktop and infrastructure storage:

• Ten LUNs for virtual clone desktop storage, with each LUN storing 250 desktops. For vCenter-cloned and MCS-provisioned virtual desktops, ten 4 TB LUNs were used.

• One 2 TB LUN was used for infrastructure server storage.

Table 4 lists the storage requirements for each of the virtual desktop types.

Table 4. Storage requirements

Item Capacity Number of items Total capacity

MCS virtual desktop 3 GB (average) 2,500 7.5 TB

PvD VMDK 3 GB 2,500 7.5 TB

vCenter cloned virtual desktop

40 GB 2,500 100 TB

EMC PowerPath Virtual Edition

XtremIO storage layout overview

Chapter 5: Network Design



Chapter 5 Network Design


Considerations ......................................................................................................... 32

XtremIO storage controller configuration ................................................................. 33

vSphere network configuration ................................................................................ 33

Cisco Nexus 5020 Ethernet configuration ................................................................ 35

Cisco Nexus 5020 FC configuration .......................................................................... 35



Considerations

Figure 3 shows the 10 GbE and 8 Gbps FC connectivity between the Cisco Nexus 5020 switches and the EMC XtremIO storage. Uplink Ethernet ports coming off the Nexus switches can be used to connect to a 10 Gb or 1 Gb external LAN. In this solution, the 10 GbE LAN through Nexus switches is used to extend Ethernet connectivity to the desktop clients, Citrix XenDesktop components, and Windows Server infrastructure. Figure 3 shows only one X-Brick; similar storage network connections were made for the second X-Brick in the cluster.

Figure 3. Citrix XenDesktop: Storage network layout overview

This validated solution uses virtual local area networks (VLANs) to segregate network traffic of various types to improve throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security.

The IP scheme for the virtual desktop network must be designed with enough IP addresses in one or more subnets for the DHCP server to assign them to each virtual desktop.

Storage network layout overview

Logical design considerations




XtremIO storage controller configuration

Figure 4 shows the back of the XtremIO storage controllers for one X-Brick. For this solution, ports A1 and A2 were connected to one FC-enabled switch. Ports B1 and B2 were connected to a separate FC-enabled switch. Similar connections were made for each additional X-Brick in the cluster.

Figure 4. XtremIO storage controllers

vSphere network configuration

All network interfaces on the vSphere servers in this solution use 10 GbE connections. All virtual desktops are assigned an IP address by using a DHCP server. The Intel-based servers use two onboard Broadcom GbE Controllers for all the network connections. Figure 5 shows the vSwitch configuration in vCenter Server.

Figure 5. vSphere vSwitch configuration

Virtual switch vSwitch0 uses two physical network interface cards (NICs). Table 5 lists the configured port groups for vSwitch0.

Table 5. vSphere vSwitch port groups

Virtual switch Configured port groups Used for

vSwitch0

ManagementNetwork VMkernel port for vSphere host management

DesktopNetwork Network connection for virtual desktops and LAN traffic

Storage controller interfaces

NIC teaming



Set the Load Balancing policy of NIC Teaming for the vSwitch0 port groups to Route based on IP hash, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6. vSphere Load Balancing policy

By default, a vSwitch is configured with 120 virtual ports, which might not be sufficient in an EUC environment. On the vSphere servers that host the virtual desktops, each virtual desktop consumes one port. Set the number of ports based on the number of virtual desktops that will run on each vSphere server, as shown in Figure 7.

Note: After configuration changes, reboot the vSphere server for the changes to take effect.

Figure 7. vSphere vSwitch virtual ports

If a vSphere server fails or needs to be placed in maintenance mode, other vSphere servers within the cluster must accommodate the additional virtual desktops that will be migrated from the vSphere server that goes offline. Consider the worst-case scenario when determining the maximum number of virtual ports per vSwitch. If there are not enough virtual ports, the virtual desktops will not be able to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server.

Increasing the number of vSwitch virtual ports




Cisco Nexus 5020 Ethernet configuration

The four Cisco Nexus 5020 switches provide redundant high-performance, low-latency 10 GbE and 8 Gbps FC networking. The Ethernet connections are delivered by a cut-through switching architecture for 10 GbE server access in next-generation data centers.

In this solution, the cabling is spread across two Nexus 5020 switches to provide redundancy and load balancing of the network traffic.

Cisco Nexus 5020 FC configuration

The two Cisco Nexus 5020 switches provide redundant high-performance, low-latency 10 GbE and 8 Gbps FC networking. The Ethernet connections are delivered by a cut-through switching architecture for 10 GbE server access in next-generation data centers.

In this solution, the FC and Data Mover cabling is evenly distributed across two Nexus 5020 switches to provide redundancy and load balancing of the FC and network traffic.

The FC uplinks are configured using single initiator zoning to provide optimal security and minimize interference. Single initiator zoning requires four FC zones for each vSphere host; each vSphere host FC port is zoned individually to each of the two XtremIO storage controller FC ports.

Overview

Cabling

Overview

Cabling

FC uplinks



Figure 8 shows an example of single initiator zoning for a single X-Brick. Similar zones were made for the second X-Brick in the cluster.

Figure 8. Example of single initiator zoning

The following is an example of the configuration required to create the necessary FC zones for one vSphere host on one of the four Nexus 5020 switches. In this example, we1 are zoning one of the two vSphere host FC ports to each of the two XtremIO storage controller ports. The remaining Nexus switches would have a similar configuration, but would be zoning the second vSphere host FC port to each of the XtremIO Storage Controllers.

vsan database vsan 100 interface fc2/1 no shutdown interface fc2/2 no shutdown interface fc2/3 no shutdown

1 In this document, “we” represents the EMC Solutions team that tested and validated this solution.




fcalias name rtpxio99-sc1 vsan 100 member pwwn 20:00:e8:b7:48:XX:XX:XX fcalias name rtpxio99-sc2 vsan 100 member pwwn 20:00:e8:b7:48:XX:XX:XX fcalias name rtpucs1-port1 vsan 100 member pwwn 20:00:e8:b7:48:XX:XX:XX zone name rtpucs1-port1_rtpxio99-spa vsan 100 member fcalias rtpucs1-port1 member fcalias rtpxio99-sc1 zone name rtpucs1-port1_rtpxio99-spb vsan 100 member fcalias rtpucs1-port1 member fcalias rtpxio99-sc2 zoneset name rtplab-1 vsan 100 member rtpucs1-port1_rtpxio99-sc1 member rtpucs1-port1_rtpxio99-sc2 zoneset activate name rtplab-1 vsan 100

Chapter 6: Installation and Configuration



Chapter 6 Installation and Configuration


Installation overview ................................................................................................ 40

Provisioning XtremIO storage .................................................................................. 40

Citrix XenDesktop components ................................................................................ 42



Installation overview

This chapter explains how to:

• Create initiator groups and provision storage on the XtremIO array

• Configure desktop pools

The installation and configuration steps for the following components are available on the Citrix and VMware websites respectively:

• Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 components

• VMware vSphere and vCenter 5.1

The installation and configuration steps for the following components are not covered in this guide:

• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012

• Microsoft Active Directory, Group Policies, DNS, and DHCP

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Provisioning XtremIO storage

The EMC XtremIO array is easy to configure. You can create new volumes and assocate them with clients by performing the following steps:

1. On the XtremIO Configuration page, click Add in the Initiator Groups column, create an initiator group, and populate it with the clients that need access to the XtremIO array, as shown in Figure 9.Click Finish when finished adding clients.

Figure 9. XtremIO: Add initiator group

XtremIO Initiator Group and LUN provisioning




2. On the XtremIO Configuration page, click Add in the Volumes column and create a volume of the required size. Click Finish when finished configuring volumes.

Figure 10. XtremIO: Add new volumes

3. On the XtremIO Configuration page, follow the steps shown in Figure 11: Select the volume (1) and initiator group (2), click Map All (3), and then click Apply (4).

The volume is now available to the hosts in the selected initiator group.

Figure 11. XtremIO: Add LUN mapping

Figure 12 shows the LUN configuration in the EMC XtremIO user interface, as well as the LUN mapping for one of the two initiator groups. In the example, each group contains the World Wide Names (WWNs) of the hosts in the indicated vSphere cluster.



Figure 12. XtremIO: LUN mapping configuration

Citrix XenDesktop components

The Citrix XenDesktop Install eDocument available on the Citrix website has detailed procedures on how to install Delivery Controller, StoreFront, Studio, Director, and License Server. No special configuration instructions are required for this solution.

Before deploying the desktop pools, ensure that the following steps from the Citrix XenDesktop Install eDocument have been completed:

1. Join the XenDesktop servers to the domain.

2. Install XenDesktop components on all servers (the License Server only needs one instance).

3. Configure a site.

4. Add vCenter certificates to all Delivery Controller servers.

5. Add a vCenter Server instance to the Delivery Controllers.

This solution uses two static desktop pools to deploy the virtual desktops.

To create a static desktop pool:

1. Open Citrix XenDesktop Studio.

2. Click Machine Catalogs in the left pane.

Citrix XenDesktop installation overview

Citrix XenDesktop setup

Provisioning virtual desktops with MCS




3. Click Create Machine Catalog in the right pane.

The Create Machine Catalog Wizard appears.

4. In Machine Management, select Virtual Machine and MCS.

5. In Desktop Experience, select Static, and then select Save changes on separate personal vDisk or Save changes on local disk.

6. In Master Image, select Master image and Resource.

7. In Virtual Machines, configure the number of Virtual Machines to deploy, CPU, and Memory settings.

8. In Computer Accounts, specify where to put the computer account in the Active Directory and naming schema.

9. On the Summary page of the wizard, name the catalog and click Finish to start provisioning.

Chapter 7: Testing and Validation with vCenter Cloning



Chapter 7 Testing and Validation with vCenter Cloning


Overview .................................................................................................................. 46

Validated environment profile .................................................................................. 46

Boot storm results ................................................................................................... 47

Antivirus results ....................................................................................................... 50

Patch install results ................................................................................................. 53

Login VSI results ...................................................................................................... 55



Overview

This chapter provides a summary and characterization of the tests performed to validate the solution desktops cloned by the vCenter cloning feature. The goal of the testing is to characterize the performance of the solution and its component subsystems during the following scenarios:

• Boot storm of all desktops

• McAfee antivirus full scan on all desktops

• Security patch install with Microsoft SCCM 2012 on all desktops

• User workload testing using Login VSI on all desktops

We performed the testing2 using a single XtremIO X-Brick cluster running 2,500 desktops. XtremIO performance scales linearly with each X-Brick added to the cluster, meaning that a two X-Brick XtremIO cluster that hosts 5,000 desktops provides similar performance to a single X-Brick cluster running 2,500 desktops.

Validated environment profile

Table 6 provides the validated environment profile.

Table 6. Citrix XenDesktop environment profile

Profile component Specification

Number of virtual desktops 2,500

Virtual desktop OS Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (32-bit)

CPU per virtual desktop 1 vCPU

Average number of virtual desktops per CPU core 6.79

RAM per virtual desktop 2 GB

Average storage available for each virtual clone desktop 40 GB

Average storage used for each virtual clone desktop (used by Windows and applications)

14 GB

Average physical storage used for each virtual clone desktop on the Xtremio all-flash array (after dedupe)

379 MB

Deduplication ratio of virtual clone desktops 241:1 after clone

35:1 after customization

Average IOPS per virtual desktop at steady state 5

2 All tests were run on a fully preconditioned XtremIO system. Refer to the IDC paper at http://idcdocserv.com/241856 for more information on how to test an all-flash array.

Profile components

http://idcdocserv.com/241856





Peak IOPS observed per virtual desktop during boot storm

37.7

Average IOPS observed per virtual desktop throughout boot storm

28.1

Time required to deploy 2,500 virtual clone desktops 6 hours 15 minutes

Number of virtual desktops per datastore 250

Drive and RAID type for datastores • 400 GB eMLC SSD drives

• EMC XtremIO proprietary data protection XML Data Package (XDP) that delivers RAID 6-like data protection but better performance than RAID 10

Number of VMware clusters used for desktops 2

We tested the following use cases to validate whether the solution performed as expected under heavy load situations:

• Simultaneous boot of all desktops

• Full antivirus scan of all desktops

• Installation of a monthly release of security updates using SCCM 2012 SP1 on all desktops

• Login and steady-state user load simulated using the Login VSI medium workload on all desktops

In each use case, we present a number of key metrics that show the overall performance of the solution.

Note: The results were obtained in the EMC Strategic Solutions Engineering (SSE) lab. Results may vary based on environmental conditions.

Boot storm results

We conducted this test by selecting all the desktops in vCenter Server and then selecting Power On. Overlays are added to the graphs to show when the array IOPS achieved a steady state.

For the boot storm test, all 2,500 desktops were fully powered on within five minutes and achieved a steady state 15 minutes later. This section details the performance characteristics of various components of the XenDesktop infrastructure during the boot storm test.

Use cases

Test methodology



Figure 13 shows the I/O difference between the front-end and back-end IOPS.

Figure 13. Boot storm: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Figure 14 shows the total IOPS serviced by the XtremIO array during the test, and the latency. During peak load, the XtremIO array serviced 94,402 IOPS.

Figure 14. Boot storm: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency

Front-end and back-end I/O difference

XtremIO array IOPS




Figure 15 shows XtremIO storage controller utilization during the boot storm test. The virtual desktops generated high levels of I/O during the peak load of the boot storm test. The peak storage controller utilization was 77 percent.

Figure 15. Boot storm: Storage controller utilization

Figure 16 shows the CPU load from one of the servers in the vSphere clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server achieved a peak CPU processor time of 53.7 percent.

Figure 16. Boot storm: vSphere CPU load

Storage controller utilization

vSphere CPU load



Antivirus results

This test was conducted by scheduling a full scan of all desktops by using a custom script to initiate an on-demand scan with McAfee VirusScan 8.7i. The full scans were performed on all the desktops. The difference between start time and finish time was 1 hour and 20 minutes.


Figure 17. Antivirus: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Test methodology






Figure 18. Antivirus: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency

Figure 19 shows storage controller utilization during the antivirus scan test. During peak load, the antivirus scan operations caused moderate CPU utilization of 69 percent.

Figure 19. Antivirus: Storage controller utilization

XtremIO array IOPS




Figure 20 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the vSphere clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server achieved a peak CPU processor time of 31 percent.

Figure 20. Antivirus: vSphere CPU load

vSphere CPU load




Patch install results

This test was performed by pushing a monthly release of ten Microsoft security updates to all desktops using Microsoft SCCM 2012. All 2,500 desktops were placed in single collection within SCCM. The collection was configured to install updates within a two-hour window that began 45 minutes after the patches were available for download. Each desktop was able to install the patches within approximately five minutes.

Note: This test simulated patching 2,500 desktops within a single two-hour installation window. While the array was able to deliver high levels of performance throughout this operation, any large scale Windows patching should be done over a longer period, as some patch installations might require significantly more infrastructure resources than others.

Figure 21 shows the I/O difference between front -nd and back-end IOPS.

Figure 21. Patch install: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Test methodology




Figure 22 shows the total IOPS serviced by the XtremIO array during the test. During peak load, the XtremIO array serviced 156,457 IOPS.

Figure 22. Patch install: XtremIO array total IOPS

Figure 23 shows the storage controller utilization during the test. The patch install operations caused moderate CPU utilization during peak load, reaching a maximum of 94 percent utilization.

Figure 23. Patch install: Storage controller utilization

XtremIO array IOPS





Figure 24 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the vSphere clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server CPU load was well within the acceptable limits during the test, reaching a maximum of 40.9 percent utilization. Hyper-threading was enabled to double the number of logical CPUs.

Figure 24. Patch install: vSphere CPU load

Login VSI results

We used Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) version 4.0 to run a user load on the desktops. Login VSI provided the guidance to gauge the maximum number of users a desktop environment can support. The Login VSI workload is categorized as light, medium, heavy, multimedia, core, or random (also known as workload mash-up). We selected a medium workload for this testing. For details about the workload generated during the test, refer to Login VSI 4.0 Workloads Overview. Refer to Login VSI 4.0 Documentation for information on how to set up an EUC test environment with Login VSI.

This test was conducted by scheduling 2,500 users to connect through a direct desktop connection in a 30-minute window and then started by using the Login VSI Medium with a Flash workload. We ran the workload for one hour in a steady state to observe the load on the XenDesktop infrastructure.

vSphere CPU load

Login VSI

Test methodology

http://www.loginvsi.com/pdf/documentation/Login-VSI-40-Workloads.pdf

http://www.loginvsi.com/pdf/documentation/Login-VSI-40-Documentation.pdf




Figure 25 shows the time required for the desktops to complete the user login process. The time required to complete the login process reached a maximum of 3.41 seconds during peak load of the 2,500 desktop logon storm.

Figure 25. Login VSI: Desktop login time


Figure 26. Login VSI: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Desktop logon time






Figure 27. Login VSI: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency

Figure 28 shows storage controller utilization during the test. The storage controller peak utilization was 48 percent during the login storm. The XtremIO array had sufficient scalability headroom for this workload.

Figure 28. Login VSI: Storage controller utilization

XtremIO array IOPS




Figure 29 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the vSphere clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The CPU load on the vSphere server reached a maximum of 51 percent utilization during peak load.

Figure 29. Login VSI: vSphere CPU load

vSphere CPU load

Chapter 8: Testing and Validation with MCS



Chapter 8 Testing and Validation with MCS


Overview .................................................................................................................. 60

Validated environment profile .................................................................................. 60

Boot storm results ................................................................................................... 61

Antivirus results ....................................................................................................... 64

Patch install results ................................................................................................. 67

Login VSI results ...................................................................................................... 70



Overview

This chapter provides a summary and characterization of the tests performed to validate the solution for MCS provisioned desktops. The goal of the testing is to characterize the performance of the solution and its component subsystems during the following scenarios:

• Boot storm of all desktops

• McAfee antivirus full scan on all desktops

• Security patch install with Microsoft SCCM 2012 SP1 on all desktops

• User workload testing using Login VSI on all desktops

The testing was performed with an XtremIO cluster that contained a single X-Brick running 2,500 desktops. XtremIO performance scales linearly with each X-Brick added to the cluster, meaning that a two X-Brick XtremIO cluster that hosts 5,000 desktops provides similar performance to a single X-Brick cluster running 2,500 desktops.

Validated environment profile

Table 7 provides the validated environment profile.

Table 7. Citrix XenDesktop environment profile


Number of virtual desktops 2,500

Virtual desktop OS Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (32-bit)

CPU per virtual desktop 1 vCPU

Number of virtual desktops per CPU core 6.79

RAM per virtual desktop 2 GB

Average storage available for each MCS-provisionedvirtual desktop (not including the shared base disk)

3 GB

Average storage used for each MCS-provisioned virtual desktop (used by Windows and applications)

14 GB

Average physical storage used for each MCS-provisioned virtual desktop on the Xtremio all-flash array (after deduplication)

6.3 MB

Deduplication ratio of MCS-provisioned virtual desktops

9.7:1

Average IOPS per virtual desktop at steady state 5

Profile characteristics





Peak IOPS observed per virtual desktop during boot storm

52.9

Average IOPS observed per virtual desktop throughout boot storm

49.2

Time required by MCS to deploy 2,500 virtual desktops 2 hours 15 minutes

Number of datastores used to store virtual desktops 10

Number of virtual desktops per datastore 250

Drive and RAID type for datastores • 400 GB eMLC SSD drives

• EMC XtremIO proprietary data protection XDP that delivers RAID 6-like data protection but better performance than RAID 10

Number of VMware clusters used for desktops 2

This solution tested MCS-provisionedvirtual desktops by using the same use cases as for vCenter clone testing. Consult the Use cases section in Chapter 7 for the complete list.

Note: These results were obtained in the EMC SSE lab. Results may vary based on environmental conditions.

Boot storm results

This test was conducted by selecting all the desktops in vCenter Server, and then selecting Power On. Overlays are added to the graphs to show when the array IOPS achieved a steady state.

For the boot storm test, all 2,500 desktops were fully powered on within 3 minutes and achieved a steady state 9 minutes later. This section details the performance characteristics of various components of the XenDesktop infrastructure during the boot storm test.

Use cases

Test methodology




Figure 30. Boot storm: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Figure 31 shows the total IOPS serviced by the XtremIO array, and the latency, during the test. During peak load, the XtremIO array serviced 132,360 IOPS.

Figure 31. Boot storm: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency


XtremIO array IOPS




Figure 32 shows XtremIO storage controller utilization during the boot storm test. The virtual desktops generated high levels of I/O during the peak load of the boot storm test. The peak storage controller utilization was 88 percent.

Figure 32. Boot storm: Storage controller utilization

Figure 33 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the vSphere clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server achieved a peak CPU processor time of 49 percent.

Figure 33. Boot storm: vSphere CPU load


vSphere CPU load



Antivirus results

This test was conducted by scheduling a full scan of all desktops by using a custom script to initiate an on-demand scan with McAfee VirusScan 8.7i. The full scans were performed on all the desktops. The difference between start time and finish time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.


Figure 34. Antivirus: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Test methodology





Figure 35 shows the total IOPS serviced by the XtremIO array, and the latency, during the test. During peak load, the XtremIO array serviced 91,060 IOPS.

Figure 35. Antivirus: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency

Figure 36 shows storage controller utilization during the antivirus scan test. During peak load, the antivirus scan operations caused moderate CPU utilization of 73 percent. The XtremIO array had sufficient scalability headroom for this workload.

Figure 36. Antivirus: Storage controller utilization

XtremIO array IOPS




Figure 37 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the VMware clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server achieved a peak CPU processor time of 32 percent.

Figure 37. Antivirus: vSphere CPU load

vSphere CPU load




Patch install results

This test was performed by pushing a monthly release of ten Microsoft security updates to all desktops using Microsoft SCCM 2012. All 2,500 desktops were placed in a single collection within SCCM and restart was suppressed.

Note: This test simulated patching 2,500 desktops within a two-hour installation window. While the array was able to deliver high levels of performance throughout this operation, any large-scale Windows patching should be done over a longer period, as some patch installations might require significantly more infrastructure resources.


Figure 38. Patch install: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Test methodology





Figure 39. Patch install: XtremIO array total IOPS and latency

Figure 40 shows storage controller utilization during the test. The patch install operations caused moderate CPU utilization during peak load, reaching a maximum of 89 percent utilization.

Figure 40. Patch install: Storage controller utilization

XtremIO array IOPS





Figure 41 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the VMware clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The vSphere server CPU load was well within the acceptable limits during the test, reaching a maximum of 56 percent processor time.

Figure 41. Patch install: vSphere CPU load

vSphere CPU load



Login VSI results

We used Login VSI version 4.0 to run a user load on the desktops. Login VSI provided the guidance to gauge the maximum number of users a desktop environment can support. The Login VSI workload is categorized as light, medium, heavy, multimedia, core, or random (also known as workload mash-up). We selected a medium workload for this testing. For details about the workload generated during the test, refer to Login VSI 4.0 Workloads Overview. Refer to Login VSI 4.0 Documentation for information on how to set up an EUC test environment with Login VSI.

This test was conducted by scheduling 2,500 users to connect through a remote desktop in a 30-minute window and then starting the Login VSI-medium with flash workload. We ran the workload for one hour in a steady state to observe the load on the XenDesktop infrastructure.

Figure 42 shows the time required for the desktops to complete the user login process. The time required to complete the login process reached a maximum of 4.44 seconds during peak load of the 2,500 desktop logon storm.

Figure 42. Login VSI: Desktop login time

Login VSI

Test methodology

Desktop logon time

http://www.loginvsi.com/pdf/documentation/Login-VSI-40-Workloads.pdf






Figure 43. Login VSI: Front-end and back-end I/O difference

Figure 44 shows the total IOPS serviced by the XtremIO array and latency during the test. During peak load, the XtremIO array serviced 37,141 IOPS.

Figure 44. Login VSI: XtremIO array total IOPS


XtremIO array IOPS



Figure 45 shows the storage controller utilization during the test. The storage controller peak utilization was 36 percent during the login storm. The EMC XtremIO had sufficient scalability headroom for this workload.

Figure 45. Login VSI: Storage controller utilization

Figure 46 shows the CPU load from one of the vSphere servers in the VMware clusters. Each server had similar results; therefore, only the results from a single server are shown in the graph. The CPU load on the vSphere server reached a maximum of 53 percent utilization during peak load.

Figure 46. Login VSI: vSphere CPU load


vSphere CPU load




Citrix Personal vDisk generates more I/O workload to the XtremIO array compared to a standard MCS desktop OS deployment, as shown in Figure 47. During steady state, the configuration with PvD generates about 14% more IIOPS.

Figure 47. Login VSI I/O difference: With and without PvD

Figure 48 shows the CPU utilization difference on the XtremIO array when MCS Desktop OS is implemented with and without PvD. During steady state, the configuration with PvD consumes 5% more CPU.

Figure 48. Login VSI array CPU difference: With and without PvD

I/O difference with Personal vDisk

Chapter 9: Conclusion



Chapter 9 Conclusion


Summary .................................................................................................................. 76

References ............................................................................................................... 78



Summary

As shown in Chapter 7, Testing and Validation with vCenter Cloning and Chapter 8, Testing and Validation with MCS, the features of the EMC XtremIO all-flash array enable Citrix XenDesktop environments to achieve high levels of performance, scale as needed, be easier to administer, and use less overall infrastructure resources.

The performance capabilities of the XtremIO array enable virtual desktop application response times to mirror the SSD experience of the most modern physical desktops, even if the virtual desktop was not optimized to minimize the I/O footprint as is required with some storage solutions.

The performance capabilities of the XtremIO array also enable virtual desktops to power on and off or suspend and resume much more quickly than when using non-all-flash arrays. This allows organizations to potentially reduce virtual desktop infrastructure resource utilization by powering off or suspending desktops when they are not needed.

The deduplication capabilities of the XtremIO array further reduce the storage required for both desktops cloned by vCenter cloning (with either PowerCLI scripts or EMC Virtual Storage Integrator) and MCS-provisioned desktops. This allows XenDesktop administrators to use whichever desktop type best suits their environment. It also allows for an attractive storage cost per desktop, even though it is 100 percent flash.

This solution provides a blueprint of a validated Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 virtualization solution enabled by an EMC XtremIO all-flash array and the VMware vSphere 5.1 virtualization platform. The solution is able to support and scale to thousands of virtual desktops.

By using the XtremIO storage system as the foundation for XenDesktop deployments, you gain unique advantages that cannot be achieved with any other XenDesktop deployment architecture.

• Superior XenDesktop user experience—Test results showed that every desktop in an XtremIO deployment gets reliable and massive I/O potential both in sustained IOPS and the ability to burst to much higher levels as dictated by demanding applications such as Microsoft Outlook, desktop search, and antivirus scanning. During the 2,500-desktop scale testing, every Login VSI-simulated application operation was completed much quicker than the acceptable user experience boundaries. This performance is superior by a wide margin to all other all-flash shared storage arrays.

• Lowest cost per virtual desktop—XtremIO XenDesktop deployments are surprisingly affordable. Due to XtremIO’s inline data reduction and massive performance density, the cost per desktop is lower than with other XenDesktop solutions, allowing virtual desktops to be deployed for less cost than their physical desktop counterparts.

Findings




• Rapid provisioning and rollout—Because XtremIO is simple to set up and requires no tuning, and because administrators can use any deployment model (vCenter cloning, MCS, MCS with Personal vDisk, or any combination thereof), complex planning is eliminated. XenDesktop deployments can be designed and rolled out quickly with assured success.

• No need for third-party tools—XtremIO solves all I/O-related XenDesktop deployment challenges. There is no need for additional caching or host-based deduplication schemes or any other point solutions that increase expense and complexity.

• No change to desktop administration—Any methods administrators are using to manage their existing physical desktops can be directly applied to the XenDesktop deployment when XtremIO is used. No software updates, operating system patching, antivirus scanning, or other procedures are required in order to lighten the I/O load on shared storage. Instead, administrators can confidently rely on XtremIO’s high performance.

• No change to desktop setup—XenDesktop best practices currently dictate numerous changes to the desktop image in order to reduce the I/O load on shared storage. None of these changes are required with XtremIO, which enables the desktop to remain fully functional while maintaining a strong user experience.



References

The following documents, located on the EMC Online Support website, provide additional and relevant information. Access to these documents depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative:

• Flash Implications in Enterprise Storage Array Designs

• EMC Infrastructure for Citrix XenDesktop 7.1: EMC VNX Series (NFS and FC), Citrix XenDesktop 7.1, and VMware vSphere 5.1 Reference Architecture

• PowerPath/VE for VMware vSphere Installation and Administration Guide

• PowerPath Viewer Installation and Administration Guide

The following document, located on the VMware website, also provide useful information:

VMware vSphere 5.1 Installation and Setup Guide

The following Citrix documents, located on the Citrix website, also provide useful information:

• Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Install eDocument

• Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 Design & Deployment Handbook

• Scaling Citrix XenDesktop 7 to 5,000 users with VMware vSphere 5.1 White Paper

The following Login VSI documents, located on the Login VSI website, also provide useful information:

• Login VSI 4.0 Workloads Overview

• Login VSI 4.0 Documentation

Supporting documents

VMware documents

Citrix documentation

Login VSI documentation

https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-pubs.html

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop-71/cds-install-config-intro.html

http://community.citrix.com/kits/#/kit/1067009

http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/scaling-xendesktop-7-to-5000-users-with-vmware-vsphere-5-1-esxi.pdf




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