Planning and Deploying Microsoft VDI with Management TechnologiesMichael KleefSenior Technical Product ManagerMicrosoft Corporation

SESSION CODE: VIR311

AgendaReference Solution ArchitectureSessions and VDIDemo Environment

User ExperienceAdmin Experience

Building the SolutionWeb to Connection Broker to VMApp-V integrationConfig Manager integrationSCVMM integration

Announcement

The appalling food quality and lack of acceptable and edible breakfast is not my fault. Don’t blame me! I hate it too….

The Microsoft VDI Technology Stack

VDI Suites

Desktop and Session Delivery

User Profiles and Data

Roaming Profiles Folder Redirection

Application Delivery

Virtualization Platform

Partners such as

Enterprise Deployments

PartnerTechnolog

y

Windows Server 2008 R2: The core of VDI - Remote Desktop Services and VDI Architecture

RD Web Access

RD Gateway RD Connection Broker

Active Directory® Licensing Server

RD Virtualization Host

RD Session Host with RemoteApp

RD Client

System Center and App-V

Windows Server 2008 R2:Why Sessions?

Session Virtualization scales more users per server than VDIApp-V works in both VDI and SessionsThe same RDP connection protocol is used in bothMuch of the service infrastructure is shared

Upsides for VDI:VDI offers better user operating system isolationVDI has better native application compatibilityVDI allows users to be admins of their own images

Upsides for Session Virtualization:Session Virtualization requires less hardware than VDISessions are cheaper than VDI desktopsServer management is less than VDI

Remote Desktop Services enables both session virtualization and VDI!

Windows Server 2008 R2:Desktop Centralization Choices

Windows Server 2008 R2 Session Virtualization

Windows 7 Desktop or Virtual Desktop (VDI)

Windows RDS has up to 5x the scalability over VDI

VDI Guest VM ConsiderationsDeployment Choices

• Provides virtual machine-based, centralized desktops for individual users that can be fully customized based on user profiles

• Allows users to perform specialized tasks that require administrator access to their desktop

• Enables users to access their personalized desktop from any computer while retaining the last saved state

Personal Virtual

Desktop

• Provides virtual machine-based, centralized desktop based on a pool of virtual machines that are shared by multiple users

• Allows users to perform standardized routine tasks and have access to common applications (such as Microsoft Office)

• Rolls back the state upon logoff to provide a “clean” desktop for the next user’s session, but the previous user’s state can be saved offline

Pooled Virtual

Desktop

Guest VM ConsiderationsThe case for Personal Virtual Desktops

Its all about the user

Specifically suits knowledge workers (typical office worker profile)Those that walk away/disconnect and then want to reconnect

Considerations:Assign image through Active Directory Users and ComputersProvide an individual dedicated image per user

Minimize image duplication using SAN de-duplication if image storage is a concernMinimize direct image management

Roaming ProfilesFolder redirectionUtilize Application Virtualization (App-V) or RemoteApp for application delivery and servicing

Service the operating system with your enterprise management tools and leverage single tooling

Result: Easier to manage, more personalized and integrated with current tools

Guest VM ConsiderationsThe case for Pooled Virtual Desktops

Its all about the user

Specifically suits task workers (typical call center profile)User logs off, the VM resets and then just connect to the next VM to use applications

Considerations:Same scenario can also be delivered through Session Virtualization, and cheaperUser just connects to pool of VM’s through the BrokerClustering generally doesn’t matterWith Citrix, the SAN doesn’t even matterMinimize direct image management

Roaming ProfilesFolder redirectionUtilize Application Virtualization (App-V) for application delivery and servicing

Guest VM Operating System updates can be very painfulIf pooled is the best choice for you, ensure you consider Citrix XenDesktop on Hyper-V

Also consider RDSH as this provides similar scenario support and scales better

Result: Potentially less complicated, but less personalized and more difficult to manage

Guest VM ConsiderationsWhy can Pooled be difficult?

Will a single master image and separation of the user state with linked clones work?

What happens when you need to service the image? Can the user state differencing tolerate change of the master image?

When the Master Image needs to be serviced the corresponding linked clone suffers a catastrophic break

Solution is to duplicate the master, update it and create new pool with new linked clonesThis is required every time a single master is updated with

Operating System patchesAnti-malware UpdatesAnything else on the OS

Guest VM ConsiderationsWhy can Pooled be difficult?

Will a single master image and separation of the user state with linked clones work?

Customer reports are highlighting that updating single master/linked image desktops without pool recreation aren’t working as expected

Nasty corruption problemsSome customers switching from pooled to PVD

Bad story: switching and leaving the linked clone architecture in place

However: Citrix XenDesktop on Hyper-V does the pooled model very well with its provisioning server

Architecture Review & User Experience Comparison

DEMO

VDI and Sessions Sizing

VDI Capacity PlanningCaveats and Objectives

Performance is very subjective with many variables

CaveatsData provided is based on benchmark results and is not reflective of many real-life deployment considerations:

Is based on specific usage scenariosDoes not account for necessary “cushion” to deal with temporary peaks in resource usage

Recommend piloting for performance planningMultiple factors determine actual performance

Variations in hardwareDriver versionsDesktop WorkloadsApplication quality

What we used:Two differently configured AMD serversFiber Channel SAN

Objectives to be determined:An indication of VM’s per server that could VDI scale to

Processor, Disk and Memory requirementsNetwork requirements

Service PlacementComparison against Session Virtualization scale on same hardware

What IO bottlenecks do you hit first?

In order, generally that is:Disk IOMemory pressureProcessor

Disk IO is a performance and density related impactMemory is a density impactProcessor is a performance and density related impact

VDI Capacity PlanningDisk IO

Rule of thumb: SANs are your new best friends

Disk performance is the most critical factor in achieving densityInternal testing showed Windows 7 having lower Disk IO than Windows XP

SAN makes significant difference. Highly recommendedPlenty of cacheConsider de-duplication support especially if persistentDe-duplication allows the benefits of individual images at the cost of differencing diskManaging images on a SAN is way faster and easier than over network (provisioning is faster)We mean real SAN (iSCSI or FC) not NAS across the network…Remember RDS does not require this huge SAN investment…

If you have low complexity requirements:Think about cheaper DAS RAID 0+1 offers better read and write performance than RAID 5Make sure to consider RDS

VDI Capacity PlanningDisk IO

Peak of read/write @ 3500 IOPs on single un-clustered server (Starting 64 VMs simultaneously)

Multiply that by number of serversResult is the rough guidance for the maximum SAN disk IOPS you needTest for the most demanding user logon pattern (for example: 9 am scenario)This test based on Windows 7 Enterprise

Why use IOPS as a measurement?Trying to calculate drive perf differences based on seek, latency and transfer rate is hardIOPS is an easier way of understanding disk/SAN performanceReference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS

64 VMs Read Write Read+WriteMbytes/sec Ops/sec Mbytes/sec Ops/sec Mbytes/sec Ops/sec

Avg Peak Avg Peak Avg Peak Avg Peak Avg Peak Avg PeakLogon 10 220 350 2500 8 75 350 2500 18 224 700 3500Steady State

.8 3.6 40 260 3.3 10 130 220 4 12 170 400

VDI Capacity PlanningMemoryRule of thumb: More is better

Biggest constraint of upper limit VM density (not performance related)Constrained by:

Available memory slots in serversLargest Available DIMMs

Creates an artificial scale ceilingBuy as much RAM as you expect to scale the number of VM’sPlan for and allocate at least 1GB per Windows 7 VM

Memory allocation should be determined by upper maximum limit of running appsAllocate enough RAM to prevent the VM paging to disk1GB actually covers a fair amount of app use….

Also refer to: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv-R2.mspx.

VDI Capacity PlanningProcessor

Rule of thumb: If it doesn’t have SLAT don’t buy it

# of VMs per core is highly dependent on user scenariosApplication specific usage play a big role

Hyper-V supports:64 VMs per Server in Clustered scenarios384 VMs per Server in non-Clustered scenarios 8 VM’s per Core

8 VM’s/core is not an architectural limitation but what we have tested and support

SLAT enabled processors provide up to 25% improvement in density

What is Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)? Intel calls it Extended Page Tables (EPT)AMD calls it Nested Page Tables (NPT) or Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI)Processor provides two levels of translation

Walks the guest OS page tables directlyNo need to maintain Shadow Page TableNo hypervisor code for demand-fill or flush operations

Resource savingsHypervisor CPU time drops to 2%Roughly 1MB of memory saved per VM

VDI Capacity PlanningProcessor

Single (Unclustered) server results:Win7 VMs using 512 MBs RAM per instance – not supported!Only supported with 8 VM’s per core

Though lab benchmark testing went as high as 11 VMs per Core at the limitNote: Requirements for clustering will limit VDI VM supported capacity to 64 VMs per server

Server Cores SLAT VDI VMs/Users RDSH (TS) Users RDSH/VDI Ratio

SERVER1 16 ON 175 310 ~1.75SERVER1 16 OFF 140 N/A N/ASERVER2 8 N/A 80 160 ~2.

Server CPU model Sockets Cores Core speed RAM HBASERVER1 AMD 8378 4 16 (4x4) 2.4 GHz 128 GB EMC LP 1150 4 GbpsSERVER2 AMD 8216 4 8 (4x2) 2.4 GHz 64 GB EMC LP 1150 4 Gbps

Server Hardware:

VDI Capacity PlanningProcessor – “Real World”

Real world deployments reflect higher RDS scale

Our customer engagement feedback indicates differences between tests and real world deployments:

VM’s per core are higher in our tests than in typical production VDI deployments Production Session Virtualization scale tends to be higher than our lab tests in users per serverOur rough estimate is that some customers see as high as 5:1 in favor of Session Virtualization over VDIUse cases will determine actual numbers

That means at minimum Session Virt scales 2:1 over VDI and as high as 5:1

VDI Capacity PlanningNetwork Performance

Rule of thumb: Rich User Experience requires rich bandwidth

LANGenerally place VDI (RDVH) servers as “close” as possible to the usersVDI User experience is heavily dependent on network performanceLAN performance generally not a bottleneck (calculate to be sure)Network redundancy is very important in switching fabric

When its down, the user is totally downEnsure Blade servers can sustain on the backplane

WAN WAN issues now equals worse issues laterLatency kills user experiencePersistent protocols take bandwidth per connectionHow to tell: Multiply the number of users by approximately 20kbps

Is that beyond the capacity of your internet/WAN network?20kbps is the best case scenario based on HDX20kbps represents a cut down user experience

Look at WAN optimization technologies or compression solutions

Building the BaseWhat do I need to start?

Hardware required:One or two appropriately specified servers for the number of users required

Example: Preferably dual quad Nehalem or equivalent AMD based processorOptional: Second server purely for client VM’s16-32GB or more of RAMRAID 5 (preferably RAID 0+1) disk subsystem

One or more hardware clients (to the scale of the POC)

Software required – VDI Standard Suite and/or:One Windows Server 2008 R2 EnterpriseOptional: HYPER-V Server 2008 R2One or more copies of Windows 7 Enterprise Edition

VECD requiredAny applications required (Microsoft Office etc)Add App-V or SCCM for rapid application management and deliveryAdd System Center Virtual Machine Manager for improved VM management

Configuration details available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd941616(WS.10).aspx

VDI Broker Configuration

DEMO

Management – what truly reduces TCO

SCVMM Dynamic PlacementSCVMM

Hyper-V Cluster (RDVH)

SAN

VDI Client

At capacity already

RD Connection Broker

To be released in this quarter!

Wake VM from Saved State

Connect

System Center Configuration Manager

Choices: Local Policy or Separate PrimaryHardware InventorySoftware InventoryTiming of deploymentControlling Update targettingRestriction to purely OS, agent, definitions, required app servicingChoice for native application deployment over App Virtualization

In VDI, remember, its important to reduce VM IO and Churn

System Center Configuration Manager

TweaksApply Local Policy to limit Site Policy application

Config Mgr v.Next plans will eliminate this requirementhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc146756.aspx

Hardware InventoryEliminate/Minimize

Software InventoryEliminate/Minimize

Patch UpdatesBe very specific with targeting updates (English Update to English Client)

Timing of deploymentOffline Machine Servicing Tool 3.0Wake up, force poll, apply updates, go back to sleep

System Center Configuration Manager

App-V and Config Manager

App-V 4.6 supports Shared Cache

However…

Config Manager provides single console managementConfig Manager allows distributed package management

Be aware:Config Manager “takes over” App-V client

Cant use both App-V and Config Manager to target the same VM

Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 3.0Patching VMs on the Host

OVMST UI

WSUS/SCCM

Servicing Job

SCVMM

1. Provide collection of shutdown VMs and hosts and create servicing job

2. Mount and start VM on selected maintenance host

4. Shutdown

VM and move

back to th

e

original h

ost 3. Update the VM

Management Tools Integration

DEMO

© 2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to

be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.

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