trimble buildings – delivering the vico office solution...

Delivering the Vico Office Solution with Citrix XenApp

January 2015

Vico Office P a g e | 2 Trimble Buildings GC/CM

Trimble Buildings – Delivering the Vico Office Solution with Citrix XenApp

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction....................................................................................................................................................... 3

Intended Audience ............................................................................................................................................ 3

Vico Office Suite Components .......................................................................................................................... 4

Testing Environment ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Testing Architecture .......................................................................................................................................... 6

Testing Scenarios ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................... 12

Supporting Product Details ............................................................................................................................. 13

Summary ........................................................................................................................................................ 15



INTRODUCTION

Vico Office is a different way of working with BIM models. Used for much more than visualization, Vico Office

extends the basic 3D model with constructability analysis and coordination, 4D location-based scheduling and

production control with flowline principles, and 5D estimating.

The Vico Office Suite can be deployed in a number of ways. However, the method of deployment can greatly

affect speed, usability, and stability. These factors result in associated impacts on user productivity.

The purpose of this document is to outline enterprise implementation variables and use case scenarios for the

Vico Office Suite, specifically exploring the deployment of remote access scenarios via Citrix XenApp. This

document outlines areas of consideration when deploying the Vico Office Suite in a shared enterprise remote or

local user access method. The document discusses ramifications of the various deployment methods, as well as

the description of best performing installations. Finally, the document concludes with best practices for deploying

the Vico Office Suite in a virtualized environment.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

This document is intended to assist technical management staff, as well as the technical engineers and

administrators who are responsible for the deployment of the Vico Office Suite to local and remote users.

Core knowledge of the various technologies associated with an enterprise-based implementation is suggested for

those wishing to use this implementation guide. Certifications are not needed, but strong knowledge and/or

experience is strongly suggested:

Technical managers should be familiar with enterprise systems, servers (physical and virtual), VMware

vSphere, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Active Directory, and Citrix XenApp.

Technical IT Engineers and Adminstrators should be familiar with specific technologies such as server

virtualization, physical servers, local and SAN storage, remote access technologies and graphics cards.

Direct experience with the specific products (Citrix XenApp, VMware vSphere, NVIDIA GRID and Quadro

graphics cards and SAN Storage) that are represented in this document is beneficial.



VICO OFFICE SUITE COMPONENTS

Vico Office suite is made up of three primary components:

Vico Office Client (VOC) – The Vico Office Client is the basic software interface that users need to open

the program, as well as to interact with 2D/3D design information and to export reports from the database.

Additional modules can be enabled within the client application to perform construction management

workflows, such as cost and schedule planning.

Vico Office Project Server (VPS) – The Vico Office Project Server is the database component used for

housing the project information. Project Servers typically host multiple construction projects together,

which allows for transfer of information between such projects (using historical information as a

reference). The VPS can be installed on its own server and accessed by multiple instances of the Vico

Office Client.

Vico Office License Server (VLS) – The Vico Office License Server controls the licenses for the various

modules that support the multiple workflows available within the program. The VLS can be installed on its

own server and accessed by multiple instances of the Vico Office Client, dependent on the composition of

module licenses that have been purchased.

These components can be installed on a single workstation, or server, or in a split configuration to accommodate

multiple user access to the same projects. Additional details about these installations can be found in the Vico

Office Installation Guide.

TESTING ENVIRONMENT

The testing environment was built using the recommendations outlined in the Vico Office Installation Guide, with

some baseline assumptions as to what a typical data center environment for implemening this type of construction

application would look like using currently available technology.

Deployment Assumptions

Server virtualization has become common practice and is an assumed component of the research ouitlined in this

document. Within the virtualized datacenter, there will be resources for 10 virtual CPU’s and 32GB of memory.

Likewise, most datacenters deploy over enterprise level SAN storage to accommodate approximately 300GB of

disk space necessary for hosting the Vico Office application and associated project data. If virtual resources are

not available, physical servers can be used to achieve comparable results.



Products

The following products were used to create the environment for testing:

Citrix XenDesktop / XenApp veer 7.6 – The testing lab did not include any specific HDX policies. An

out-of-the-box environment was tested so that a baseline could be established to determine what Citrix

would do without special modifications. Building the environment this way showed that special tuning was

not required for good performance.

Citrix NetScaler 10.1 – Netscaler was put in place to provide a secure connection for remote sessions.

No special settings had to be put in place for this provision, as it is a standard part of this Citrix XenApp

implementation. Including the NetScaler allowed for secure connections from around the world and was

not considered part of a specific acceleration effort.

VMware vSphere 5.5 – VMware vSphere was tested without special settings or modifications. The

technology was put in place under the assumption that it is the most widely deployed datacenter

virtualization platform currently deployed within the market at this time. VMware’s vSGA GPU sharing

technology was evaluated as part of the project and was determined to not add to the performance of the

overall solution due to other performance issues. For more details, see performance results associated

with local versus remote Vico Project Servers.

Dell PowerEdge R720 Servers – The PowerEdge R720 is Dell’s most mainstream datacenter class

server, making it representative of the typical datacenter deployments encountered in the current market.

It is also one of a handful of physical systems certified for supporting the NVIDIA GRID series GPUs.

Other server manufactures produce comparable systems with the same physical CPUs and chipsets that

are also certified for NVIDIA GRID. However, they were not tested as part of this initiative.

NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 GPUs – NVIDIA was the first to market with datacenter-centric GPU devices.

They also represent the benchmark in professional graphics with their drivers often being specifically

called out for compatibility with high-end design software. For these reasons, NVIDIA GPU’s were

selected.

HP 3PAR StorServ 7200 – The tested 3PAR is typical of most mid-range enterprise storage. This

storage array was configured utilizing RAID5 over twenty-four 10K SAS drives and connected to the ESXi

hosts via 1GbE MPIO iSCSI. This configuration provided upwards of 5,000 IOPS and 200MB/s

throughout the test environment. Initial tests were performed to see how this type of load would perform.

However, additional testing was performed with RAID10, RAM based IO accelerators, and SSD drives

with only nominal improvements of user experience observed.



TESTING ARCHITECTURE

Physical Diagram

Dell PowerEdge R720NVIDIA GRID K1 & K2

ESXi 5.5

1GbE Switch 1GbE Switch

10GbE Switch/L3 Routing 10GbE Switch/L3 Routing

HP StorServe 720024x 10K 300GB HDD

10GbE 10GbE

1GbE 1GbE

Stacking Cable

Stacking Cable

1GbE 1GbE 1GbE1GbE

1GbE 1GbE 1GbE 1GbE 1GbE 1GbE

1GbE

Internet

Cable Modem

Cisco ASA Firewall

HP 6000 AIO PC

1GbE Switch

1GbE

1GbE



Logical Diagram

NetScaler VPX

Citrix XenDesktop

Citrix server (vda) Vico Office User tool, Project server &

License server

Citrix SQL DatabaseInternet or

home user connecting

via web browser

Citrix XenDesktop

Citrix Desktop Delivery controllersBrokers, License server, Storefront server

Internal desktop

Internal Thin client ICA/1494



TESTING SCENARIOS

Two types of tests were performed: user experience testing and timed testing.

User Experience Testing

Five user experience scenarios were tested and assigned a score from 1 to 5. A score of 5 represented the best

possible user performance and was equal to the experience of using a fully local installation on a high-end BIM

workstation. A score of 1 represented a nearly unusable product. During live testing, CPU, GPU (video card),

memory, network, and disk usage were monitored. This testing provided a subjective user performance index for

each configuration.

All testing scenarios, besides baseline, were designed and built on the virtual platform. Supporting servers were

virtual with access to the application via Citrix XenApp.

Baseline – The Vico Office Suite (Vico Office Client, Project server, and License server) was installed on

a powerful laptop (Dell Precision M3800) with 16GB of RAM, an Intel i7 CPU, and an NVIDIA K2000

graphics card.

Configuration 1: Low-end performance (network project server & no hardware GPU software-based

rendering) – VOC installed on a Citrix XenApp server with no hardware video card (using software

rendering) and the VPS located on the network via a separate server. The test was configured with a

XenApp server running Windows server 2008R2, 4 vCPUs and 16GB of RAM. This configuration was

assumed to be reflective of typical XenApp server configurations that deployed for common applications

in today’s construction market.

o It is important to note that the Vico Office requirements do state that a “high-end OpenGL card

with at least 512MB onboard memory (ATI or NVIDIA)” is required. This configuration, although

typical of XenApp deployments, does not meet the stated requirement.

Configuration 2: Mid-range performance (network project server & “good” GPU K1 video card) – VOC

installed on the Citrix XenApp server with an NVIDIA K1 video card and the VPS located on the network

via a separate server. Citrix XenApp server was configured with Windows server 2008 R2, 4 vCPUs, and

16GB of RAM.

Configuration 3: Mid-range performance (network project server & “best” GPU K2 video card) – VOC

installed on the Citrix XenApp server with an NVIDIA K2 video card and the VPS located on the network

via a separate server. Citrix XenApp server was configured with Windows server 2008 R2, 4 vCPUs, and

16GB of RAM.



Configuration 4: High performance (local project server & “good” GPU video card) – VOC and VPS

installed on the same Citrix XenApp host server with a NVIDIA K1 graphics card and running Windows

server 2008 R2, 4 CPUs, and 16GB of RAM.

Configuration 5: Highest performance (local project server & “best” GPU video card) - VOC and VPS

installed on the same Citrix XenApp host server with a NVIDIA K2 graphics card and running Windows

server 2008 R2, 4 vCPUs, and 16GB of RAM.

User Experience Testing Results

The results show that a virtualized deployment for multi-user access allowed several people to connect their

instance of the VOC to the same VPS simultaneously. This eliminated performance bottlenecks typically

encountered when deploying via the previously recommended network-based project server method. Although

the installation documentation for Vico Office shows that multiuser access is possible via a network-based Project

Server, the use of virtualization (Citrix) to publish the Vico Office Client to multiple users while simultaneously

hosting the Project Server on the same virtual server greatly improved the user experience. Note that increased

graphics processing capabilities seem to be required to yield an acceptable user experience. In conclusion,

cohosting the VOC and VPS on the same virtualized equipment, with a higher-end graphics card, will most

certainly yield the best user experience in a virtualized deployment.

Test monitoring of the CPU/memory and storage showed that each user consumed roughly 2GB of memory.

Additionally, each user could consumed roughly one CPU core at a time, but this was dependent on the specific

functions the user was performing. Bulk functions, such as loading large models in the 3D view and/or reactivating

large models seemed to consume the most resources. Reports and cost computations also consumed the CPU

and memory primarily when the VPS was involved in database functions. Testing validated that a 64bit server that



hosted both the VOC and VPS balanced multiple users’ access better than a single user on a desktop-based

operating system; this was attributed to the way that a server operating system could process CPU and memory

usage.

Timed Testing

Five user scenarios were created, and testing was performed in a virtualized lab in accordance with the

configurations mentioned above. Various functions of normal user activity were tested against small (<50M),

medium (~300M), and large (+500M) Vico Office projects while being timed. The duration of each function was

recorded for comparison to other configurations. This testing provided a quantitative performance index for each

configuration.

Base line – The Vico Office Suite (VOC + VPS + VLM) was installed on a powerful laptop (Dell Precision

M3800) with 16GB of RAM, an Intel i7 CPU, and an NVIDIA K2000 graphics card. For details about

comparable equipment, refer to the Vico Office installation document.

Low Range Desktop – VOC was installed on a physical desktop containing 4GB of RAM, an Intel core 2

Duo, and an on-board Intel express video card with the VPS located on the network.

Win7vDGA – VOC was installed on a Windows 7 32-bit virtual desktop with 4GB of RAM and attached

NVIDIA K2 graphics card, and 4 vCPUs with the VPS located on the network.

2008R2vDGA (A) – VOC was installed on a Windows 2008R2 virtual server with 16GB of RAM and

attached NVIDIA K2 graphics card, and 4 vCPUs with the VPS located on the network.

2008R2vDGA (B) – VOC was installed on a Citrix server with K2 video card and with the VPS installed on

the same server. As above, the server was configured with Windows 2008 R2, 4 vCPUs, and 16GB of

RAM.

Timed Testing Results



As shown in the previous charts, this method of testing had an unexpected result. Running the VOC on a 64-bit

server platform helped the application process numerous records more effectively than previously understood

deployment methods over a network. Although there is no direct requirement for the VOC and the VPS to be

running on the same type of operating system, it has been confirmed that having the VOC/CPS running on the

same 64-Bit server improves overall performance.

The results, particularly for the last test, 2008R2vDGA local PS server, having the VOC and VPS co-hosted

greatly decreased the processing time required for many, if not all, tasks performed within the standard workflow.

For example:

Pulling all data from the reference model took 30-40 seconds less time when co-hosting the VOC/VPS.



The edit and report print view took only 8 seconds when co-hosted, whereas the same task required 12

seconds when deployed via the networked configuration.

Although these numbers may seem small when referenced as seconds of time on their own, the various timed

tests reflect the impact on multiple hours of work. A user working with VOC on a daily basis will see the single

second changes add up to many minutes over the course of a day and several hours over the course of a week.

Additionally, the enhancements gained in terms of seconds per action could have a dramatic impact on the

usability and experience aspects of the program. In some cases, the software seemed unresponsive when the

information was actually lagging over a traditional network of configuration. This could become a go/no-go

perception for a novice user who is otherwise unfamiliar with the software.

Testing the 3D model and manipulation with a remote Project Server slowed down 3D response to a very

undesirable level and made testing without a graphics processing card nearly impossible. For users to have an

optimum and efficient experience, clients are strongly urged to invest in enhanced GPU processing cards when

deploying this technology

CONCLUSION

Although the Vico Office suite can be deployed in many different ways, the testing results show that placing the

Project Server on its own resource and accessing it over the network can cause a significant degradation in

performance, even within the same datacenter and with high speed networking in place. Hosting the Vico Office

suite via Citrix XenApp enables multiple users to access the same projects and eliminates the issue of Vico Office

having to access the project data across a network connection. Furthermore, accessing the VOC via Citrix

XenApp does provide an overall better user experience than a local installation attempting to access a remote

VPS.

Having the VOC and VPS co-hosted does seem to reduce network traffic and allows the server hosting the tools

to respond to data changes more rapidly, which can be attributed to the VPS database’s handling of data. When a

remote project server was processing the VOC data, 30 minutes worth of load time was added to the tested

workflow.

The VPS and VOC are not currently capable of caching, so data flow between all transactions is live and can be

deeply affected by the deployment method. This finding holds true for testing of the VPS, which included network

traffic, CPU and memory utilization. Adding memory, CPU, and faster storage to the project server did not

significantly affect or improve the user experience. This showed that the VPS itself is not a bottleneck. Rather, the



smallest increase in latency across the overall database process when remote versus local can have a significant

impact on user experience.

The test results also show that a quality graphics card, particulary the higher end NVIDIA K2 card, noticeably

improved user experience. This will become more noticeable with increased user load because the graphics

processor is shared amongst concurrent user sessions on the Citrix XenApp host. Conversely, this is harder to

gauge when measuring against just one or two users. The complete lack of a hardware graphics card (using

software rendered graphics instead) resulted in an unacceptable user experience across the board.

When using Citrix XenApp to access Vico Office, the resources available to the Citrix XenApp server dictate

server scalability. If more users need more access than a single XenApp server can host, a second server can be

created to host the additional users. However, in this scenario the Citrix servers either has separate VPSs or a

central project server can be established at the experience or workflow latency. It has been noted that

performance is degraded when hosting the VPS separate from the VOC, so this decision should be made

carefully after discussing the preferred needs with daily users.

If multi-user access is not required, then a single high-end workstation does yield the best overall user

experience.

SUPPORTING PRODUCT DETAILS

We used these products for the following reasons:

Citrix XenApp

Citrix provides the ability to keep Vico Office near the actual project data. This is important because Vico Office

does not support the use of a WAN. Citrix’s HDX display protocol is optimized to provide access to resources in

the data center without the actual project leaving the data center and includes specific optimization to support 3D

graphics. Because a single Citrix XenApp server can host multiple connections through its use of Microsoft

Remote Desktop Services Session Host (RDSH) technology, the need for the project server to be located

separately from Vico Office is eliminated. Collocating the VOC and VPS greatly improves performance.

XenDesktop (and other VDI solutions) incur a performance penalty from the necessity of installing the VOC and

VPS onto separate systems.

For more details, see http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/xenapp-

datasheet.pdf.

http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/xenapp-datasheet.pdf

http://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/xenapp-datasheet.pdf



Other victual desktop and application delivery options do exist. However, the lack of support for both the Remote

Desktop Session Host (RDSH) delivery model and 3D graphics processing in these varied solutions would have

prevented an optimal configuration from being reached.

VMware vSphere

VMware provides the ability to create multiple servers for the infrastructure quickly, rather than a rack full of

servers utilized for each task. VMware also gives us the ability to easily manage multiple platforms from within a

single control. Lastly, VMware is capable of attaching a physical GPU card to multiple servers via the settings for

the virtual server, which requires the resources via PCI device pass-through.

For more details, see http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/virtualization-basics/what-is-

virtualization#sthash.7cIqKptG.dpuf.

Although there are other virtualization platforms on the market, VMware currently represents the largest market

share and thus is representative of the largest potential installation base. It is noteworthy that Citrix XenServer

also has the ability to pass-through a PCI graphics card to a guest virtual machine. This configuration was not

specifically tested, but similar results would be expected from such a test.

Microsoft Hyper-v is another popular virtualization platform; however, the handling of graphics on Hyper-v is

considerably different than under vSphere, so no conclusion should be drawn from this research about the

expected performance of the application hosted in a Hyper-v environment.

It would also be possible to deploy the Citrix XenApp server directly to physical hardware, using no virtualization

platform at all, but this scenario is becoming atypical within the IT industry because of limitations associated with

flexibility and resource management.

NVIDIA GRID GPUs

NVIDIA has set the standard for professional graphics with their Quadro product lines and is actively working with

VMware and Citrix to enhance video and graphics performance in high-end datacenters used for these types of

intensive deployments. From this effort, NVIDIA has developed the GRID product line specifically for datacenter

environments. Vico Office recommendations outline a graphics card (NVIDIA K2000) for high end laptop and

desktop use. The NVIDIA GRID cards use a very similar architecture to the laptops K2000 card with the K2

packaging the equivalent of two NVIDIA K5000 GPUs on a single board and the K1 board equating to four K600

GPUs. The implementation of the GRID cards allows us to assign high end GPUs to virtual servers or desktops.

The presence of multiple GPUs on a single board increases the density for the datacenter environment allowing

multiple virtual machines to have access to GPU resources.

http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/virtualization-basics/what-is-virtualization#sthash.7cIqKptG.dpuf

http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/virtualization-basics/what-is-virtualization#sthash.7cIqKptG.dpuf



For more details, see http://www.nvidia.com/object/enterprise-virtualization.html#sthash.WIVjKMV3.dpuf.

SUMMARY

Multiple testing scenarios, including networked versus co-hosted VOC/VPS configuration and physical versus

virtualized configurations, have shown that co-hosting the VOC/VPS on a virtualized deployment yields the best

overall experience relative to being measured against a standalone high-performance workstation. This

configuration is all but mandatory for an optimum multi-user experience in a large company.

Lastly, it is strongly recommended that a hardware accelerated graphics card be deployed to provide an optimum

experience. Deploying to multiple users without graphics optimization will have a suboptimal impact and may

result in an unacceptable user experience within some configurations.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/enterprise-virtualization.html#sthash.WIVjKMV3.dpuf

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