vdi assessment findings and recommendations · pdf filevdi assessment findings and...

VDI Assessment Findings and

Recommendations

for

Customer Name

Prepared by: System Professional Ltd

[email protected]

Confidential

Version: 3 (Release)

IT SUPPORT SERVICES | VIRTUALISATION | STORAGE | BACKUP AND DR | IT CONSULTING

1

Contents

Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 1

Revision History .......................................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... 3

Background Information ............................................................................................................................. 3

Business Drivers .......................................................................................................................................... 3

Summary of Findings ................................................................................................................... 4

VDI Assessment Scope ................................................................................................................................ 5

VDI Assessment Locations in Scope ............................................................................................................ 5

VDI FIT™ ...................................................................................................................................................... 6

End-User Computer Assessment ............................................................................................... 10

PC Hardware ............................................................................................................................................. 10

Desktop Age .............................................................................................................................................. 10

Operating Systems .................................................................................................................................... 11

Hardware Configuration............................................................................................................................ 12

Hardware Utilisation ................................................................................................................................. 14

Application Assessment Summary ............................................................................................. 16

Top 20 Applications Used .......................................................................................................................... 16

Top 10 Applications – User CPU Utilisation .............................................................................................. 17

Top 10 Applications – Memory Consumption ........................................................................................... 17

Top 10 Applications – Network I/O ........................................................................................................... 18

Application Inventory ................................................................................................................................ 18

Application Virtualisation Candidates ....................................................................................................... 19

Access Infrastructure and Network ........................................................................................................... 21

Network Latency ....................................................................................................................................... 21

Application Server Response Time ............................................................................................................ 22

Combined Network Latency and Application Server Response ................................................................ 22

Assessment Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 23

Next Steps ................................................................................................................................................. 24


2

Revision History

Date Author Description Reviewers


3

Executive Summary Client, Inc. engaged System Professional to conduct a VDI feasibility assessment to provide

guidance in deciding whether or not a virtual desktop initiative will align with operational and

financial objectives of the organization.

Background Information

This engagement examined the following aspects of the Client environment:

• Business Drivers

• Desktop Virtualisation Criteria

• Users and Locations

• Breakdown by Department and

Function

• Access Infrastructure and Network

• End-User Computers

• End-User Applications

Business Drivers

Client is the market leading manufacturer of Widgets. Although Client enjoyed a market

advantage for several years, rivals have appeared making similar products thus eroding profit

margins and highlighting a need for improved customer service. A study in 1H08 showed that

calls to the Client call centres had an average hold time of five minutes, up from just one minute

the prior year. The average call is eight minutes.

Calls into the Call Centre are necessary when customers need to add features to their widgets,

which by nature is within six months of purchase. Customer data shows that once a customer

successfully upgrades their widget they become a loyal customer of two years or more; whereas

when a customer does not add features they tend to switch brands or simply stop using their

widgets.

A root-cause analysis of the hold and average call times revealed that the call centre PCs are

slow and unreliable. The Widget Activation Process (WAP) is data intensive, and the links to the

call centre PCs are just 100MB Ethernet, resulting in slow data loads and lengthening customer

wait times. Furthermore the call centre PCs are prone to outages; with high turnover in the

department and frequent releases of WAP upgrades these PCs are offline 30% of the time,

resulting in fewer reps available to answer phones.

IT is investigating the use of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to improve the service levels

of the call centres.


4

Summary of Findings The conclusion of this assessment is that a desktop virtualisation strategy would be a

worthwhile pursuit by Client and that there are no serious impediments to implementation.

The summarised assessment findings are as follows:

• There are no significant barriers to deploying a VDI environment for Call Centre users,

Finance and IT users. The business drivers, use cases, and the current state of the

desktop environment are complementary to a VDI initiative.

• The network bandwidth and latency of all links where in-scope users are located are

within acceptable limits for reliable and effective performance, though the Manchester

link is at the upper range of the acceptable limit. Service Provider recommends IT

carefully monitor this link to ascertain if average utilisation and latency peaks are

increasing in frequency, as an upgrade may be required to maintain adequate

performance.

• There are no network load balancing/optimisation (NLB) appliances deployed in the

network infrastructure. NLB appliances can decrease the risk of outages by redirecting

traffic away from failed components and evenly distribute traffic to working

components. This investment will improve availability of the desktop infrastructure to

users.

• There is ample existing disk storage available to support the deployment of all the in-

scope users, assuming that IT leverages a solution that includes the use of linked

clones/differencing disks, and there is no rapid increase in disk consumption before the

VDI deployment begins.

• Of the 73 applications found on user PCs within scope of this assessment, all but three

applications may be potential candidates for application virtualisation. Leveraging

application virtualisation will significantly reduce application conflicts and maintenance

intervals while also reducing the complexity of the VDI environment by requiring fewer

unique virtual desktop pools.


5

VDI Assessment Scope

The following information summarises the duration and systems assessed:

Parameter Value

Assessment Start Date: Feb 3, 2012

Assessment End Date: Mar 5, 2012

Assessment Duration (in days): 32

Total Number of Desktops Assessed: 72

Total Number of Users Assessed: 65

Table 1 – VDI Assessment Scope

VDI Assessment Locations in Scope

The scope of this VDI assessment was targeted to the following location(s) at Client.

Location Total Users Users In-Scope

London 130 30

Manchester 90 16

Birmingham 19 19

Table 2 – VDI Assessment Locations in Scope


6

VDI FIT™

The VDI FIT™ score is based on a scoring system that takes several factors into account, each

with a different relative importance. The specific criteria used in the VDI FIT™ score is detailed

elsewhere.

VDI FIT™ Score, All Users

Figure 1 – VDI FIT™, All Users

VDI FIT™ Score, All Users Count

Good 57

Fair 6

Poor 2

Table 3 – VDI FIT™, All Users


7

User Breakdown

The 65 unique users of the 72 systems analysed were broken down into core business user

categories for further VDI FIT™ analysis. The categorisations and the respective user counts are

as follows:

User Category Group Type Group Name User Count

Finance Users AD Security Group DOMAIN\FINANCE_USERS 14

Call Centre Users AD Security Group DOMAIN\CALLCENTRE_USERS 23

IT Users Stratusphere™ Group IT Systems 22

Other NA NA 6

Table 4 – User Breakdown

VDI FIT™ Score, Finance Users

Figure 2 – VDI FIT™, Finance Users

VDI FIT™ Score, Finance Users Count

Good 14

Fair 0

Poor 0

Table 5 – VDI FIT™, Finance Users


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VDI FIT™ Score, Call Centre Users

Figure 3 – VDI FIT™, Call Centre Users

VDI FIT™ Score, Call Centre Users Count

Good 23

Fair 0

Poor 0

Table 6 – VDI FIT™, Call Centre Users

VDI FIT™ Score, IT Users

Figure 4 – VDI FIT™, IT Users

VDI FIT™ Score, IT Users Count

Good 15

Fair 5

Poor 1

Table 7 – VDI FIT™, IT Users


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About VDI FIT™ Profile

VDI FIT™ is a scoring mechanism based on several factors, as indicated in the following tables:

CPU and Memory FIT Indicators

CPU and Memory FIT Indicator Good Fair Poor

Average System CPU % Used < 10% 10% - 40% > 40%

Average User CPU % Used < 10% 10% - 40% > 40%

Average Memory KB Used < 250,000 250,000 – 512,000 > 512,000

Average Number of GDI Objects Initialised < 150 150 - 300 > 300

I/O FIT Indicators

I/O FIT Indicator Good Fair Poor

Average Disk I/O per Second < 10% 10% - 25% > 25%

Average Network KB per Second < 5% 5% - 20% > 20%

Average Network Roundtrip Time (ms) < 40 40 – 140 > 140

Known Applications with Poor VDI FIT™

Known Applications with Poor VDI FIT™ (Exclusions)

None


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End-User Computer Assessment Client provided a detailed inventory of the desktops of the in-scope users. The results of the

study of this inventory are described in this section.

PC Hardware

The PC hardware in the London, and Birmingham offices are relatively new PCs replaced within

the last 12 months. The following table lists the characteristics of the PCs in these locations.

Attribute Value

CPU 3.0Ghz Intel

Monitor 17” flat panel VGA connector

RAM 2GB (minimum)

Disk 100GB

NIC 1GBE

The PC hardware in the Manchester offices is slightly older since it is midway through its refresh

cycle. The following table lists the characteristics of the PCs in these locations.

Attribute Value

CPU 2.0GHz Intel

Monitor 17” flat panel VGA connector

RAM 1GB (minimum)

Disk 50GB

NIC 1GBE

Desktop Age

The following information represents the desktop age of the systems analysed.

Desktop Age Count

Less than One (1) Year: 42

One (1) to Three (3) Years: 30

Over Three (3) Years: 0

Table 8 – Desktop Age


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Operating Systems

The operating system breakdown of the systems analysed is as follows:

Figure 5 – Operating Systems

Operating System Count

Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES, release 4 2

Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP2 7

Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP3 58

Microsoft Windows 7, Ultimate Edition 5

Table 9 – Operating Systems

Operating Systems

Client has standardised on Windows XP, so most desktops of the users in the identified scope

are all running Windows XP Service Pack 3. 7 desktops are still running Windows XP Professional

SP2, while 5 desktops (all of which reside in IT) are running Windows 7. There are also 2

desktops running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, also residing in IT.

Operating system patches are maintained using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services

(WSUS). System policies are enforced using Group Policy Objects (GPOs) applied to the

Organisational Units (OUs) where the desktop machine accounts are created.

The standard machine policy includes redirection of user’s My Documents folder to their home

(H:\) drive, and the current IT security policy prohibits the storage of company sensitive or

valuable files on the local hard drive. Call centre users do not have permission to save files to

the local file system. IT users tend to store files on the local file system, but these files are not

considered as mission critical.

Licensing

All desktop licenses are covered under an Enterprise Agreement, and Software Assurance is

current on all desktops.


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Hardware Configuration

The following sections provide information on the hardware configuration of the desktop

analysed in this assessment.

CPU Configuration

Figure 6 – CPU Configuration

CPU Configuration Count

Total Systems with (1) CPU 30

Total Systems with (2) CPUs 42

Total Systems with > (2) CPUs 0

Table 10 – CPU Configuration

Memory Configuration

Figure 7 – Memory Configuration

Memory Configuration Count

Total Systems, < 512 MB RAM 20

Total Systems, 512 - 1024 MB RAM 20

Total Systems, 1024 - 2048 MB RAM 32

Total Systems, > 2048 MB RAM 0

Table 11 – Memory Configuration


13

Disk Configuration

Disk Configuration Count

Total Systems, < 10 GB 20

Total Systems, 10 GB – 30 GB 20

Total Systems, 30 GB – 100 GB 32

Total Systems, > 100 GB 0

Table 12 – Disk Configuration

Multi-Monitor Configuration

Multi-Monitor Configuration Count

Systems with (1) Monitor 50

Systems with (2) Monitors 22

Systems with > (2) Monitors 0

Table 13 – Multi-Monitor Configuration


14

Hardware Utilisation

The following sections provide information on the hardware configuration of the desktops.

CPU Utilisation

Dates: 3/2/2012 – 10/2/2012 Duration: 1 Week, Average Time: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM

Figure 8 – CPU Utilisation

CPU Utilisation Count

Low Utilisation (< 20%) 40

Moderate Utilisation (20% - 70%) 20

High Utilisation (> 70%) 5

Table 14 – CPU Utilisation

Memory Utilisation


Figure 9 – Memory Utilisation

Memory Utilisation Count

Low Utilisation (< 20%) 20

Moderate Utilisation (20% - 70%) 40

High Utilisation (> 70%) 5

Table 15 – CPU Utilisation


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Disk Utilisation


Disk Consumption Count

Low Consumption (< 20%) 40

Moderate Consumption (20% - 70%) 20

High Consumption (> 70%) 5

Table 16 – Disk I/O Utilisation

Average Network I/O


Average Network I/O Count

Low I/O (<= 10KB/s) 40

Moderate I/O (<= 50KB/s) 20

High I/O (<= 250KB/s) 5

Table 17 – Network I/O Utilisation


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Application Assessment Summary

Top 20 Applications Used

The following table represents the top applications used by users of the systems in the

assessment scope.


Application Process Unique Users

Internet Explorer iexplore.exe 8

Windows Command Processor cmd.exe 7

TCP/IP Ping Command ping.exe 7

Windows Defender User Interface msascui.exe 6

Paint mspaint.exe 5

Notepad notepad.exe 5

Symantec CMC SmcGui smcgui.exe 5

VpxClient vpxclient.exe 5

Firefox firefox.exe 4

Microsoft Office Word winword.exe 4

Microsoft Management Console mmc.exe 3

Microsoft Office Outlook outlook.exe 3

Windows Update Automatic Updates wuauclt.exe 3

Adobe Reader 8.1 acrord32.exe 2

Dropbox dropbox.exe 2

Desktop Window Manager dwm.exe 2

Microsoft Office Excel excel.exe 2

MS DTCconsole program msdtc.exe 2

Microsoft Office PowerPoint powerpnt.exe 2

Skype skype.exe 2

Table 18 – Top 20 Applications


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Top 10 Applications – User CPU Utilisation


Application Process User CPU Avg. (%)

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool mrt.exe 11.04

IBM Developer Kit for Windows,Java,1.6.0 java.exe 6.23

DVD Shrink 3.2 dvd shrink 3.2.exe 4.72

Photos Screen Saver photoscreensaver.scr 2.06

Google Chrome chrome.exe 1.67

Windows Media Player wmplayer.exe 1.51

Cisco WebEx Service atmgr.exe 1.46

Internet Explorer iexplore.exe 1.25

LuCallBackProxy Module lucallbackproxy.exe 1

SONAR Component coh32.exe 0.91

Table 19 – Top 10 Applications, User CPU %

Top 10 Applications – Memory Consumption


Application Process Memory Avg. (MB)

Liquidware Labs Connector ID tntgrd.exe 110.34

tntgrd tntgrd.exe 86.78

Cisco WebEx Service atmgr.exe 83.48

VpxClient vpxclient.exe 82.26

Firefox firefox.exe 68.96

DVDFab - The ultimate DVD copying/converting/burning

software!

dvdfab.exe 56.28

Desktop Window Manager dwm.exe 48.55

Adobe Reader 8.1 acrord32.exe 48.05

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool mrt.exe 46.44

Notepad notepad.exe 45.09

Table 20 – Top 10 Applications, Memory (MB)


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Top 10 Applications – Network I/O


Application Process IO Avg. (KB/s)

Adobe Acrobat SpeedLauncher reader_sl.exe 1554172.3

Symantec Endpoint Security Client LiveUpdate sesclu.exe 6561.03

DVD Decrypter - The Ultimate DVD Ripper! dvddecrypter.exe 5529

LuCallBackProxy Module lucallbackproxy.exe 3389

Virus Definition Daemon defwatch.exe 3162

DVD Shrink 3.2 dvd shrink 3.2.exe 2312.65

Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool mrt.exe 1072

DVDFab - The ultimate DVD copying/converting/burning

software!

dvdfab.exe 514.28

Disk Defragmenter NTFS Module dfrgntfs.exe 338.88

Java(TM) Quick Starter Service jqs.exe 277.47

Table 21 – Top 10 Applications, Network IO (KB/s)

Application Inventory

Application analysis was achieved through an application inventory that includes details about

application services, drivers, and overall complexity. The chart below represents an overview of

the application landscape for the in-scope View users only.

Attribute Value

Total Applications 75

Core Line-of-Business Applications (e.g., Office, Project, and Visio) 10

Communication Applications (e.g., Firebox, FileZilla, eFax Messenger, and

Trillian)

10

Miscellaneous Applications (e.g., WinZip, Windows Media Player, Mind Map,

and Adobe Acrobat and Reader)

20

Proprietary (e.g, WAP) 25

Misc (e.g, Color Picker, DropBox) 10


19

Application Virtualisation Candidates

Application virtualisation is a core component of any Virtual Desktop Infrastructure initiative

and therefore should be considered for inclusion in the overall solution. Most application

virtualisation solutions can successfully virtualise most applications; however, each application

must be evaluated for its viability to run as a virtualised application. To help with this analysis

process, System Professional further divided the application virtualisation candidate pool into

the following three categories:

• High Priority

o Mission critical or proprietary applications that represent a significant pain point

for the organisation

o Highest value proposition for application virtualisation

o Typically qualified as complex applications

o Average estimated time to capture: 6 to 8 hours per application (using most

application virtualisation solutions)

• Medium Priority

o Standard applications with a large installation footprint or setup time

o Applications that are comprised of a suite of several applications

o Average estimated time to capture: 4 hours per application

• Low Priority

o Standard applications

o Applications from the previously packaged list

o Average estimated time to capture: 2 hours per application

Attribute Value

High Priority 15

Med Priority 20

Low Priority 40

Excluded 3

Applications Total 73

Table 22 – Application Virtualisation Candidates


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Exclusions

Application Virtualisation best practices suggest avoiding virtualising certain types of

applications; applications that are deeply integrated with the host or use file system redirection

drivers, such as antivirus scanners, disk defragmentation, and spyware/malware utilities do not

make good candidates for application virtualisation. In addition, applications that use

proprietary hardware drivers are not directly compatible with application virtualisation and

therefore must be excluded from consideration. Exclusions to application virtualisation include:

• Symantec Antivirus

• Auslogics Disk Defrag

• Spybot Search and Destroy


21

Access Infrastructure and Network

Client IT has two datacentres; one (1) in London and one (1) in Birmingham. The London office

serves as a hub between the remote users and the production datacentres; no office other than

London is directly connected to a production datacentre.

London serves as the corporate headquarters and acts as a hub in some regards as described

above. The remote offices connect back to corporate via T1 leased lines or MPLS network. The

T1 uplinks from these locations are moderately utilised and one is subject to latencies

considered at the upper range of the usable range for accessing remote virtual desktops.

Furthermore, the WAN connections are currently being used for existing communication

requirements with additional services being added like IP phone capability to support unified

communications and thus further limiting the ability for remote offices to leverage centrally

located virtual desktops.

Load Balancing

There are presently no physical load balancing devices in the network.

DMZ and VPN

The Client drivers for a View solution do not include any remote access scenarios, and therefore

the DMZ and VPN infrastructure was not included in the assessment.

Network Latency

Figure 10 shows the hourly trend of the Network Latency (NRT) for the last 24 hours, contrasted

to the average network latency as observed for that hour of the day for the previous 30 days.

Figure 10 – Network Latency Trend


22

Application Server Response Time

Figure 11 shows the hourly trend of the Application Server Response Time (ART) for the last 24

hours, contrasted to the average application server response times as observed for that hour of

the day for the previous 30 days.

Figure 11 – Application Response Trend

Combined Network Latency and Application Server Response

Figure 12 shows the hourly trend of the Network Response (NRT) and Application Server

Response Time (ART) for the last 24 hours, contrasted to the average network response and

application server response times as observed for that hour of the day for the previous 30 days.

Figure 12 – Network Response and Application Response Trend


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Assessment Conclusions Of the 72 total desktops analysed as part of this assessment, it was found that 57 of them (79%)

could be virtualised with extreme confidence, based on the user activity and usage

characteristics. 6 were found to be possible candidates, but would need to further investigation

to determine if the accompanying usage characteristics would make them a good fit. Finally, 2

candidates were found to be poor candidates, primarily due to high CPU utilization, a by-product

of a specific line-of-business application that consumes CPU and memory at an extraordinary

rate.

All finance users currently have dedicated systems, so virtual desktop mappings will maintain a

1:1 ratio. The Call Centre consists of 23 unique users, operating 18 systems. The Call Centre

operates on two shifts, so not all 23 unique users are operating at the same time. Additional

cost savings can be realised by leveraging a VDI environment as only 12-14 unique virtual

desktops are required at one time for the Call Centre users.

Planning – how do we get there, what are the next steps, who do we start with? (department)

Business Group Virtualisation Feasibility

Finance Users 100%

Call Centre 100%

Information Technology (IT) 65%

Other Users 84%

Overall Client is well suited to a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment. There were no

critical impediments observed during this assessment. There were certain observations made

during the assessment that should be addressed as requirements or prerequisites to a VDI

deployment.


24

Next Steps

Based on this assessment, Client is well-positioned to begin funding and planning an enterprise

virtual desktop infrastructure. The key to a successful implementation is preparation and

planning. Service Provider recommends the following course of action:

1. Review the Conclusions and Requirements section of this assessment report, as there

are some changes recommended in advance or as a prerequisite of implementing a

virtual desktop infrastructure in a production environment.

2. Using the data contained in this document, plan and execute a formal VDI Pilot. A VDI

Pilot will enable IT to accurately size and test a virtual desktop infrastructure

deployment and to ensure acceptance by the user community.