EMC END-USER COMPUTING case .....6 We value your feedback!.....7 Chapter 2 Introduction 8 Solution overview.....9 ... 6 EMC End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere

SOLUTION GUIDE

EMC END-USER COMPUTING Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere 6.0 with VCE VxRail Appliance Scalable, proven virtual desktop solution from EMC and Citrix

Simplifies deployment and management Hyper-converged infrastructure appliance Validated performance minimizes risk

EMC Solutions

Abstract

This solution guide describes the detailed architecture and testing results of an End-User Computing solution for Citrix XenDesktop and VMware vSphere powered by the VCE VxRail™ 160 Appliance.

October 2016

Copyright

2 EMC End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere 6.0 with VCE VxRail Appliance Solution Guide

Copyright © 2016 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.

Published October 2016

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

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

EMC2, EMC, VNX, VCE, VxRail, CloudArray, EMC RecoverPoint, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

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

EMC End-User Computing: Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere 6.0 with VCE VxRail Appliance Solution Guide

Part Number H15433

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Contents

3 EMC End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere 6.0 with VCE VxRail Appliance

Solution Guide

Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 5

Document purpose ..................................................................................................... 6

Audience .................................................................................................................... 6

Business case ............................................................................................................ 6

We value your feedback!............................................................................................. 7

Chapter 2 Introduction 8

Solution overview ....................................................................................................... 9

VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure ........................................................................ 9

Logical architecture .................................................................................................. 11

Chapter 3 Configuration of VDI Components 18

Overview .................................................................................................................. 19

Networking ............................................................................................................... 19

VxRail Appliance ....................................................................................................... 21

Infrastructure components ....................................................................................... 23

Chapter 4 Testing, Results, and Summary 32

Overview .................................................................................................................. 33

Testing and monitoring tools .................................................................................... 33

Test environment ...................................................................................................... 34

Configuration ........................................................................................................... 36

Test scenarios .......................................................................................................... 36

Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices 51

Overview .................................................................................................................. 52

Configuration best practices ..................................................................................... 52

Network design considerations ................................................................................ 56

High availability and failover .................................................................................... 58

Chapter 6 Sizing the Solution 60

Overview .................................................................................................................. 61

Collect the requirements .......................................................................................... 61

Size the appliance .................................................................................................... 62

Chapter 7 References 64

EMC Documentation ................................................................................................. 65

Contents


Other documentation ............................................................................................... 65

Chapter 1: Executive Summary


Solution Guide

Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Document purpose ..................................................................................................... 6

Audience .................................................................................................................... 6

Business case ............................................................................................................ 6

We value your feedback! ............................................................................................ 7



Document purpose

This document describes the architecture of the EMC® End-User Computing (EUC) solution, which is enabled by the VCE™ VxRail™ Appliance, Citrix XenDesktop 7.9, and VMware vSphere 6.0. It also describes how the VxRail Appliance can simplify and optimize your EUC deployment.

This solution provides the customer with a modern system capable of hosting many virtual desktops at a consistent performance level. This EUC solution for Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 runs on a VMware vSphere 6.0 virtualization layer powered by the VxRail Appliance, which provides compute, networking, and storage capabilities.

We validated this EUC solution’s ability to scale to thousands of virtual desktops by combining multiple VxRail Appliances. We tested a matrix of provisioning methods and persistency types, to prove the validity of a broad range of deployment options. These validated configurations are based on a reference desktop workload and form the basis for creating cost-effective custom solutions for individual customers.

This solution guide describes how to design such a solution according to best practices using Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 for VMware vSphere enabled by VxRail.

Audience

This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel, qualified EMC partners, and customer EUC architects. The guide assumes that partners and customers who intend to deploy this EUC solution for VxRail have the necessary training and background to install and configure an EUC solution based on Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 with VMware vSphere 6.0, VxRail, Virtual SAN, and associated infrastructure.

Readers should also be familiar with the infrastructure, networking, and security policies of any existing customer environment.

This guide provides external references where applicable. EMC recommends that partners and customers implementing this solution are familiar with these documents. For additional details, refer to Chapter 7.

Business case

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

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



Solution Guide

In addition to performance, a virtual desktop solution must be simple to deploy, manage, and scale, with substantial cost savings over physical desktops. Storage is also a critical component of an effective virtual desktop architecture. EMC solutions are designed to help address the most serious IT challenges by creating solutions that are simple, efficient, flexible, and take advantage of the many features that VxRail offers.

The business benefits of this VxRail solution for Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 include:

The only hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) jointly engineered with VMware, which ensures optimal hardware design for vSphere 6.0 features and use-cases

The highest performing HCI with over 85 percent of compute resources available for user workloads at all times, with data service enabled

An end-to-end virtualization solution that efficiently uses the capabilities of the unified infrastructure components

Efficient virtualization for varied customer virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) workloads, scaling to thousands of virtual desktops for mixed customer use cases

Reliable, flexible, and scalable reference architectures

We value your feedback!

EMC and the authors of this document welcome your feedback on this solution and the solution documentation. Contact [email protected] with your comments.

Authors: David Hu, David Hartman, Fiona O’Neill

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Feedback:%20EMC%20End%20User%20Computing%20Citrix%20XenDesktop%207.9%20and%20VMware%20vSphere%206.0%20with%20VCE%20VxRail%20Appliance%20Solution%20Guide%20:%20H15433

Chapter 2: Introduction


Chapter 2 Introduction


Solution overview ...................................................................................................... 9

VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure ....................................................................... 9

Logical architecture ................................................................................................. 11



Solution Guide

Solution overview

The EMC VxRail end-user computing for Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 solution provides a complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 360 Windows 7 (Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) or Machine Creation Services1 (MCS)), or 310 Windows 10 (MCS Random) virtual desktops per EMC VxRail 160 Appliance.

Figure 1 shows the high-level architecture of the validated solution.

Figure 1. Architecture of the validated solution

This solution uses EMC VxRail HCI Appliance to provide the storage and virtualization platform for a Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 environment of Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 10 virtual desktops provisioned by PVS or MCS.

The desktop virtualization infrastructure components of the solution are provided by deploying them on the VxRail Appliance. Alternatively, existing infrastructure services at the customer site can be used.

VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure

The VxRail Appliance, jointly developed by EMC and VMware, is the only HCI appliance on the market that is fully integrated, pre-configured, and tested with VMware hyper-converged software. It provides the easiest and fastest way to extend your Citrix and VMware environment. Scale-out is easy—you simply add a new appliance to join an existing VxRail Appliance cluster.

1 Citrix official support of MCS on VMware Virtual SAN is expected in a future release of XenDesktop. EMC tested this configuration and found no observable issues.



EMC VxRail redefines simplicity by delivering virtualization, compute, storage, and protection in an agile, scalable, easy-to-manage hyper-converged infrastructure appliance. Available as a single, all-inclusive product for easy ordering, VxRail accelerates time-to value by enabling customers to go from power-on to virtual machine creation within 15 minutes.

Designed for simplicity of installation, management, patching and upgrades, VxRail provides a linear scaling capability that grows or contracts based on business needs. A single point of hardware and software support by EMC provides customers with 24x7 support and repair service at their fingertips. VxRail offers midmarket enterprise customers the fastest, lowest-risk path to the private/hybrid cloud. The VxRail approach is ideal for virtualized environments, general purpose IT applications (for example, e-mail and SharePoint), VDI, ROBO, test/dev and departmental workloads in midmarket and enterprise environments that are growing rapidly.

Select from a broad set of configuration options at a variety of price and scale points, including all-flash options that feature enterprise-class data efficiency services, including deduplication, compression2, and erasure coding, which enhance performance and offer greater effective capacity. Refer to Figure 2.

Figure 2. VxRail all-flash and hybrid configurations

The VxRail Appliance automatically discovers and non-disruptively adds each appliance and rebalances resources and workloads across the cluster, creating a single resource pool.

The VxRail Appliance enables power-on to virtual machine creation in minutes, radically easy deployment, one-click non-disruptive patches and upgrades, and simplified management.

VxRail Appliances also seamlessly extend to more than 20 public clouds, including vCloud Air, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure, to securely expand storage capacity without limits, providing an additional 10 TB of on-demand cloud storage per appliance. You can also add more cloud-storage capacity as needed.

2 Deduplication and compression features become available in version 3.5.



Solution Guide

VxRail Appliances expand the EMC Converged Infrastructure (CI) portfolio of blocks, racks, and appliances to deliver a unique, comprehensive, converged, and hyper-converged solution from the data center core to the edge. VxRail is backed by a single point of contact which includes 24/7 support for both hardware and software on the appliance.

There are four models of the hybrid VxRail Appliance, as described in Table 1. Additional models also include all-flash array (AFA) configurations. This solution has been deployed and tested on the VxRail 160.

Table 1. VxRail per node hardware details by model (hybrid)

VxRail 60 VxRail 120 VxRail 160 VxRail 200

CPU Intel® Xeon® E5-2603 v3 1.6 GHz

Dual Intel Xeon E5-2620 v3 2.4 GHz



Memory 64 GB 128 GB, 192 GB or 256 GB

256 GB or 512 GB 256 GB or 512 GB

Network 4 Port 1 GbE Dual Port 10 GbE Dual Port 10 GbE Dual Port 10 GbE

Maximum Desktop Number

MCS PvD Windows 7 – 72




PVS PvD Windows 7 – 72








MCS Random Windows 10 – 62








PVS Random Windows 10 – 58




Logical architecture

Planning and designing the storage infrastructure for a Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 environment is critical because the shared storage must absorb large bursts of I/O that occur throughout the day. These bursts can lead to periods of erratic and unpredictable virtual desktop performance. Users often find these experiences frustrating, and the result is usually reduced efficiency and lagging adoption.

To provide predictable performance for end-user computing solutions, the storage system must be able to handle the peak I/O load from the clients while keeping response time to a minimum. The EMC VxRail solution uses VMware Virtual SAN storage technology to take advantage of the servers’ local disks to build a storage system with high performance and scalability to handle peak I/O load such as boot storms, login storms, and virus scans.



Figure 3 shows the logical architecture of the solution.

Figure 3. Logical architecture

Note: The infrastructure virtual servers for the solution, as shown in Figure 3, are running on the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure. However, if existing infrastructure services at the customer site are available, they may also be used.

Desktop virtualization encapsulates and hosts desktop services on centralized computing resources in a data center. This enables end users to connect to their virtual desktops from different types of devices across a network connection. Devices can include desktops, laptops, thin clients, zero clients, smartphones, and tablets.

In this solution, EMC used Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 to provision, manage, broker, and monitor the desktop virtualization environment.

VMware vSphere 6

VMware vSphere 6 provides a common virtualization layer to host the infrastructure server and virtual desktop environment. It provides high availability in the virtualization layer with vSphere features such as VMware High Availability (HA) clusters, VMware vMotion, and Storage vMotion.

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6

For this solution, all vSphere hosts and their virtual machines are managed through a vCenter Server Appliance that is preloaded with the VxRail software.

Citrix XenDesktop 7.9

Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 is the desktop virtualization solution from Citrix that enables virtual desktops to run on the vSphere virtualization environment. Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 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, and on any device.

Figure 4 shows the XenDesktop 7.9 architecture components.

VDI platform software



Solution Guide

Figure 4. XenDesktop 7.9 architecture components

The XenDesktop 7.9 architecture includes the following components:

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

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

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

Citrix Studio—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.

Delivery Controller—Installed on servers in the data center, Delivery Controller consists of services that communicate with the hypervisor to distribute applications and desktops, authenticate and manage user access, and broker connections between users and their virtual desktops and applications. Delivery Controller manages the state of the desktops, starting and stopping them based on demand and administrative configuration. In some editions, the controller enables you to install profile management to manage user personalization settings in virtualized or physical Windows environments.



License Server—Assigns user or device licenses to the XenDesktop environment. License server can be installed along with other Citrix XenDesktop components or on a separate virtual/physical machine.

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

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

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

Remote PC Access—Enables users to access resources on their office PCs remotely, from any device running Citrix Receiver.

Citrix Provisioning Services

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

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

Machine Creation Services

Machine Creation Services (MCS) is a provisioning mechanism that is integrated with the XenDesktop management interface, Citrix Studio, to provision, manage, and decommission desktops throughout the desktop lifecycle from a centralized point of management.

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

Desktops provisioned using MCS share a common base image within a catalog. Because of this, the base image typically is accessed with sufficient frequency to use the VMware Virtual SAN cache, where frequently accessed data is promoted to flash drives to provide optimal I/O response time with fewer physical disks.



Solution Guide

Citrix Personal vDisk

The Citrix Personal vDisk feature enables users to preserve customization settings and user-installed applications in a pooled desktop by redirecting the changes from the user’s pooled virtual machine to a separate Personal vDisk. During runtime, the content of the Personal vDisk is blended with the content from the base virtual machine to provide a unified experience to the end user. The Personal vDisk data is preserved during reboot and refresh operations.

Citrix Profile Management

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

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

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

In addition to the specific features used in this solution, VxRail includes other items that increase the value of the platform.

Table 2. Features and benefits of EMC VxRail

Feature Benefits

EMC VxRail Manager and Market

VxRail Manager seamlessly integrates and extends the VxRail appliance management experience.

VxRail Manager provides the following:

Access to EMC support, online chat, and customer forum/knowledge base

Tight integration with VMware Log Insight for health/event monitoring as well as hardware, application, and virtual machine alerts

VxRail Market provides:

Access to VxRail qualified software

Maintenance and upgrades for automated patches and software updates

Field service assistance, remote access via EMC Secure Remote Services (ESRS) and FRU/CRU replacement

Other features



Feature Benefits

EMC CloudArray®

EMC CloudArray technology provides virtually unlimited cloud storage

CloudArray is used for NAS storage (file services), capacity expansion and archive and offsite backup target and snapshots

A 1 TB license is included at no cost, which includes EMC Support

Works with public and private cloud infrastructures

Cloud storage limits expensive upgrade-cycles, reduces management cost, and easily resizes to business requirements

On-site dynamic disk cache eliminates latency and maintains local performance

The CloudArray native API presents cloud storage as familiar SAN or NAS

Multi-layer encryption and local key management guards against unauthorized access

Sophisticated bandwidth optimization and data reduction technology minimize network Impact

EMC RecoverPoint® for Virtual Machines

Protects at virtual machine-level granularity with RPO less than 15 minutes

Built on proven RecoverPoint technology

Delivered free for up to 15 virtual machines

Provides continuous data protection

WAN efficiency

Built-in Orchestration and Automation

VMware vCenter integration

Local and remote replication—Sync or Async

Disaster recovery to any point in time—Replicate data to and from remote/branch office locations

Operational recovery to any point in time—Protects customers against outages caused by human errors, data corruption, and virus attacks

Technology refresh—Replicates data for tech refresh, edge data center moves, and cluster expansion

Data migration—Multi-layer encryption and local key management guards against unauthorized access

EMC Secure Remote Services (ESRS)

Heartbeat ensures continuous monitoring, notification, and remote troubleshooting resulting in a 15 percent higher level of availability

Fast remote diagnostics and repair of potential problems before impact to business, resulting in 5x faster event resolution

Around the clock monitoring and notification of EMC Customer Service in the event of a problem

Proactive and predictive customer service



Solution Guide

Feature Benefits

EMC Global Support

One-call support with a single point of accountability

Includes seamless hardware and VMware software support

Simplifies and streamlines the resolution of customer support issues

Incorporates EMC Secure Remote Services (ESRS)

Proven EMC Server Technology

Product reliability and support experience consistent with EMC customer expectations

EMC engineering has taken the risk out of adopting cutting edge technology

All-in-one appliance that is simple and easy to deploy, maintain, protect, and upgrade

Uptime ensured through the high availability Virtual SAN and VxRail engine

vSphere Data Protection—Advanced

Rapid recovery and simple management through a familiar vSphere Web Client integration

Reliably protect virtual machines and business critical applications

Multi-layer encryption and local key management guards against unauthorized access

Single production site can replicate to multiple remote sites; multiple branch offices can replicate to a central site

Backup targets may be local or central

90 percent reduction in backup window; 30 percent faster recoveries

Minimizes storage and network bandwidth consumption with compression and encrypted replication to lower backup infrastructure costs

Scale—Capable of backing up 200 virtual machines per appliance; stores up to 8 TB of deduplicated data and up to 20 virtual appliances per vCenter Server

Deduplication reduces storage consumption by up to 75 percent

Chapter 3: Configuration of VDI Components


Chapter 3 Configuration of VDI Components


Overview .................................................................................................................. 19

Networking .............................................................................................................. 19

VxRail Appliance ...................................................................................................... 21

Infrastructure components ....................................................................................... 23



Solution Guide

Overview

This chapter describes how to configure the VDI components of this end-user computing solution. If you already have an existing infrastructure services environment, you can skip the sections that are not applicable to your environment.

Table 3 lists the main stages in the solution implementation process, with links to the relevant sections in the chapter.

Table 3. Implementation process overview

Stage Description Reference

1 Configure the switches and network, and connect to the customer network.

Networking

2 Install and configure the VxRail appliance. VxRail

3 Install and configure infrastructure components and provision virtual desktops

Infrastructure components

Note: The infrastructure services and virtual desktops both reside on the first appliance. Subsequent appliances can be configured to support virtual desktops only.

Networking

This section describes the requirements for preparing the network infrastructure required to support this solution. Table 4 summarizes the tasks to be completed, with references for further information.

Table 4. Tasks for switch and network configuration

Task Description Reference

Configure the infrastructure network

Configure the vSphere host infrastructure networking.

Configuring the infrastructure network

Configure the VLANs Configure private and public VLANs as required.

Configuring the VLANs

Vendor’s switch configuration guide

Complete the network cabling

Connect the switch interconnect ports, and vSphere server ports.

Completing the network cabling

The infrastructure network requires redundant network links for each vSphere host and the switch interconnect and switch uplink ports. This configuration provides both redundancy and additional network bandwidth.

This configuration is required regardless of whether the network infrastructure for the solution already exists or is being deployed with other components of the solution.

Configuring the infrastructure network



Figure 5 shows a sample redundant Ethernet infrastructure for this solution. It illustrates the use of redundant switches and links to ensure that no single point of failure exists in network connectivity.

Figure 5. Sample Ethernet network architecture

In this solution, we used two 10 GbE networks for client access, Virtual SAN, Management, and vMotion networks.

Ensure that there are adequate switch ports for the storage array and vSphere hosts. EMC recommends that you configure the vSphere hosts with a minimum of four VLANs:

VM network—Virtual machine networking

Virtual SAN network—Virtual SAN data networking

Management network—vSphere management

vMotion network—VMware vMotion

Ensure that all solution servers, switch interconnects, and switch uplinks have redundant connections and are plugged into separate switching infrastructures. Ensure that there is a complete connection to the existing customer network.


Completing the network cabling



Solution Guide

VxRail Appliance

This section describes how to configure the VxRail Appliance. Table 5 shows the tasks for the VxRail Appliance configuration.

Table 5. Tasks for VxRail Appliance configuration


Preparing and installing VxRail

Install the VxRail Appliance hardware according to the product documents.

VCE VxRail Appliance 3.0 Product Guide

Configuring VxRail Appliance for the first time

Configure the network information for all the components in the VxRail Appliance.

Licensing VxRail Activate the license of the VxRail Appliance.

There are no specific setup steps for this solution. For instructions on assembling, racking, cabling, and powering the VxRail Appliance, refer to the VCE VxRail Appliance 3.0 Product Guide.

When you power on the VxRail Appliance for the first time, you must configure the appliance, start the appliance build, and initialize VxRail Manager.

To configure the VxRail Appliance, a workstation or laptop with a web browser is required, and this should be able to access the default VxRail Manager IP address: 192.168.10.200.

To configure the VxRail Appliance for the first time, complete the following steps:

1. Open the browser and enter the default VxRail Manager web address:

https://192.168.10.200/

2. On the VxRail Manager Welcome screen, click GET STARTED.

3. Ensure the following checklist has been completed:

The switch has been set up

The management VLAN has been set up

4. Click NEXT.

5. Select one of the following options to configure VxRail:

Step-by-step—Use our step-by-step interface to enter your configuration options.

Configuration file—Upload a JSON-formatted configuration file that you created.

In this solution, we used the step-by-step option for the configuration.

Preparing and installing VxRail Appliance

Configuring VxRail Appliance for the first time

https://192.168.10.200/



6. In the Management tab, configure the vCenter Server and ESXi host naming scheme, IP addresses for the ESXi host, vCenter Server Appliance, and VxRail Manager.

7. In the vMotion and Virtual SAN tabs, configure the IP addresses and VLAN IDs for vMotion and Virtual SAN.

8. In the VM Networks tab, configure the network name and VLAN ID for the virtual machine network.

9. In the Solutions tab, configure the IP addresses for the vRealize Log Insight and VCE virtual machines.

10. Click Validate in the Validation tab to validate the required configuration information entered. VxRail must first run a pre-check to validate the current network configuration.

11. Click BUILD VXRAIL after you pass the validation step, and VxRail Manager software starts to build the VxRail Appliance with the configuration you entered. Figure 6 shows the progress of building the VxRail Appliance.

Figure 6. Building the VxRail Appliance

12. Click Manage VxRail after VxRail is set up and ready to use.

To activate the license of the VxRail Appliance, follow these steps:

1. Locate the partner activation code (PAC).

2. Log in to the activation portal and redeem your PAC to receive your license keys.

3. Activate the standard license or vSphere Loyalty Program (VLP) license for the VxRail Appliance.

Refer to the VCE VxRail Appliance 3.0 Product Guide for more details.

Licensing VxRail Appliance



Solution Guide

Infrastructure components

Table 6 describes the tasks for setting up and configuring a Microsoft SQL Server database for the solution. When the tasks are complete, SQL Server is set up on a virtual machine, with all of the databases required by Citrix XenDesktop, and Citrix Provisioning Services. The recommended values for CPU and memory are listed in Table 6.

Table 6. Tasks for SQL Server database setup


Create a virtual machine for SQL Server

Create a virtual machine to host SQL Server on the Virtual SAN datastore.

Verify that the virtual server meets the hardware and software requirements.

vSphere Virtual Machine Administration

Install Microsoft Windows on the virtual machine

Install Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition on the virtual machine.

Install and Deploy Windows Server 2012 R2

Install SQL Server Install SQL Server 2012 on the virtual machine.

SQL Server Installation (SQL Server 2012)

Configure the database for Citrix XenDesktop

Create the databases required for Citrix XenDesktop.

XenDesktop Product Documentation

The EMC CloudArray Physical Appliance and Virtual Machine Installation Guide includes step-by-step instructions for initial configuration of the appliance. After the appliances are functioning, use the CloudArray Administration Guide to configure two CIFS shares, one to store user profiles and the other for home directories. If you choose to use the “fully cached” strategy, ensure that the size of the CloudArray cache is greater than or equal to the aggregate size of the two CIFS volumes using the cache.

Both CIFS shares can be backed by a private cloud or a public cloud. If you choose Network File System (NFS) as the cloud provider, ensure that the root level of the export is read-writeable, using the following command:

chmod 777 permission

Otherwise, you will see the “Unable to configure cloud provider” error message. Alternatively, you could define a provisioning policy using local storage only without a cloud provider, but using such a policy would lose all benefits that a cloud provider brings and would restrict the CloudArray’s capability to function as a traditional NAS server.

Table 7 describes the tasks for installing and configuring the CloudArray virtual appliance.

Installing and configuring the SQL Server database

Setting up CloudArray virtual appliance for user data (optional)

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60-virtual-machine-admin-guide.pdf


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831620.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831620.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143219(v=sql.110).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143219(v=sql.110).aspx

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-9/technical-overview/databases.html




Table 7. Tasks for CloudArray setup


Deploy a CloudArray virtual appliance

Import the OVF file and set up the initial configuration of the appliance.

EMC CloudArray Physical Appliance and Virtual Machine Installation Guide

Configure CIFS shares on the CloudArray virtual appliance

Create two shares: one to store user profiles and one for home directories.

EMC CloudArray Administration Guide

For more information about the CloudArray installation and administrator guides, refer to the latest version available from the EMC CloudArray portal at https://www.cloudarray.com/. You must create an account to access the CloudArray portal.

Note: EMC recommends that you put the OS volume for the CloudArray virtual machine on the VxRail appliance. The recommended values for CPU and memory are 2 vCPUs and at least 4 GB.

This section provides information on how to set up and configure XenDesktop Delivery Controllers for the solution. For a new installation of XenDesktop, Citrix recommends that you complete the tasks in Table 8 in the order shown.

Table 8. Tasks for XenDesktop controller setup


Creating virtual machines for XenDesktop Delivery Controllers

Create two virtual machines in vSphere Client. These virtual machines are used as XenDesktop Delivery Controllers.


Installing the guest operating system for the XenDesktop Delivery Controllers

Install the Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2012 guest operating system on the virtual machines.

Installing the XenDesktop server-side components

Install the required XenDesktop server components on the first Delivery Controller.

XenDesktop Product Documentation Installing Citrix

Studio Install Citrix Studio to manage XenDesktop deployment remotely.

Configuring a site

Configure a site in Citrix Studio.

Installing and configuring XenDesktop Delivery Controllers

https://www.cloudarray.com/login/showLogin.action







Solution Guide


Adding a second XenDesktop Delivery Controller

Install an additional Delivery Controller for high availability.

Preparing a master virtual machine

Create a master virtual machine as the base image for the virtual desktops.

Provisioning the virtual desktops

Provision the virtual desktops using MCS.

Installing the server-side components of XenDesktop

Install the following XenDesktop server-side components on the first Delivery Controller:

Delivery Controller—Distributes applications and desktops, manages user access, and optimizes connections

Citrix Studio—Creates, configures, and manages infrastructure components, applications, and desktops

Citrix Director—Monitors performance and troubleshoots problems

License server—Manages product licenses

Citrix StoreFront—Provides authentication and resource delivery services for Citrix Receiver

Note: Citrix supports installation of XenDesktop components only through the procedures described in Citrix documentation.

Configuring a site

Start Citrix Studio and configure a site as follows:

1. License the site and specify which edition of XenDesktop to use.

2. Set up the site database using a designated login credential for SQL Server.

3. Provide information about your virtual infrastructure, including the vCenter SDK path that the controller will use to establish a connection to the VMware infrastructure.

Adding a second controller

After you have configured a site, you can add a second Delivery Controller to provide high availability. The XenDesktop server-side components required for the second controller are:

Delivery Controller

Citrix Studio

Citrix Director



Citrix StoreFront

Do not install the license-server component on the second controller because it is centrally managed on the first controller.

Installing Citrix Studio

Install Citrix Studio on the appropriate administrator consoles to manage your XenDesktop deployment remotely.

Preparing the master virtual machine

To prepare the master virtual machine, complete the following steps:

1. Install the Windows 10 guest OS.

2. Install the appropriate integration tools such as VMware Tools.

3. Optimize the OS settings to prevent unnecessary background services from generating non-essential I/O operations that adversely affect the overall performance of the storage array. Refer to the following white paper for details: Optimizing Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktops.

4. Install the Virtual Delivery Agent.

5. Install the third-party tools or applications, such as Microsoft Office, relevant to your environment.


To deploy MCS-based virtual desktops, complete the following steps in Citrix Studio:

1. Create a machine catalog using the master virtual machine as the base image.

MCS allows the creation of a machine catalog that contains various types of desktops. We tested the following desktop types for this solution:

Windows Desktop OS:

Random—Users connect to a new (random) desktop each time they log on.

PvD—Users connect to the same (static) desktop each time they log on. Changes are saved on a separate PvD.

Windows Server OS—Provides hosted shared desktops for deployment of standardized machines

2. Add the machines created in the catalog to a delivery group so that the virtual desktops are available to the end users.

This section provides information about how to set up and configure Citrix PVS for the solution. This is not required for a Citrix MCS-only implementation.

For a new installation of PVS, Citrix recommends that you complete the tasks in Table 9 in the order shown.

Installing and configuring Citrix Provisioning Services

http://www.emc.com/collateral/white-papers/h14854-optimizing-windows-virtual-desktops-deploys.pdf



Solution Guide

Table 9. Tasks for XenDesktop controller setup (PVS)


Creating virtual machines for PVS servers

Create two virtual machines in vSphere Client. These virtual machines are used as PVS servers.


Installing the guest operating system for the PVS servers

Install the Windows Server 2012 R2 guest operating system for the PVS servers.

Installing the PVS server-side components

Install the PVS server components and console on the PVS server.

XenDesktop Product Documentation

Configuring a PVS server farm

Run the Provisioning Services Configuration Wizard to create a PVS server farm.

Adding a second PVS server

Install the PVS server components and console on the second server and join it to the existing server farm.

Creating a PVS store

Specify the store path where the vDisks will reside.

Configuring inbound communication

Adjust the total number of threads to be used to communicate with each virtual desktop accordingly.

Configuring a bootstrap file

Update the bootstrap image to use both PVS servers to provide streaming services.

Configuring boot options 66 and 67 on the DHCP server

Specify the TFTP server IP and the name of the bootstrap image used for the Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE) boot. These options specify the boot server host name and the boot file name respectively.




Provision the virtual desktops using PVS.

Configuring a PVS server farm

After the PVS server components are installed on the PVS server, start the Provisioning Services Configuration Wizard and configure a new server farm using the following steps:

1. Specify the DHCP service to be run on another computer.

2. Specify the PXE service to be run on this computer.

3. Select Create farm to create a new PVS server farm using a designated SQL Server database instance.









4. When creating a new server farm, you need to create a site. Provide an appropriate name for the new site and target device collection.

5. Select the license server that is running on the XenDesktop controller.

6. Select Use the Provisioning Services TFTP service.

Adding a second PVS server

After you have configured a PVS server farm, you can add a second PVS server to provide high availability. Install the PVS server components and console on the second PVS server and run the Provisioning Services Configuration Wizard to join the second server to the existing server farm.

Creating a PVS store

A PVS store is a logical container for vDisks. When deploying PVS servers on datastores located on VxRail, the PVS stores should be configured using virtual hard disks assigned to each PVS server.

Configuring inbound communication

Each PVS server maintains a range of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to manage all inbound communications from virtual desktops. Ideally, there should be one thread dedicated to each desktop session. The total number of threads supported by a PVS server is calculated as:

Total threads = (Number of UDP ports * Threads per port * Number

of network adapters)

Adjust the thread count accordingly to match the number of deployed virtual desktops.

Configuring a bootstrap file

To update the bootstrap file required for the virtual desktops to PXE boot, complete the following steps:

1. In the Provisioning Services console, select Farm > Sites > Site-name > Servers.

2. Right-click a server and select Configure Bootstrap.

The Configure Bootstrap dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 7.



Solution Guide

Figure 7. Configure Bootstrap dialog box

3. Update the bootstrap image to reflect the IP addresses used for all PVS servers that provide streaming services in a round-robin fashion. Click Read Servers from Database to obtain a list of PVS servers automatically or click Add to manually add the server information.

4. After modifying the configuration, click OK to update the ARDBP32.BIN bootstrap file, which is located at C:\ProgramData\Citrix\Provisioning Services\Tftpboot.

5. Navigate to the folder and examine the timestamp of the bootstrap file to ensure that it is updated on the intended PVS server.

Configuring boot options 66 and 67 on DHCP server

To PXE boot the virtual desktops successfully from the bootstrap image supplied by the PVS servers, set the boot options 66 and 67 on the Microsoft DHCP server.

To configure the boot options on the DHCP server, complete the following steps:

1. From the DHCP management interface of the DHCP server, right-click Scope Options and select Configure Options.

2. Select 066 Boot Server Host Name. In String value, type the IP address of the PVS server configured as the TFTP server.

3. Select 067 Bootfile Name. In String value, type ARDBP32.BIN.

The ARDBP32.BIN bootstrap image is loaded on a virtual desktop before the vDisk image is streamed from the PVS servers.




2. Install appropriate integration tools such as VMware Tools.



3. Optimize the OS settings to prevent unnecessary background services from generating nonessential I/O operations that may adversely affect the overall performance of the storage system. Refer to the following White Paper for details: Optimizing Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktops.



6. Install the PVS target device software on the master virtual machine.

7. Modify the BIOS of the master virtual machine so that the network adapter is at the top of the boot order to ensure PXE boot of the PVS bootstrap image.


To deploy the PVS-based virtual desktops, complete the following steps:

1. Run the PVS imaging wizard to clone the master image on to a vDisk.

2. When the cloning is complete, shut down the master virtual machine and modify the following vDisk properties:

Access mode—Standard Image

Cache type—Cache on device hard drive

3. Prepare a virtual machine template to be used by the XenDesktop Setup Wizard in the next step.

4. Run the XenDesktop Setup Wizard in the PVS console to create a machine catalog that contains the specified number of virtual desktops.

5. Add the virtual desktops created in the catalog to a delivery group so that the virtual desktops are available to the end users.

This section provides information about how to implement Citrix MCS for the solution.

For a new installation of MCS, Citrix recommends that you complete the tasks in Table 10 in the order shown.

Table 10. Tasks for XenDesktop controller setup






Provision the virtual desktops using MCS. XenDesktop Product Documentation




2. Install appropriate integration tools such as VMware Tools.

Installing and configuring Machine Creation Services










Solution Guide

3. Optimize the OS settings to prevent unnecessary background services from generating nonessential I/O operations that may adversely affect the overall performance of the storage system. Refer to the following White Paper for details: Optimizing Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktops.



6. Shut down the master virtual machine and take a snapshot.


To deploy the MCS-based virtual desktops, complete the following steps:

1. Create a new machine catalog in XenDesktop Delivery Controller.

2. In the machine catalog creation wizard, select Citrix Machine Creation Services (MCS) as the machine type.

3. Select the snapshot from Master Image to create number of virtual desktops.


Chapter 4: Testing, Results, and Summary


Chapter 4 Testing, Results, and Summary


Overview .................................................................................................................. 33

Testing and monitoring tools ................................................................................... 33

Test environment ..................................................................................................... 34

Configuration ........................................................................................................... 36

Test scenarios .......................................................................................................... 36



Solution Guide

Overview

This chapter outlines the test results obtained for this solution. While this solution is intended to provide results that are applicable to real-world environments, the results presented are from benchmark testing and, as performance benchmark results, must be considered within that context.

Note: Benchmark results are highly dependent on workload, specific application requirements, and system design and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these, and other, factors. Therefore, this workload should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmark when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated. All performance data contained in this paper was obtained in a rigorously controlled environment. Results obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. EMC Corporation does not warrant or represent that a user can or will achieve similar performance.

Testing and monitoring tools

Login VSI provides proactive performance management solutions for virtualized desktop and server environments. Enterprise IT departments use Login VSI products in all phases of their virtual desktop deployment—from planning to deployment to change management—for more predictable performance, higher availability, and a more consistent end user experience. The world's leading virtualization vendors use the flagship product, Login VSI, to benchmark performance. With minimal configuration, Login VSI products work in VMware Horizon View, Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services), and any other Windows-based virtual desktop solution.

For more information, visit www.loginvsi.com.

VxRail Manager provides a software stack for software-defined data center (SDDC) building blocks, including compute, storage, and management. VxRail Manager streamlines deployment, configuration, and management for easier initial setup and ongoing operations.

VxRail Manager now provides comprehensive hardware management and monitoring for all individual appliances and nodes, and other services including cloud tiering, backup, and data protection.

The VMware vRealize Log Insight virtual server is deployed by the VxRail Manager software bundle during the initial system setup phase. vRealize Log Insight delivers automated log management with system analytics, aggregation, and search capabilities. It can analyze log events from any VxRail component that supports syslog forwarding. You can filter the logs using a constraint. Refer to www.vmware.com for more information.

Login VSI 4

VxRail Manager

VMware vRealize Log Insight

http://www.loginvsi.com/

http://www.vmware.com/



Test environment

The test environment was based on Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 with EMC VxRail 160 Appliance. Desktops were hosted on the VMware Virtual SAN with user data and profiles on EMC CloudArray. All the infrastructure virtual servers and virtual desktops were running on the VxRail hyper-converged appliance.

User load was applied to the desktops via Login VSI, a tool for standardized VDI performance and capacity testing. The “knowledge worker” profile was utilized, which specifies two vCPUs per virtual desktop, simulated typical workday tasks such as web browsing, video viewing, email, and document manipulation with Microsoft Office 2013 and other tools. Test pass/fail was determined by whether or not the storage system used could successfully handle the storage demands placed on it without reaching a latency limit called VSImax.

We validated both 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 7 virtual desktops with different provisioning methods. Table 11 describes the hardware components on which the test environment was built.

Table 11. Solution hardware components

Component Description Quantity per node

Total

Appliance model VxRail 160 1 4 nodes in one appliance

Processor(s) Intel Xeon CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40 GHz 2 8 CPU sockets

8 cores per socket

64 cores

Memory 256 GB 1,024 GB

Disk(s) HGST 1.2 TB SAS disks 5 20

Hitachi 800 GB SSD 1 4

Network adapter Intel Corporation 82599 10 Gigabit dual-port network connection

1 4

Table 12 lists the software used to validate the solution.

Table 12. Solution software

Software Description Version

VxRail VxRail software 3.0.0

VMware ESXi server VMware vSphere 6.0.0 build-3380124

VMware vCenter server vCenter Server Appliance

6.0.0 build-3339084

Desktop broker XenDesktop 7.9



Solution Guide

Software Description Version

Virtual desktops OS Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit)

Windows 7 Enterprise (64-bit)

VMware Tools 10.0.3 build-3000743

Microsoft Office Office Professional Plus 2013 with Service Pack 1

Internet Explorer 11

Adobe Reader 11

Adobe Flash Player 11

Doro PDF Printer 1.82

Login VSI (EUC workload generator)

4.1.5 Professional Edition

Table 13 provides the test profile used to validate the solution.

Table 13. Test profile

Profile characteristic Value

Virtual desktop OS and number of virtual desktops (PVS)

Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit) PVS PvD–290

Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit) PVS Random–290

Windows 7 Enterprise (64-bit) PVS PvD–360

Virtual desktop OS and number of virtual desktops (MCS)

Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit) MCS PvD–280

Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit) MCS Random–310

Windows 7 Enterprise (64-bit) MCS PvD–360

CPU per virtual desktop 2 vCPU

Number of virtual desktops per CPU core

Windows 10 – 5 (as tested)

Windows 7 – 6 (as tested)

RAM per virtual desktop 2 GB

Average storage available for each PVS or MCS random desktop

6 GB

Average storage available for each PVS or MCS static (PvD) desktop

16 GB

Average storage used in the virtual desktop master image (used by Windows and applications)

16 GB

Average IOPS per virtual desktop at a steady state

Windows 10 PVS PvD – 13

Windows 10 PVS Random – 9.5



Profile characteristic Value

Windows 7 MCS PvD – 11


Windows 10 MCS Random – 16.5


Number of data stores used to store virtual desktops

1

Workload generator Login VSI 4.1.5

Workload type Knowledge Worker

Configuration

We configured the environment as follows:

The VxRail Appliance was configured by the VxRail Manager, including:

VMware vCenter Server Appliance, VMware vRealize Log Insight server, and VxRail Manager Extension server deployed and configured

Virtual SAN configured and a Virtual SAN datastore created

vSphere cluster with all the ESXi hosts in the VxRail appliance created, HA and DRS enabled

A vSphere Distributed Switch created and configured

Windows 10 or Windows 7 desktops were provisioned via Citrix XenDesktop PVS or MCS, placing the operating-system virtual disks on the Virtual SAN and user data and profiles on CloudArray Common Internet File System (CIFS) shares.

Infrastructure services (Domain Controller, SQL Server, Citrix XenDesktop Delivery Controllers, License Server, CloudArray, and so on) were configured on virtual machines hosted by the VxRail Appliance.

Test scenarios

A number of tools were used in the validation testing.

Login VSI

Login VSI is a virtual desktop benchmarking tool that simulates real-world workloads applied by Microsoft Office 2013 SP1 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook), web browsing, video viewing, and so on. The tool can apply a variety of workloads tailored to VDI configuration and user productivity, and determines the maximum system capacity based on measured response time to the various tasks. The performance

Test tools



Solution Guide

limit, VSImax, denotes the maximum number of desktops supported by the infrastructure.

The primary Login VSI test objective was to demonstrate the ability of VxRail system to comfortably support the target number of Windows 7 or Windows 10 virtual desktops deployed via Citrix XenDesktop 7.9.

Test success was determined by running the Login VSI knowledge worker workload on the desktops without reaching the VSImax threshold.

Boot storm

The boot storm test was conducted by selecting all the desktops in Citrix Studio, and then clicking Start. We monitored the desktop status in Citrix Studio console. The time period started when the Start action started from Citrix Studio and ended when the last desktop was shown as being available in the Citrix Studio Console.

Virus scan storm

This test was conducted by scheduling a full scan of all desktops using a custom script to initiate an on-demand scan using McAfee VirusScan 8.7i. The full scan was started on all the desktops.

The time period started when the custom script started to run from the Windows command line and ended when the scanning was completed on the last virtual desktop.

Test results

The primary test objective was to find out how many MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops one VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test was run several times with increasing numbers of virtual desktops deployed for each iteration. When VSImax was not reached, we increased the virtual desktop number until the Login VSI test failed so that we could obtain the maximum number of virtual desktops the VxRail Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test results showed that a VxRail 160 Appliance can support up to 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops.

As shown in Figure 8, VSImax was not reached at 280 Windows 10 desktops, which validates that a VxRail 160 Appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops and delivering an excellent end-user experience. Login VSI uses scripting and automation tools to simulate the actions of end users, and on occasion, some of the test sessions fail to complete for reasons unrelated to infrastructure performance, due to Login VSI software limitations.

MCS PVD Windows 10 validation



Figure 8. VSImax–280 MCS PvD Windows 10 desktops

In this test, all 280 users were logged in to the virtual desktops in 2,880 seconds. This is referred to as a login storm in our test. After a user logs in, the “knowledge worker” workload starts executing immediately in the virtual desktop, and this phase is referred to as steady state. After executing for 1,800 seconds, Login VSI starts to log off all the sessions after a test segment is completed.

Figure 9 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each state of the testing. The average CPU utilization was nearly 90 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail 160 Appliance with 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops.

Figure 9. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—280 MCS PvD Windows 10 desktops

Figure 10 shows the read and write latency of the VSAN disk layer in one ESXi host. The latency was less than 2 milliseconds during each state of the test.



Solution Guide

Figure 10. Virtual SAN disk latency during Login VSI test—280 MCS PvD Windows 10 desktops

Summary The Login VSI test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops performing a nearly simultaneous login operation. Scenarios of this type have several mitigating factors in real-world environments, but this serves as a reasonable worst-case scenario to ensure that real-world results are more favorable than those realized in the laboratory.

Boot storm

Test results This test demonstrated the ability of the VxRail 160 Appliance to service a boot storm when 280 virtual desktops were powered on simultaneously.

It took 7 minutes and 29 seconds for all the 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops to be shown as Registered in the Citrix Studio Console after clicking Start in the same console.

Figure 11 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host during the boot storm. As Maximum new actions per minute was set to 50 in the Citrix Studio Console, the CPU resources increased smoothly, and then the utilization went down after all desktops started up.



Figure 11. CPU utilization during boot storm—280 MCS PvD Windows 10 desktops

Summary The boot storm test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops performing nearly simultaneous boot operations. The boot storm period is approximately 7 minutes, which is considered good for a production environment. The Maximum new actions per minute was set to 50 to ensure that all desktops will be registered after starting up.. Although the host CPU utilization is high during the boot storm, it decreases immediately after the desktops start up.

Virus scan storm

Results This test demonstrated the ability of the VxRail 160 Appliance to service a virus scan storm when executing a virus scan on 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops simultaneously.

It took approximately 80 minutes to complete the virus scan on all 280 virtual desktops.

Figure 12 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host during the virus scan storm. The CPU resources were exhausted when executing scanning on all the virtual desktops, however the utilization went down after the scanning was completed.



Solution Guide

Figure 12. CPU utilization during virus scan storm—280 MCS PvD Windows 10 desktops

Summary The virus scan storm test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when performing a nearly simultaneous virus scan operation of 280 Windows 10 virtual desktops. The virus storm period was approximately 80 minutes, which is acceptable in a production environment.

Login VSI

Test results The primary test objective was to find out how many MCS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops one VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test results showed that a VxRail 160 Appliance could support up to 310 MCS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops.

As shown in Figure 13, VSImax was not reached at 310 Windows 10 desktops, which validates that a VxRail 160 Appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops and delivering an excellent end-user experience.

MCS Random Windows 10 validation



Figure 13. VSImax–310 MCS Random Windows 10 desktops

In this test, all 310 users were logged in to the virtual desktops in 2,880 seconds. This is referred to as a login storm in our test. After a user login, the knowledge worker workload starts executing immediately in the virtual desktop, and this phase is referred to as steady state. After executing for 1,800 seconds, Login VSI starts to log off all the sessions after a test segment is completed.

Figure 14 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each state of the testing. The average CPU utilization was nearly 90 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail 160 Appliance with 310 MCS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops.

Figure 14. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—310 MCS Random Windows 10 desktops

Figure 15 shows the read and write latency of the Virtual SAN disk layer. The latency was less than 2 milliseconds during each state of the test.



Solution Guide

Figure 15. Virtual SAN Disk latency during Login VSI test—310 MCS Random Windows 10 desktops

Summary The Login VSI test demonstrates that the VxRail Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 310 MCS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops performing nearly simultaneous login operations.

Login VSI

Test results The primary test objective was to find out how many MCS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops that a VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test results showed that a VxRail 160 Appliance could support up to 360 MCS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops.

As shown in Figure 16, VSImax was not reached with 360 Windows 7 desktops, which validates that a VxRail 160 Appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops while delivering an excellent end-user experience.

Figure 16. VSImax–360 MCS PvD Windows 7 desktops


MCS PvD Windows 7 validation



Figure 17 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each phase of the testing. The average CPU utilization was approximately 85 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail 160 Appliance with 360 MCS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops.

Figure 17. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—360 MCS PvD Windows 7 desktops

Figure 18 shows the read and write latency of the Virtual SAN disk layer. The latency was less than 2 milliseconds during each phase of the test.

Figure 18. Virtual SAN Disk latency during Login VSI test—360 MCS PVD Windows 7 desktops

Summary The Login VSI test demonstrates that the VxRail appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 360 MCS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops and performing nearly simultaneous login operations.



Solution Guide

Login VSI

Test results The primary test objective was to find out how many PVS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops one VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

Test success was determined by running the Login VSI knowledge worker workload on the desktops without reaching the VSImax threshold.

As shown in Figure 19, VSImax was not reached with 290 Windows 10 desktops, which validates that a VxRail 160 Appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops and delivering an excellent end-user experience.

Figure 19. VSImax–290 PVS PVD Windows 10 desktops


Figure 20 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each phase of the testing. The average CPU utilization was nearly 80 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail 160 Appliance with 290 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops.

PVS PvD Windows 10 validation



Figure 20. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—290 PVS PvD Windows 10 desktops

Figure 21 shows the read and write latency of the Virtual SAN disk layer on one ESXi host. The latency is less than 2 milliseconds during each phase of the test.

Figure 21. Virtual SAN Disk latency during Login VSI test—290 PVS PVD Windows 10 desktops

Summary This Login VSI test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 290 PVS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops performing nearly simultaneous login operations.

Boot storm

Test results This test demonstrated the ability of the VxRail 160 Appliance to service a boot storm when 290 virtual desktops were powered on simultaneously.

It took 6 minutes and 42 seconds for all the 290 PVS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops to be shown as Registered in Citrix Studio Console after clicking Start in the same console.

Figure 22 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host during the boot storm. As Maximum new actions per minute was set to 50 in the Citrix Studio Console, the



Solution Guide

CPU resources increased smoothly to approximately 90 percent, then the utilization declined once all desktops started up.

Figure 22. CPU utilization during boot storm—290 PVS PVD Windows 10 desktops

Summary The boot storm test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 290 PVS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops performing nearly simultaneous boot operations. The boot storm period was about 7 minutes, and Maximum new actions per minute was set to 50 to ensure every desktop successfully registered after starting up.

Login VSI

Test results The primary test objective was to find out how many PVS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops one VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test results showed that a VxRail 160 Appliance could support up to 290 PVS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops.

As shown in Figure 23, VSImax was not reached at 290 Windows 10 desktops, which validates that a VxRail 160 Appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops and delivering an excellent end-user experience.

PVS Random Windows 10 validation



Figure 23. VSImax–290 PVS Random Windows 10 desktops

In this test, all 290 users were logged in to the virtual desktops in 2,880 seconds.

Figure 24 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each phase of the testing. The average CPU utilization was nearly 95 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail appliance with 290 PVS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops.

Figure 24. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—290 PVS Random Windows 10 desktops

Figure 25 shows the read and write latency of the Virtual SAN disk layer. The latency is less than 2 milliseconds during each phase of the test.



Solution Guide

Figure 25. Virtual SAN Disk latency during Login VSI test

Summary This Login VSI test demonstrates that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 290 PVS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops and performing nearly simultaneous login operations.

Login VSI

Test results The primary test objective was to find out how many PVS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops one VxRail 160 Appliance can support.

The Login VSI test results showed that a VxRail 160 Appliance could support up to 360 PVS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops.

As shown in Figure 26, VSImax was not reached at 360 Windows 7 desktops, which validates that a VxRail appliance is capable of hosting that number of desktops and delivering an excellent end-user experience.

Figure 26. VSImax–360 PVS PVD Windows 7 desktops

In this test, all 360 users were logged in to the virtual desktops in 2,880 seconds.

Figure 27 shows the physical CPU utilization of one ESXi host in each phase of the testing. The average CPU utilization was around 85 percent during the steady state, and we almost exhausted the CPU resources of the VxRail 160 Appliance with 360 MCS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops.

PVS PvD Windows 7 validation



Figure 27. ESXi host CPU utilization during Login VSI test—360 PVS PVD Windows 7 desktops

Figure 28 shows the read and write latency of the Virtual SAN Disk layer. The latency is less than 2 milliseconds during each phase of the test.

Figure 28. Virtual SAN Disk latency during Login VSI test—360 PVS PVD Windows 7 desktops

Summary These Login VSI tests demonstrate that the VxRail 160 Appliance is well within operational thresholds when hosting 360 PVS PvD Windows 7 virtual desktops all performing nearly simultaneous login operations.

Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices


Solution Guide

Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices


Overview .................................................................................................................. 52

Configuration best practices .................................................................................... 52

Network design considerations ................................................................................ 56

High availability and failover ................................................................................... 58



Overview

This chapter describes best practices and considerations for designing the VxRail EUC solution. For more information on deployment best practices of various components of the solution, refer to the vendor-specific documentation.

Configuration best practices

A VxRail Appliance consists of four independent nodes, and there are multiple configurations options available within each of the four hybrid model types. This solution was validated with the VxRail 160 Appliance.

As a hyper-converged infrastructure appliance, a VxRail 160 Appliance contains sufficient hardware resources to host the specified number of virtual desktops:

360 Windows 7 (MCS or PVS)

290 Windows 10 PVS virtual desktops

280 Windows 10 MCS PvD virtual desktops

310 Windows 10 MCS Random virtual desktops

It can also host the infrastructure virtual servers used to provision and manage the VDI environment, as shown in the logical architecture in Figure 3.

Table 14 summarizes the component specifications that were validated on the VxRail 160 Appliance to support 280 Windows 10 MCS PvD virtual desktops in this solution. These are recommended values and may be adjusted according to the customers’ specific needs.

Table 14. Infrastructure virtual machines and resource consumption on the VxRail 160 Appliance

Virtual machine Quantity vCPU Memory (GB) Disk capacity (GB)

Active Directory controller

1 4 8 100

SQL Server 1 2 6 60

XenDesktop Delivery Controller Servers

2 2 8 40

PVS servers 2 4 8 100

vCenter Server appliance

1 4 10 165

vRealize Log Insight 1 4 8 133



Solution Guide

Virtual machine Quantity vCPU Memory (GB) Disk capacity (GB)

VxRail Manager 1 2 4 32

VxRail Manager Extension3

1 2 4 80

CloudArray 1 2 8 3,500

Virtual desktops 280 2 2 16

Note: The infrastructure virtual server configurations are the same for MCS or PVS Windows 7 and Windows 10 virtual desktops. The only difference is that the MCS virtual desktops do not need the PVS servers.

This section explains how these server hardware resources support the virtual desktops, how to expand the environment if needed, and how VxRail provides support for business continuity.

Overview

In a VxRail 160, each node has the following core hardware components:

Dual Intel Xeon E5-2630 v3 eight-core CPUs

256 GB of memory

Dual ports 10 GbE NICs

Five SAS 10K RPM 1.2 TB HDD for the VMware Virtual SAN data store

One 800 GB MLC enterprise-grade SSD for Virtual SAN read/write cache

Most VxRail models can be configured with additional memory and/or larger disk drives if additional capacity is desired. Refer to VCE VxRail Appliance Product Overview for additional details on the hardware configuration of each model of the VxRail Appliance family.

CPU

With 64 physical CPU cores in total, this solution supports up to 360 Windows 7 or 310 Windows 10 virtual desktops and all the infrastructure servers running on the VxRail 160 Appliance. The profile characteristics shown in Table 13 assume that all the virtual desktops are configured with two virtual CPUs. If the user requires more virtual CPUs of the virtual desktop, modify the proposed virtual desktop count to account for the additional resources.

For example, if you run Windows 10 on a VxRail appliance and 40 users require four CPUs and the other users require two CPUs, then these 40 virtual desktops consume the same CPU resources as the 80 virtual desktops we defined in Table 13, and the proposed maximum virtual desktop count should be 270.

3 In VxRail v3.5, this component is merged with VxRail Manager.

Hardware resources

http://www.emc.com/collateral/vxrail-spec-sheet.pdf

http://www.emc.com/collateral/vxrail-spec-sheet.pdf



Memory

Memory is a critical component of any virtual system. Proper sizing and configuration of the solution requires care when configuring virtual machine memory. This section provides guidelines for allocating memory to virtual machines and considers vSphere overhead and the virtual machine memory settings.

vSphere memory overhead Some memory overhead is associated with virtualizing memory resources. This overhead has three components:

VMkernel system overhead—Fixed size for the VMkernel memory overhead.

Virtual machine overhead—The amount of additional memory for each virtual machine depends on the number of virtual CPUs and the amount of memory that is configured for the guest operating system (OS). Refer to the vSphere Resource Management Guide for more details.

Virtual SAN overhead—The Virtual SAN memory overhead is dependent on the number of disks in the disk group, disk type, and the number of nodes in the cluster. Refer to the VMware document Virtual SAN Design and Sizing – Memory overhead explained for more details.

Allocating memory to virtual machines Server capacity is required for two purposes in the solution:

To support the required infrastructure services such as authentication and authorization, DNS, database, vCenter server, Citrix PVS, and VxRail management servers.

To support the virtualized desktop infrastructure. In this solution, each virtual desktop is assigned 2 GB of memory, as defined in Table 13. The solution was validated with statically assigned memory and no over-commitment of memory resources. If memory over-commitment is used in a real-world environment, regularly monitor the system memory utilization and associated page file I/O activity to ensure that a memory shortfall does not cause unexpected results.

Storage IOPS

The storage performance requirements for desktops are usually the least understood aspect of performance. The reference virtual desktop uses a workload that is generated by an industry-recognized tool to run a wide variety of applications that should be representative of the majority of virtual desktop implementations.

This VxRail solution uses VMware Virtual SAN storage technology to take advantage of the servers’ local SSD and SAS disks to build a storage system with high performance and scalability. This storage system is designed to handle peak I/O load in the end-user computing environment, keeping response time to a minimum.

Storage capacity

The storage capacity requirement for a desktop can vary widely depending on the type of provisioning, the types of applications in use, and specific customer policies.

A single VxRail 160 appliance provides 21.61 TB usable capacity with twenty SAS 10K RPM 1.2 TB HDD in total. If the user requires more disk capacity for the virtual

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60-resource-management-guide.pdf




Solution Guide

desktops, modify the proposed virtual desktop count to account for the additional resources, or configure the VxRail appliance with higher capacity drives.

The user profile data and user documents are redirected to the CIFS share provided by EMC CloudArray, which is also running on the Virtual SAN datastore provided by VxRail. This configuration utilizes an optional component that can be also be met by using existing file shares in the users’ environment. In this solution, we allocated 60 GB capacity for each user.

The infrastructure virtual servers are also running on the VxRail hyper-converged infrastructure and share the same Virtual SAN datastore capacity with the virtual desktops and user data.

Figure 29 shows an example of the capacity usage for each component in this solution when running 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops on a VxRail 160 Appliance.

Figure 29. Capacity usage of 280 MCS PvD Windows desktops on VxRail 160

Figure 30 shows an example of the capacity usage for each component in this solution when running 310 MCS Random Windows 10 virtual desktops on a VxRail 160 Appliance.



Figure 30. Capacity usage of 310 MCS Random Windows desktops on VxRail 160

Network design considerations

This VxRail solution comprises sufficient network resources and provides general guidance on network architecture while allowing the customer to choose any network switching that meets the requirements.

For reference purposes in the validated environment, EMC assumes that each virtual desktop generates 23 IOPS per second with an average size of 4 KB. This means that each virtual desktop generates at least 94 KB/s of traffic on the storage network. For a single VxRail 160 Appliance environment running 280 MCS PvD Windows 10 virtual desktops, this means a minimum of approximately 26 MB/sec, which is well within the bounds of the dual 10 GbE network adapters on each node. However, this does not consider other operations. For example, additional bandwidth is needed for:

Virtual desktop migration

Administrative and management operations

Virtual SAN rebuild or rebalance operations

The requirements for each of these operations depend on how the environment is used. It is not practical to provide concrete numbers in this context. However, the networks configuration implemented for this solution should be more than sufficient to handle average workloads for these operations.



Solution Guide

Regardless of the network traffic requirements, always have at least two physical network connections that are shared by a logical network to ensure that a single link failure does not affect the availability of the system. The network should be designed so that if a failure occurs, the aggregate bandwidth is sufficient to accommodate the full workload.

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

VLANs segregate network traffic to enable traffic of different types to move over isolated networks. Sometimes, physical isolation may be required for regulatory or policy compliance reasons; often, logical isolation using VLANs is sufficient.

Figure 31 provides an example of a VLAN configuration for a VxRail appliance.

Figure 31. Example VLAN configuration

This solution calls for a minimum of four VLANs:

Client access

Virtual SAN

Management

vMotion

The client access network is for users of the system to communicate with the infrastructure. The storage network is used for communication between the compute layer and the storage layer. The management network provides administrators with dedicated access to the management connections on the VxRail and network switches. The vMotion network is used for vMotion traffic.

Network redundancy

Traffic isolation




In this solution, we used two 10 GbE physical networks for transporting client access, Virtual SAN, management, and the vMotion network traffic via VLANs. These VLANs are configured during the VxRail initial setup.

High availability and failover

Because of the scale-out multi-node architecture of VxRail, EMC recommends considering the possibility of the loss of a system node. VxRail is designed to keep copies of data on multiple nodes to protect against just such an occurrence. Any node loss impacts the virtual machines running on that node, but you must ensure that it does not affect the other users of the VxRail environment.

At the virtualization layer, the hypervisor is configured to automatically restart virtual machines that fail. Figure 32 illustrates the hypervisor layer responding to a host/node failure in the virtualization layer. To ensure that service levels are maintained, plan the compute resources with some reserve capacity to handle services if a failure occurs. The exact level of reserve depends on your availability requirements.

Figure 32. High availability virtualization layer

By implementing high availability at the virtualization layer, the infrastructure will try to keep as many desktops running as possible, even in the event of a hardware failure.

While the server hardware is contained in the VxRail appliance, you should still plan for high availability and use the capabilities of the platform. The appliance has redundant power supplies, as shown in Figure 33. You should connect these to separate Power Distribution Units (PDUs) in accordance with published best practices.

Overview

Virtualization layer

Compute layer



Solution Guide

Figure 33. Redundant power supply connections to separate PDUs

The VxRail storage system is designed for high availability by using erasure coding (RAID 5 and RAID 6). Each chunk of data has a redundant copy that is created by VMware Virtual SAN, and the copy of the chunk is never stored on the same physical node as the original to avoid exposure during a single physical node failure. The whole VxRail system can continue operating if a single physical drive or node fails. After a disk or node fails, Virtual SAN starts the rebuild process automatically. The data chunk on the failed disk or node is copied to the remaining disks or nodes. When the rebuild is complete, all data is restored to the original two-copy mirror state.

Storage layer

Chapter 6: Sizing the Solution


Chapter 6 Sizing the Solution


Overview .................................................................................................................. 61

Collect the requirements .......................................................................................... 61

Size the appliance .................................................................................................... 62



Solution Guide

Overview

This chapter describes how to size the VxRail EUC solution with XenDesktop 7.9, starting from one VxRail Appliance with hundreds of users up to sixteen appliances with thousands of users.

To simplify the sizing effort, this solution follows the steps listed in Table 15.

Table 15. Sizing steps

Step Action

1 Collect the detailed customer requirements for the end-user computing environment.

2 Use the EMC Business Value Portal Sizing Tool4 to determine the recommended sizing for your EUC solution.

Collect the requirements

Sizing a VDI deployment is usually a complex task, especially if various workloads are used, such as environments that require resources to support Office Worker and Knowledge Worker desktops, or a completely custom workload. It is likely that there will be different desktop profiles required for a production environment. It is always beneficial to collect as much workload information as the customer can provide. Ideally, collect the information shown in Table 16.

Table 16. Virtual desktop requirements

Characteristic Value

Max number of virtual desktops running concurrently (%)

Desktop OS type (for example, Windows 7 x64)

Virtual processors per virtual desktop (for example, 2)

RAM per virtual desktop (for example, 2 GB)

Peak IOPS per virtual desktop (for example, 23)

Average read I/O size (for example, 4k)

Average write I/O size (for example, 32k)

Provisioning type (for example, MCS PvD)

Collecting this information from the customer makes sizing easier and more accurate. The VxRail Sizing Tool located on the EMC Business Value Portal can use this information to calculate the correct VxRail configuration needed.

4 Note that access to this tool must be requested and approved.

https://mainstayadvisor.com/Signin.aspx?t=EMC




Size the appliance

This section demonstrates VxRail sizing and scale-up capabilities. We use the VxRail 160 and the Windows 10 user profile listed in Table 13 as the example.

Use the EMC Business Value Portal Sizing Tool to determine which model of VxRail to choose and how many appliances are needed.

The initial VxRail 160 appliance can support up to 310 MCS Random Windows 10 desktops with all four nodes fully utilized and all infrastructure virtual servers operating within the appliance. Additional VxRail 160 appliances can support 330 MCS Random Windows 10 desktops. The infrastructure components consume the resources of 20 reference virtual desktops.

The provisioning type affects the maximum number of supported desktops on the first, and subsequent, VxRail 160 Appliances, as shown in Table 17.

Table 17. Number of Windows 10 desktops for VxRail 160 appliances

Provisioning type No. of Windows 10 desktops for the first VxRail 160 appliance

No. of Windows 10 desktops for additional VxRail 160 appliances

MCS Random 310 330

PVS PVD 290 310

PVS Random 290 310

You should consider your availability requirements. A fully utilized VxRail appliance offers minimal resources for vMotion, and no tolerance for node failure. If high availability requirements are necessary, consider reserving approximately 12.5 percent of each appliance’s resources for sparing. As your VxRail cluster scales, consider revisiting the amount of reserve capacity to ensure it supports your requirements. Best practices are to have one appliance serve as a hot spare for every eight appliances. Thus at maximum scale of 16 appliances, two are reserved for hot spares.

Using this approach for MCS Random Windows 10 x64 desktops using the Login VSI Knowledge Worker profile, we can then determine sizing as listed in Table 18.

VxRail 160 profile

High availability sizing




Solution Guide

Table 18. VxRail 160 Appliance EUC Sizing with validated Login VSI Knowledge Worker profile—MCS Random Windows 10 desktops

No. of VxRail 160 appliances

No. of nodes No. of active

nodes No. of standby

nodes No. of desktops

supported

15 4 3 1 232

26 8 7 1 562

3 12 10 2 810

4 16 14 2 1,140

5 20 17 3 1,385

6 24 21 3 1,715

7 28 25 3 2,045

8 32 28 4 2,290

9 36 32 4 2,620

10 40 35 5 2,8657

11 44 39 5 3,195

12 48 42 6 3,440

13 52 46 6 3,770

14 56 49 7 4,015

15 60 53 7 4,345

16 64 56 8 4.590

While each customer may have different availability requirements, the sizing data in Table 18 can be used as a model to manually size a VxRail 160 environment. The same logic applies to Windows 7 desktops, simply increasing the number of supported desktops by 80 per appliance.

5 This appliance will host all of the infrastructure services for the entire cluster.

6 EMC recommends creating additional CloudArray virtual machines for each additional appliance added to the cluster.

7 VMware recommends creating another vCenter instance for more than 2,000 desktops.

Chapter 7: References


Chapter 7 References


EMC Documentation ................................................................................................. 65

Other documentation ............................................................................................... 65

Chapter 7: References


Solution Guide

EMC Documentation

The following documents, located on EMC Online Support and VCE Online Support 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.

EMC End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere 6.0 with VCE VxRail Appliance Reference Architecture

VxRail Appliance 3.0 Product Guide

VCE VxRail Network Guide

EMC CloudArray Physical Appliance and Virtual Machine Installation Guide

EMC CloudArray Administrator Guide

EMC CloudArray Best Practices

Optimizing Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktops

Other documentation

The following documents, available on the VMware website, provide additional and relevant information:

VMware vSphere Networking

VMware vSphere Virtual Machine Administration

VMware vCenter Server and Host Management

vSphere Resource Management Guide

The following documents, available on the Microsoft TechNet website, provide additional and relevant information:

Installing Windows Server 2012 R2

SQL Server Installation (SQL Server 2012)

Additional documentation for Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 is on the Citrix XenDesktop Documentation website.

https://support.emc.com/

http://www.vce.com/support


http://www.vmware.com/

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60-networking-guide.pdf


https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60-host-management-guide.pdf


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831620(v=ws.11).aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500395(v=sql.110).aspx

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-9.html

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-9.html

EMC END-USER COMPUTING case .....6 We value your feedback!.....7 Chapter 2 Introduction 8 Solution overview.....9 ... 6 EMC End-User Computing Citrix XenDesktop 7.9 and VMware vSphere

Documents