Dell EMC Ready Solutions for VDI · 2021. 1. 13. · Chapter 2: Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices ... This challenge is mainly because typical VDI infrastructure

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for VDIDesigns for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on

VxBlock System 1000Validation Guide

Abstract

This validation guide describes the architecture and performance of the integration ofCitrix Virtual Apps and Desktops components for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) andhosted shared desktops on Dell EMC VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure.

Dell EMC Solutions

Part Number: H17872.1January 2021

Notes, cautions, and warnings

NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product.

CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid

the problem.

WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death.

© 2019 —2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................. 4Executive summary............................................................................................................................................................. 4Document purpose.............................................................................................................................................................. 4Audience................................................................................................................................................................................ 5We value your feedback.....................................................................................................................................................5

Chapter 2: Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices.................................................... 6Validated hardware resources.......................................................................................................................................... 6Validated software resources........................................................................................................................................... 8Validated system version matrix...................................................................................................................................... 8Virtual networking configuration......................................................................................................................................8Management server infrastructure................................................................................................................................. 8

SQL Server databases.................................................................................................................................................. 9DNS................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

High availability.....................................................................................................................................................................9Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops architecture............................................................................................................10

Chapter 3: Solution Performance and Testing.............................................................................. 11Testing process................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Resource monitoring.................................................................................................................................................... 11Load generation............................................................................................................................................................ 12Profiles and workloads................................................................................................................................................ 12Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Creation Services...........................................................................13Virtual Desktop Profile................................................................................................................................................ 13

Login VSI test results and analysis................................................................................................................................ 14Login VSI Test Results Summary............................................................................................................................. 14Knowledge worker, 124 users per host, ESXi 6.7, Citrix XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR ........................................15

Chapter 4: Conclusion..................................................................................................................21Density recommendations................................................................................................................................................21Summary.............................................................................................................................................................................. 21

Chapter 5: References................................................................................................................ 22Dell EMC documentation.................................................................................................................................................22VMware documentation.................................................................................................................................................. 22Citrix resources..................................................................................................................................................................22

Contents

Contents 3

IntroductionThis chapter presents the following topics:

Topics:

• Executive summary• Document purpose• Audience• We value your feedback

Executive summary

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) plays a crucial role in today's business transformation initiatives. VDI is the most efficientway to present Microsoft Windows applications to end users in their digital workspaces and provides a consistent userexperience across user devices for the modern-day mobile workforce. Organizations increasingly rely on VDI to provide theagile, secure, and centrally managed desktops that are so important for their workforce.

It can be challenging for organizations to set up VDI infrastructure. This challenge is mainly because typical VDI infrastructureinvolves the integration of multiple data center components such as storage, network, and compute. The multivendor profile ofthese components often creates deployment and performance challenges if a system is not optimized for VDI. To consistentlymaintain a multicomponent and multivendor environment with a specialized skill set is often challenging for organizations and theeffort to maintain a stable VDI infrastructure can have a negative impact on total cost of ownership (TCO).

Dell EMC Ready Architectures for VDI based on Dell EMC VxBlock System 1000 is a perfect solution for your high-performingVDI workloads. VxBlock is the proven leader in converged infrastructure, providing enterprises worldwide with the simplicityof a turnkey experience that enables them to focus on innovation rather than maintenance. The VxBlock 1000 combinesindustry-leading technologies—including powerful Dell EMC storage and data protection options, Cisco UCS blade and rackservers, Cisco LAN and SAN networking, and VMware virtualization—into one fully integrated system.

VxBlock 1000 is engineered according to your needs and takes the complexities out of component integration. It simplifiesupgrades and daily operations, comes with converged management, and a simplified path to a cloud operating model—and allwith single-call support. VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure is a future-proof design that ensures your system cansupport next-generation technologies and meet performance, scalability, and simplicity requirements.

Dell EMC recommends VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure to run Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops infrastructure.Citrix provides a complete VDI and virtual application solution to meet all your business needs. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktopsdeliver virtualization solutions that give IT control of virtual machines, applications, and security while providing users withaccess from any device, anywhere. VxBlock 1000 provides a highly scalable and agile platform to run your enterprise levelVDI workloads. You can also run your VDI workloads in a VxBlock System 1000 in combination with high-value applications orworkloads such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and Epic.

At Dell EMC, the Ready Architectures for VDI team tests the VDI solutions to ensure their validity. As part of the testingprocess, engineers tune the system to maximize performance and efficiency, and document best practices. Finally, a separateteam of experts evaluate the test results to ensure that the systems can be properly configured and sized for customers. In thevalidation effort described in this guide, we have used the Login VSI tool, which is an industry standard tool for benchmarkingVDI workloads. We tested the Login VSI workload Knowledge Worker with a desktop virtual machine (VM) profile that wastagged to that workload. This document includes a detailed analysis based on the test results and recommends user densityfigures for this workload that prioritizes the best end-user experience (EUE).

Document purpose

This validation guide details the architecture, components, testing methods, and test results for Dell EMC VxBlock System 1000with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. It includes the test environment configuration and best practices for systems that haveundergone testing.

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4 Introduction

Audience

This guide is intended for architects, developers, and technical administrators of IT environments. It provides an in-depthexplanation of the testing methodology and basis for VDI densities. It also validates the Dell EMC Ready Architectures for VDIsolution that deliver Microsoft Windows virtual desktops to users of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on Dell EMC VxBlockSystem 1000 converged infrastructure.

We value your feedback

Dell EMC and the authors of this document welcome your feedback on the solution and the solution documentation. Contact theDell EMC Solutions team by email or provide your comments by completing our documentation survey.

Authors: Dell EMC Ready Architectures for VDI Team.

NOTE: The following page on the Dell EMC Communities website provides links to additional documentation for VDI Ready

Solutions: VDI Info Hub for Ready Solutions.

Introduction 5

mailto:[email protected]?subject=Feedback:%20Dell%20EMC%20Ready%20Architectures%20for%20VDI:%20Designs%20for%20Citrix%20Virtual%20Apps%20and%20Desktops%20on%20VxBlock%201000%20VG%20(H17872)https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SolutionsSurveyExthttps://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-69231

Test Environment Configuration and BestPractices

This chapter presents the following topics:

Topics:

• Validated hardware resources• Validated software resources• Validated system version matrix• Virtual networking configuration• Management server infrastructure• High availability• Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops architecture

Validated hardware resourcesValidation of the architecture is limited to the specific hardware listed in this section.

Enterprise platforms

We used the Dell EMC VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure for this validation effort. The VxBlock 1000 offers thelatest storage arrays from Dell EMC together with compute and networking equipment from Cisco Systems and the AdvancedManagement Platform (AMP) management infrastructure. The compute layer includes both Cisco UCS B-Series and C-SeriesServers. The storage layer includes multi-array support from Dell EMC VMAX All-Flash, Unity, PowerMax, XtremIO, and Isilonstorage to fulfill both block and file storage needs. The VxBlock 1000 comes with Cisco UCS Gen 3 and Gen 4 LAN and SANnetworking options and can easily be expanded by adding additional compute, network, and storage resources.

The testing completed for this document used a single-node Cisco Rack Mount server, the C240 M5. This server is a 2-socket,2 rack unit (2RU) rack server offering industry-leading performance and expandability. It is well-suited for a wide rangeof enterprise workloads, including virtualization, high-performance applications, Big Data and Analytics. Cisco UCS C-SeriesRack Servers can be deployed as standalone servers or as part of a Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) managedenvironment. Cisco's standards-based unified computing innovations help customers reduce their TCO and increase theirbusiness agility. The server supports GPU configurations that run graphic-intensive workloads.

We called the server configuration for this testing "C7". It is based on Intel's Xeon Scalable Processors (codenamed "Skylake")with 768 GB of RAM. Configuration details are given in the following table:

Table 1. Validated server hardware configurations for a Cisco UCS C240 M5 server

Enterpriseplatform

CPU Memory Storage BIOS HD config Network

Cisco C240M5

2 x Intel XeonGold 6138 (20Core, 2.0 GHZ)

768 GB @2666 MT/s (24x 32 GB DDR4)

Cisco UCSVIC 1457Quad Port10/25GSFP28 CNAMLOM (FibreChannel)

C240M5.4.0.2a.0

2 X 64 GB Cypress mirroredSD cards for host hypervisor


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6 Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices

Network hardware

The following network hardware was used in our test environment:

The Cisco UCS C240 M5 rack mount server is connected to the UCS Fabric Interconnects (FI). The FIs are connectednorthbound to Cisco Nexus switches for outside network connectivity. For storage connectivity, the FIs are connected tofabric switches with ports that also connect to the XtremIO SAN storage. The FIs are managed using Cisco UCS managersoftware. With Cisco UCS manager, administrators can manage a multi-workload environment that includes infrastructure forVDI workloads.

● Two Cisco UCS FI 6454 Fabric Interconnects● Two Cisco Nexus 9336C-FX2 switches for network connectivity● Two Cisco MDS 9148S Multi-layer Fabric Switch for storage connectivity

Storage hardware

The following storage hardware was used in our test environment:

● XtremIO SAN with an X-Brick X2 all-flash storage array provided the storage for the VDI desktops. The storage array hadRAID 1 configuration with a LUN size of 10 TB.

● Two 64 GB mirrored SD cards were used for hypervisor hosting on the Cisco UCS C240 M5 host server.

The XtremIO X2 storage platform is designed to support all modern virtual datacenter objectives. It provides up to 80 percentbetter response times for VDI without compromising efficiency and four to 20 times data reduction using inline deduplication,compression, XtremIO Virtual Copies, and thin provisioning. XtremIO is well suited for mixed workloads, virtualized applicationsand VDI. With multi-dimensional scalability, in-memory metadata, unmatched storage efficiency, rich application integrated copyservices, metadata-aware replication, and unprecedented management simplicity, XtremIO delivers a simple, agile, scalable, fullyvirtualized datacenter while minimizing infrastructure footprint and TCO. With a scale-out design, it is ideal for data reductionand copy-friendly workflows, such as VDI and test and development environments.

Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices 7

Validated software resources

Dell EMC validated this solution with the software components listed in the following table.

Table 2. Validated software component versions

Component Description/version

Hypervisor VMware ESXi 6.7

Broker technology Citrix XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR

Broker database Microsoft SQL Server 2016

Management VM operating system Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Connection Server and DB)

Virtual desktop operating system Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise

Office application suite Microsoft Office Professional 2016

Login VSI test suite Version 4.1.32.1

Platform VxBlock 1000

Validated system version matrix

Validation of the architecture is limited to the specific version matrix listed in the following table.

Table 3. Version matrix for tested system

Serverconfig

NvidiavGPUversion

Hypervisorversion

Hypervisorbuild

Bios VxBlockversion

Windows 10version

Windows 10patches

C7 n/a ESXi 6.7 1032608 C240M5.4.0.2a.0 RCM 6.5.1.1 1803 -17134.523

KB100347

Virtual networking configuration

The network configuration for the testing used two 25 GB ports on the Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1457 that is connectedto the Cisco Fabric Interconnects (FI). All required VLANs traverse through a 25 Gbps VIC from the servers to the FabricInterconnects.

We used the following VLAN configurations for the compute and management hosts in our validation testing:

● Management VLAN: Configured for hypervisor infrastructure traffic—L3 routed via core switch.● VDI VLAN: Configured for VDI session traffic—L3 routed via core switch.

Management server infrastructure

The management server component sizing recommendations for VxBlock 1000 are listed in the following table. All managementinfrastructure VMs were hosted in an AMP-3S, a single system management infrastructure platform used to manage a singleplatform like VDI in a datacenter.

Table 4. Sizing for management server in VxBlock 1000

Component vCPU RAM (GB) NIC Operating system +data vDisk (GB)

VMware vCenter Appliance 4 16 1 250

Citrix XenDesktop Delivery Controller 2 8 1 40


Table 4. Sizing for management server in VxBlock 1000 (continued)

Component vCPU RAM (GB) NIC Operating system +data vDisk (GB)

Storefront web server 2 8 1 60

Citrix License Server 2 8 1 60

SQL Server Standard 2 8 1 40+80

Remote File Server 2 8 1 40+100

SQL Server databases

During validation, a single dedicated SQL Server 2016 VM hosted the VMware databases in the management layer. Weseparated SQL data, logs, and tempdb into their respective volumes, and created a single database for Desktop DeliveryController and License Server.

DNS

DNS is the basis for Microsoft Active Directory and also controls access to various software components for VMware services.All hosts, VMs, and consumable software components must have a presence in DNS. We used a dynamic namespace integratedwith Active Directory and adhered to Microsoft best practices.

High availability

Although we did not enable high availability (HA) during the validation that is documented in this guide, we strongly recommendthat HA be factored into any VDI design and deployment. This process follows the N+1 model with redundancy at boththe hardware and software layers. The design guide for this architecture provides additional recommendations for HA and isavailable at the VDI Info Hub for Ready Solutions.

Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices 9

https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-69231

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops architectureWhen designing the architecture for a successful VDI deployment, understand the underlying network traffic flows, ports, andcomponents. The following figure, which shows the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops communication flow, can be used as astarting reference for understanding the interdependencies of the different components within this infrastructure:

Figure 1. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops architecture

The number of ports and protocols that are required varies depending on the size of the deployment and the externalconnectivity requirements. Undertake careful planning and design to allow these ports and protocols in the corporate networkfirewall policies.


Solution Performance and TestingThis chapter presents the following topics:

Topics:

• Testing process• Login VSI test results and analysis

Testing processTo ensure good EUE and cost-per-user, we conducted our testing on this solution using Login VSI, a load-generation tool thatmonitors both hardware resource utilization parameters and EUE during load-testing.

For each user scenario, we ran the tests four times, once to validate data capture and three times to collect metrics and analyzevariance.

Our EUE validation consisted of logging into a session while the system was under a load created by the Login VSI tool andcompleting tasks from the workload definition. While this test is subjective, it helps to provide a better understanding of theEUE in the desktop sessions, particularly under high load. It also helps to ensure reliable data gathering.

Resource monitoring

To ensure that the user experience was not compromised, we monitored the following important resources:

● Compute host server resources—VMware vCenter (for solutions based on VMware vSphere) or Microsoft PerformanceMonitor (for solutions based on Hyper-V) gather key data (CPU, memory, disk, and network usage) from each of thecompute hosts during each test run. This data was collected for each host and consolidated for reporting. We do not reportany metrics for the management host servers. However, they were monitored manually during testing to ensure that nobottlenecks impacted the test.

● Utilization thresholds—Resource overutilization can cause poor EUE. We monitored the relevant resource utilizationparameters and compared them to relatively conservative thresholds. The thresholds were selected based on industry bestpractices and our experience to provide an optimal trade-off between good EUE and cost-per-user while also allowingsufficient burst capacity for seasonal or intermittent spikes in demand.

The following table shows the pass/fail thresholds that we set for our testing process:

Table 5. Pass/fail thresholds

Parameter Pass/fail threshold

Physical host CPU utilization 85% a

Physical host memory utilization 85%

Network throughput 85%

Storage I/O latency 20 milliseconds (ms)

Login VSI Failed Session 2%

a. The Ready Solutions for VDI team recommends that steady-state average CPU utilization on the host not exceed85 percent in a production environment. Average CPU utilization sometimes exceeded our recommended percentage.Because of the nature of automated testing tools like Login VSI, a 5 percent margin of error was accepted and it doesnot impact our sizing guidance.

3

Solution Performance and Testing 11

Load generation

Login VSI from Login VSI, Inc. is the industry-standard tool for testing VDI environments and RDSH environments.

Login VSI installs a standard collection of desktop application software (including Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat Reader)on each VDI desktop testing instance. It then uses a configurable launcher system to connect a specified number of simulatedusers to available desktops within the environment. When the simulated user is connected, a login script configures the userenvironment and starts a defined workload. Each launcher system can launch connections to several VDI desktops (targetmachines). A centralized management console configures and manages the launchers and the Login VSI environment.

We used the following login and boot conditions:

● For most of our tests, new user sessions were logged in at a steady rate over a one-hour period. During tests of low-densitysolutions such as GPU and graphic-based configurations, users were logged in every 10 seconds.

● All desktops were started before users logged in.● All desktops ran an industry-standard anti-virus solution. Windows 10 machines used Windows Defender.

Profiles and workloads

The combination of virtual desktop profiles and simulated user workloads determines the total number of users (user density)that the VDI solution can support. Specific metrics and capabilities define each virtual desktop profile and user workload.Understand these terms in the context of this document.

Profiles and workloads are defined as follows:

● Profile—The configuration of the virtual desktop: the number of vCPUs and the amount of RAM that is configured on thedesktop and available to the user

● Workload—The set of applications and tasks that are defined to be used by a simulated user in the test

Load-testing on each machine profile is carried out using an appropriate user workload that is representative of the relevant usecase. Typical profiles and their associated workloads are summarized in the following table:

Table 6. Virtual desktop profile to workload mapping

Profile name Workload name

Knowledge worker Login VSI Knowledge worker

Power worker Login VSI Power worker

Graphics multimedia worker Login VSI Multimedia

12 Solution Performance and Testing

Typical Login VSI workloads are summarized in the following table. For additional information, see the Login VSI website.

Table 7. Login VSI workloads

Workload name Workload description

Login VSI KnowledgeWorker

Designed for virtual machines with 2 vCPUs. This workload includes the following activities:● Microsoft Outlook—Browse messages.● Internet Explorer—Browse websites and open a YouTube style video (480p movie trailer) three

times in every loop.● Word—Start one instance to measure response time and another to review and edit a document.● Doro PDF Printer and Acrobat Reader—Print a Word document and export it to PDF.● Excel—Open a large randomized sheet.● PowerPoint—Review and edit a presentation.● FreeMind—Run a Java-based Mind Mapping application.● Other—Perform various copy and zip actions.

Login VSI PowerWorker

The most intensive of the standard Login VSI workloads. The following activities are performed withthis workload:● Begin by opening four instances of Internet Explorer and two instances of Adobe Reader that

remain open throughout the workload.● Perform more PDF printer actions than in the other workloads.● Watch a 720p and a 1080p video.● Reduce the idle time to two minutes.● Perform various copy and zip actions.

Login VSI MultimediaWorker (Graphicsperformanceconfiguration)

A workload that is designed to heavily stress the CPU when using software graphics acceleration.GPU-accelerated computing offloads the most compute-intensive sections of an application to theGPU while the CPU processes the remaining code. This modified workload uses the followingapplications for its GPU/CPU-intensive operations:● Adobe Acrobat● Google Chrome● Google Earth● Microsoft Excel● HTML5 3D spinning balls● Internet Explorer● MP3● Microsoft Outlook● Microsoft PowerPoint● Microsoft Word● Streaming video

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Creation Services

For this validation, we used the Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Creation Services (MCS) linked clones provisioning method.MCS is a collection of services that work together to create virtual desktops from a gold image on demand, optimizing storageutilization, and providing a pristine virtual machine to users each time they log in.

Virtual Desktop Profile

The following table summarizes the configuration of the Knowledge worker profile that we tested.

Table 8. Desktop VM specifications

Profile name Workload name vCPUsa Configuredmemoryb

Reservedmemoryc

Screenresolution

Operating system

KnowledgeWorker

Login VSIKnowledge Worker

2 4 GB 2 GB 1920 x 1080 Windows 10 Enterprise64-bit


https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Login_VSI_Workloads

Table 8. Desktop VM specifications

a. The number of virtual CPUs assigned to the desktop virtual machineb. Memory configured or assigned to the desktop virtual machinec. Amount of memory reserved for the virtual machine. Reserved memory is guaranteed

Login VSI test results and analysis

We used the Login VSI test suite to simulate the user experience for several profile types under the typical workload for thattype. We performed the testing on a single node C240 M5 rack mount server on VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructureusing the C7 host hardware configuration shown in the following table.

Table 9. Configuration details

Serverconfiguration

Enterpriseplatform

CPU Memory Storage BIOS HD config Network

C7 Cisco C240M5

2x Intel XeonGold 6138(20 Core, 2.0GHZ)

768 GB@2666 MT/s(24x32 GBDDR4)


C240M5.4.0.2a

2 X 64 GB Cypressmirrored SD cardsfor host Hypervisor


Login VSI Test Results Summary

Before we look at a detailed analysis of the test results, let us look at a summary of the results as shown in the following table.

Table 10. Login VSI test results summary

Serverconfiguration

Profile name RemoteDisplayProtocol

Workloadname

Userdensity

AverageCPU

Average activememory

AverageIOPS peruser

C7 Knowledgeworker

Thinwire Login VSIKnowledgeworker

124 85.84percent

148 GB 20.93

The table headings are defined as follows:

● Server configuration—The configuration used for this validation effort. See Table 9 for configuration details.● Profile name—The configuration of the virtual desktop, including the number of vCPUs and the amount of RAM that is

configured on the desktop and available to the user.● Workload name—The set of applications and tasks defined to be used by a simulated user. See Table 7 for the details of

workloads tested in this testing.● User density—The number of users per compute host that successfully completed the workload test within the acceptable

resource limits for the host. For clusters, this number reflects the average per server density achieved for all compute hostsin the cluster.

● Average CPU—The average CPU usage over the steady-state period. For clusters, this number represents the combinedaverage CPU usage of all compute hosts. On the latest Intel processors, the ESXi host CPU metrics exceed the rated 100percent for the host if Turbo Boost is enabled (the default setting). An additional 35 percent of CPU is available fromthe Turbo Boost feature, but this additional CPU headroom is not reflected in the VMware vSphere metrics where theperformance data is gathered.

● Average active memory—For ESXi hosts, the amount of memory that is actively used, as estimated by the VM kernel basedon recently accessed memory pages. For clusters, this is the average amount of guest physical memory that is actively usedacross all compute hosts over the steady-state period.

● Average IOPS per user—IOPS calculated from the average disk IOPS over the steady state period divided by the number ofusers.


Knowledge worker, 124 users per host, ESXi 6.7, Citrix XenDesktop7.15 LTSR

The following metrics were collected and analyzed for this test case:

CPU usage

We tested on a single VxBlock compute host that was populated with 124 desktop VMs. The VMs were created from anonpersistent, pooled random, machine catalog using Citrix XenDesktop MCS provisioning technology. We used the Citrix HDXdisplay protocol for the testing.

The following figure shows the performance data for 124 user sessions on the VxBlock compute host when tested with theLogin VSI knowledge worker workload. All VMs were powered on in the boot storm phase. The CPU usage was approximately 6percent before users started to log in. During the login phase, CPU utilization increased steadily until all logins were complete.

During the steady state phase, the CPU utilization reached a steady state average of 85.84 percent on the compute host.This value is close to the pass/fail threshold we set for average CPU utilization—see Table 5. To maintain a good EUE, werecommend not exceeding the threshold limit that we set for CPU utilization. You can load more user sessions while exceedingthis threshold, but may experience a degradation in user experience. CPU utilization was reduced during the log out phase.

Figure 2. CPU utilization on compute node

Memory

As shown in the following figure, consumed memory was recorded at 511 GB before the testing started because of the memoryallocated to the VMs. Consumed memory remained almost constant during user login and the steady state phase. During thesteady state phase, consumed memory reached an average of 511 GB on the compute host. With a total memory of 768 GBavailable on the compute host, memory was not a constraint during the testing.


Figure 3. Consumed memory utilization on compute node

Active memory usage spiked during the boot-storm phase when all VMs were powered on and decreased gradually to 37 GB atthe end of the boot storm phase. Active memory usage increased steadily during the login phase. During the steady state phase,active memory remained almost constant and recorded an average steady active memory of 148 GB. With 768 GB available onthe host, active memory usage was not a concern during the steady state phase and there was enough memory available in theESXi host cluster to meet requirements. No memory ballooning or swapping occurred on any of the hosts during the testingprocess, indicating that there were no memory constraints in the cluster.

Figure 4. Active memory utilization on compute node


Network usage

Network bandwidth was not an issue during testing. Network bandwidth usage steadily increased during the login phase andrecorded a peak of 196 Mbps. The compute host recorded an average network usage of 150 Mbps during the steady stateoperations. The steady state peak value was 189 Mbps. With an available bandwidth of 2 x 25 Gbps on the VIC, networkbandwidth usage was well under the 85 percent threshold set for network throughput.

Figure 5. Network usage on the compute host

IOPS

The following figure shows disk IOPS for the Dell EMC XtremIO storage datastore. Cluster IOPS reached a peak of 54,594during the boot storm phase. The steady state IOPS maximum value was 7,713. Average cluster disk IOPS during the steadystate phase was 2,596. Based on these numbers, the average disk IOPS per session during the steady state phase was 20.93.You can select your disk specifications in accordance with this IOPS figure in your sizing exercise. As shown in the followingfigure, I/O latency during the steady state phase was 0.16 milliseconds. This low latency figure indicates that storage resourceswere not a bottleneck during steady-state operations.


Figure 6. Datastore IOPS utilization

Storage I/O latency

The XtremIO datastore I/O latency reached a peak of 0.66 milliseconds during the boot storm phase. Peak latency recordedduring the steady state phase was 0.2 milliseconds and average cluster latency during the phase was 0.16 milliseconds. Thisvalue is well below the pass/fail threshold of 20 milliseconds set for storage I/O latency. Overall, storage resources did notappear to be a bottleneck during testing.

Figure 7. Latency in XtremIO datastore


Login VSI user experience summary

The baseline score for the Login VSI test was 950. This score falls in the 800–1199 range that is rated as "Good" by the LoginVSI tool. For more information about Login VSI baseline ratings and baseline calculations, see this Login VSImax article. TheLogin VSI test was run for 124 user sessions for the Login VSI knowledge worker workload. As indicated by the dark blue linein the following figure, the system reached a VSImax average score of 1159 when 124 sessions were loaded. This value is wellbelow the VSI threshold score of 1950 set by the Login VSI tool. During the duration of testing, VSImax was never reached,which generally indicates a stable system and a better user experience. See Table 11 for an explanation of the Login VSI metrics.

During testing, we noted that there were no failed sessions, which indicates that the log in and log out process was smooth.When manually interacting with the sessions during the steady state phase, the mouse and window movement was responsive,and video playback was good. Moreover, all of the parameters we monitored were within the pass/fail threshold limit as outlinedin Table 5. This result indicates that there were no resource constraints on the system and system performance was good.

Figure 8. Login VSI Graph Summary

The following table describes the Login VSI metrics.

Table 11. Login VSI metrics

Login VSI metrics Description

VSImax VSImax shows the number of sessions that can be activeon a system before the system is saturated. It is the pointwhere the VSImax V4 average graph line meets the VSImaxV4 threshold graph line. The intersection is indicated by a redX in the Login VSI graph. This number gives you an indicationof the scalability of the environment (higher is better).

VSIbase VSIbase is the best performance of the system during a test(the lowest response times). This number is used to determinewhat the performance threshold will be. VSIbase gives anindication of the base performance of the environment (loweris better).

VSImax v4 average VSImax v4 average is calculated on the number of activeusers that are logged into the system but removes the twohighest and two lowest samples to provide a more accuratemeasurement.

VSImax v4 threshold VSImax v4 threshold indicates at which point theenvironment's saturation point is reached (based on VSIbase).

The following table shows the Login VSI score summary for the Knowledge worker workload.


https://support.loginvsi.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004421905-VSImax-baseline-scores

Table 12. Login VSI score summary

VSIbase VSImax average VSImax threshold VSImax reached

950 1,159 1,950 No


Conclusion

Topics:

• Density recommendations• Summary

Density recommendations

We tested all configurations with Microsoft Windows 10 and Microsoft Office 2016. The recommended user density for thistesting performed on VMware vSphere 6.7 with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is shown in the following table:

Table 13. User density recommendations

Server configuration Profile Workload User density

C7 Knowledge worker Login VSI Knowledge worker 124

Summary

The VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure platform provides a highly scalable and resilient system for VDI workloadsalong with exceptional user experience. Analysis of the results have shown that storage, network and memory were not abottleneck during the testing we performed with the C7 configuration. However, CPU utilization was close to the thresholdwe set and was a decisive factor in recommending the user densities outlined in this document. The Login VSI results showsthat VSI Max never reached the VSI threshold for the knowledge worker workload tested, which indicates a stable system withexcellent EUE.

The configurations for the VxBlock System 1000 converged infrastructure have been optimized for VDI. We selected thememory and CPU configurations that provide optimal performance. You can change these configurations to meet your ownrequirements, but you should be aware that changing the memory and CPU configurations from those that have been validatedin this document will affect the user density per host.

With the introduction of the six-channels-per-CPU requirement for Skylake processors, the C7 memory configurationrecommendation has increased from the previous guidance of 512 GB to 768 GB. This change was necessary to ensure abalanced memory configuration and optimized performance for your VDI solution. The additional memory is advantageous,considering the resulting increase in operating system resource utilization and the enhanced experience for users when theyhave access to additional memory allocations.

With a flexible choice of fully integrated Dell EMC storage and data protection, Cisco UCS servers and networking optionsbacked by VMware virtualization, the VxBlock 1000 platform provides the capability to run an enterprise-level VDI environment.VxBlock 1000 is also capable of running a multiworkload environment that includes VDI and high-value applications, dataanalytics and so on.

4

Conclusion 21

ReferencesThis chapter presents the following topics:

Topics:

• Dell EMC documentation• VMware documentation• Citrix resources

Dell EMC documentationThe following links provide additional information from Dell Technologies. Access to these documents depends on your logincredentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your Dell Technologies representative. Also see the VDI Info Hubfor a complete list of VDI resources.

● Dell Technologies Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

This document is part of the documentation set for this architecture, which includes the following:

● Dell EMC Ready Architectures for VDI Designs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on VxBlock System 1000 Design Guide● Dell EMC Ready Architectures for VDI Designs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on VxBlock System 1000 Validation Guide

VMware documentationThe following VMware resources provide additional and relevant information:

● VMware vSphere documentation● VMware Compatibility Guide

Citrix resourcesThe following Citrix resources provide additional and relevant information:

● XenDesktop and XenApp 7.15 LTSR: System Requirements● Citrix VDI Handbook and Best Practices● Citrix deployment guides● Citrix StoreFront Proof of Concept Implementation Guide● Install and Configure

5

22 References

https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/t/solutions/vdi/https://www.dellemc.com/en-us/solutions/vdi/index.htmhttps://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/technical-guides-support-information/solutions/h17871-vxblock-citrix-design-guide.pdfhttps://www.dellemc.com/resources/en-us/asset/technical-guides-support-information/solutions/h17872-vxblock-citrix-validation-guide.pdfhttps://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/index.htmlhttps://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=vsan&details=1&vsan_type=vsanreadynode&vsan_partner=23&vsan_releases=278&page=1&display_interval=10&sortColumn=Partner&sortOrder=Aschttps://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-15-ltsr/system-requirements.htmlhttps://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-15-ltsr/downloads/handbook-715-ltsr.pdfhttps://www.citrix.com/products/xenapp-xendesktop/resources/#doc-type=iso-deployment-guideshttps://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/citrix-storefront-2.0.pdfhttps://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-15-ltsr/install-configure.html

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for VDI: Designs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on VxBlock System 1000 Validation GuideContentsIntroductionExecutive summaryDocument purposeAudienceWe value your feedback

Test Environment Configuration and Best PracticesValidated hardware resourcesValidated software resourcesValidated system version matrixVirtual networking configurationManagement server infrastructureSQL Server databasesDNS

High availabilityCitrix Virtual Apps and Desktops architecture

Solution Performance and TestingTesting processResource monitoringLoad generationProfiles and workloadsCitrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Machine Creation ServicesVirtual Desktop Profile

Login VSI test results and analysisLogin VSI Test Results SummaryKnowledge worker, 124 users per host, ESXi 6.7, Citrix XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR

ConclusionDensity recommendationsSummary

ReferencesDell EMC documentationVMware documentationCitrix resources

Documents

Dell EMC Ready Solutions for VDI · 2021. 1. 13. · Chapter 2: Test Environment Configuration and Best Practices ... This challenge is mainly because typical VDI infrastructure