Low-Cost, High-Performance Storage

for Horizon Desktops

Courtney Burry, VMware

Donal Geary, VMware

Tristan Todd, VMware

EUC5708

#EUC5708

3

Agenda

Storage Costs for Horizon View

Planning for Performance

Modern approach to

Storage Architecture

Q and A

4

Disclaimers / Things to Keep in Mind

We refer to a few different storage technologies by name as

examples.

We don’t use every single storage vendor on earth for examples.

Don’t let it harsh your mellow if we don’t use your favorite.

Some things presented here are the opinions of the presenters

Remember…your mileage may vary

5

Horizon View – Storage Costs

6

“ 43% of workforce using 3+ devices

9 of 10 companies report consumer

technologies in the workplace. But PCs

not going away!

74% of employees use consumer

technologies, lack of alternatives from IT

”

End-User Computing: The Current State

Increasingly

Mobile Workforce

Better Consumer

Technologies

Traditional Tools

Insufficient

7

This Is Leading to Many Challenges for IT

“How Do I Secure IP and Data &

Maintain Compliance?”

• $459K/year spent on losses associated with

lost-stolen data and endpoints

“How Do I Manage All of These

New Devices and Apps?”

• Up to 8 hours for device deployment per user

• Over 4.5 hours spent patching

applications per user

“How Do I Contain Costs?”

• Managing BYOD typically costs companies

about 17-20% more vs. supporting company allocated

devices

8

Deliver: Empower your

workforce with secure,

roaming access to your

same desktop

across devices

Broker: Manage and secure

virtual desktops from a single

admin console while

removing data off endpoints

Horizon View virtualizes desktops into a central service

Transform: Simplify

desktops and apps into

the datacenter with

virtualization

Streamline Management

Enhance Security

Provide High Availability

Better Support More Users

Across More Devices

9

Overcoming Key Challenges to Accelerating

Adoption

10

So What is Keeping VDI Projects from Taking Off More?

Elephant in the room: cost of deploying VDI

Large up-front CAPEX hurdle

VDI Solution Management Complexity

Layers of non-integrated, disparate elements

Management complexity and escalating OPEX

Inadequate infrastructure & poor planning

Under sizing

Complex infrastructure that doesn’t scale

Lack of architectural approach day-1

10

11

The Negative Impact of Infrastructure on ROI

Source: 2011 Morgan Stanley Desktop Survey

Server, Storage and Networking on average

comprise 50% of solution TCO per desktop

$160

$125

$40

$150

$125

$50 Storage

Server

Networking

Endpoint

Broker

Licensing

Average Cost per Virtual Desktop ($)

12

The Goal of vFast Track Architectures

• Optimizing storage features in View and storage solutions from partners

• Partnering with Cisco to deliver a compelling bundled offering

• Incenting channel to drive bookings

Drive Down Cost of Acquisition for VDI

below that of PC

• Make it easy to start small and grow

• VDI infrastructure with plug ins to vCenter

Streamline VDI Management & Provide Linear

Scalability

• With prescriptive Reference Architectures and Customer Reference Implementations

Take the Guesswork out of VDI

13

Making Inroads on Acquisition Cost and TCO with View

ACQUISITION COST PER USER

DRIVING DOWN THE COST OF

AQUISITION

Radically Simpler Management

Storage Optimizations from VMware

3rd Party Storage Validations

$200

$1200

$1000

$800

$600

$400

Time 2013

$500

$0

Infrastructure Cost

(does not include client)

$250

2010

>$200

14

Four approaches to storage for VDI

1

2

3

Use the right shared storage for

Horizon View

Deploy Horizon View on a converged

appliance

Use a Virtual Storage Appliance

4 Consider DASD

15

Performance Planning

16

What is VMware doing in Horizon View?

Leverage Linked Clones Tier Storage for VDI

SE Sparse Storage Accelerator

17

Choosing “Good” Storage for Horizon View

18

How do we know the storage is Good?

Low Latency

Reasonable

CAPEX

Reasonable

OPEX

Easy to

Manage

Scalable

Resilient

Green

Existing

Platform

Existing

Vendor

Support

Simple

Architecture

Burst Capable

19

There is no denying it: Flash is Fast

SATA HDD typ. read IOPS: 80

Flash SSD typ. read IOPS: 30,000

375x

20

Just for Perspective, 375x means

Typical walking speed: 3 mph

F-18E Super Hornet: 1120 mph

21

IOPS – IOPS – IOPS!!!

22

IOPS – IOPS – IOPS!!!

Storage

Network

We can deliver

250K read IOPs

200K write IOPs

LATENCY

LATENCY

23

VMkernel

Storage – “Where bad things happen”

Array Cache

Virtual SCSI

Storage Processor

Front-end

Spindles

Back-end

Paths

Path Contention or

thrashing

IOps/MBps Maximums

Processor saturation

Write De-stage = deadly

IOps/MBps Maximums

IOps/MBps maximums and

device configuration

“just not enough disks”

VMFS NFS client

24

vDisk I/O – Three Main Latencies

Application Guest OS

ESX Storage

Stack

VMM

Driver

3. KAVG

2. DAVG

1. GAVG

QAVG

GAVG = KAVG + DAVG

Fabric

vSCSI

HBA

Time in ESXi storage stack is minimal, for all practical

purposes KAVG ~= QAVG. In a well configured system

QAVG should be zero

Array SP

When KAVG > 0, I/O is

typically backed up in a

device or adapter Queue

25

vCenter “Disk” Performance Chart

KAVG

• Kernel Read latency

• Kernel write latency

• Kernel command latency

QAVG

• Queue command latency

• Queue write latency

• Queue read latency

GAVG

• Read latency

• Write latency

• Command latency

DAVG

• Physical device command latency

• Physical device read latency

• Physical device write latency

26

Viewing Queues and Activity in The Storage Stack

(Queues in the storage array not

illustrated)

Guest OS Queues Perf Mon in Guest

VM VCtr - VM

VCtr - Host

Host

Adapter Queues (HBAs)

Device/LUN

Virtual Machines

ESXtop

VMKernel Queues

• Device Queues (LUNs)

• Adapter Queues (HBAs)

• World Queues (VMs)

27

vSphere Performance Management Tools - vCenter

vCenter Alarms & Charts

• Alarms on static thresholds

• Alarm trigger may not always indicate an actual performance problem

• Can Show Historical trends

• Rough Granularity (Min 20 Sec)

28

vSphere Performance Management Tools – vCenter Ops Mgr

Aggregates metrics into workload, capacity and health scores

Relies on dynamic thresholds

29

Understanding Desktop IO Requirements

Rules of thumb:

• Light – 5 IOPs – Not a lot of time at desktop

• Medium – 10 IOPs – Most of day at desktop – typical office worker

• Heavy – 20 IOPs – Developer, Power User

• You will find other rules of thumb guide numbers – that’s why they can be

dangerous

Keep in mind these are average numbers

• Read / Write Mix

• Bursts – Boots, Provisioning. Logins, Lunar Cycles, Antivirus

• Average Numbers = Likely failure

ASSESS YOUR WORKLOAD!

• Liquidware Stratusphere Fit

• Lakeside Systrack

30

Modern approaches to Architecture

31 Confidential

New Storage Solutions are Accelerating VDI Adoption

Wide Range of Cost-Effective Differentiated

Solutions to Get Customers Started Across

Segments

Easily scale from 1 desktop to 1000’s

Optimized storage plays (Tintri, Nimble, Fusion io.

Tegile. Pure, Virident, Atlantis, Nexenta, EMC)

Simplified VDI Management with Linear

Scalability

Fully integrated with vCenter

Provision and deploy desktops in minutes

Start small and grow on demand

32

Four approaches to storage for VDI

1

2

3

Use the right shared storage for

Horizon View

Deploy Horizon View on a converged

appliance

Use a Virtual Storage Appliance

4 Consider DASD

33

Approach 1 - The Right Shared Storage for Horizon View

Fundamental Drivers:

• Periods of high activity cause a huge burst of IO to the storage that traditional

storage systems were not designed to accommodate

• Only all-flash arrays can provide the burst IOPS needed to guarantee an

excellent user experience without complicated storage sizing and investments

exceeding $300/user

• Not all all-flash arrays provide inline de-duplication; this is important for

achieving user densities that drive down cost per user to palatable levels

Representative Partners

• EMC XtremeIO X-Brick

• Tintri VMstore

• Nimble Storage

• Tegile

• Whiptail

• Pure Storage

• Solidfire

• NetApp

• Dell

• HP

• Hitachi

1

34

Approach 2 – Converged Appliances

Fundamental Drivers:

• Converged systems (combined server and storage appliances) offer a tightly

integrated combination of high speed storage, Intel servers, and a virtual SAN

filesystem

• This results in a system that deploys easily, scales linearly to supported

maximums, and is very easy to manage

• “One throat to choke” support model!

Representative Partners

• Nutanix

• Pivot3

• V3

• VCE

2

35

Approach 3 - Use a Virtual Storage Appliance

Fundamental Drivers:

• Virtual Storage Appliances (VSA) speed up any kind of storage, although the

impact is greatest on traditional shared storage

• The price to performance ratio is very low compared to other kinds of storage

options

• Without a VSA, View deployments on traditional shared storage is likely to stall

or fail

Representative Partners

• Nexenta VSA for View

• Atlantis Computing ILIO

3

36

Approach 4 - Consider DASD

Fundamental Drivers:

• You can’t beat the simplicity of direct-attached storage

• For the right use-case, DASD offers exception performance and very low cost

• You must think differently about sizing, operations planning, and resiliency

Representative Partners

• Virident

• FusionIO

• LSI Nytro Warp

• Violin

• Intel SSD

4

37

Comparing the four approaches

SAN/NAS Converged

Appliances

Virtual

Storage

Appliances

DASD

Performance Better Good Best Wow

Cost Better Good Best Wow

Simplicity Better Best Good Wow

Scalability Best Good Better Good

Resiliency Best Better Good Meh

38

Example - The Right Shared Storage for Horizon View

Purpose-built for Virtualized Environments

• One-to-one mapping between abstractions supported by the hypervisor and those supported by storage

• Make the “object” of storage VMs or vDisks and not LUNs, volumes, etc.

• Flash-based architecture for performance optimization

VM-Aware Capabilities

• Per-VM QoS

• Per-VM monitoring and reporting

• Per-VM management operations

• Auto-alignment (active vs. arbitrary)

• Integration with hypervisor management infrastructure

1000

Linked Clones

1000

VAAI Linked Clones

1000

Full-Clones with VAAI

Ultra-fast Pool Deployments

1

39

Example - The Right Shared Storage for Horizon View

Purpose-built for Virtualized Environments

• One-to-one mapping between abstractions supported by the hypervisor and those supported by storage

• Make the “object” of storage VMs or vDisks and not LUNs, volumes, etc.

• Flash-based architecture for performance optimization

VM-Aware Capabilities

• Per-VM QoS

• Per-VM monitoring and reporting

• Per-VM management operations

• Auto-alignment (active vs. arbitrary)

• Integration with hypervisor management infrastructure

1

237 $ desktop

40

Example - Use a Virtual Storage Appliance - Nutanix

• Converged

• Software-Defined

• Server-attached Flash

• Linear Scale-out

• Inline Dedupe

2

400 $ desktop

41

Example - Use a Virtual Storage Appliance - Nexenta 3 I/O to VSA

• Read Rate 199,881 (149,911) KBps

• Write Rate 21,417 (16,063) KBps

I/O to LUN

• Read Rate 1,255 (919) Kbps

• Write Rate 7,645 (5,734) Kbps

38x SAN Read I/O Offload

Vs. Bare Metal

2.5x SAN Write I/O Offload

Vs. Bare Metal

42

Example - Use a Virtual Storage Appliance - Nexenta 3

35 $ desktop +

43

Example - Consider DASD – LSI Nytro WarpDrive

• 1000 Desktops

• 8 host cluster with N+1

• Amazing User Experience

• <0.5ms vDisk latency

• Ultra-fast Pool Ops

• Simple sizing

• Simple Scalability

4

199 $ desktop

44

At the end of the day

45

Low Cost = smart CAPEX

smart OPEX

46

Simplicity = easy scalability easy deployment simple integration

47

Performance = delighted users

48 48

Other VMware Activities Related to This Session

HOL:

HOL-MBL-130

Horizon Mirage - Manage Physical Desktops

HOL-MBL-1309

Horizon View from A to Z

THANK YOU

Low-Cost, High-Performance Storage

for Horizon Desktops

Courtney Burry, VMware

Donal Geary, VMware

Tristan Todd, VMware

EUC5708

#EUC5708