VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference ... · This reference architecture showcases...
Transcript of VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference ... · This reference architecture showcases...
VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture VMware Horizon with View T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R
VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
VMware Reference Architecture Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Hardware Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
VMware vSphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
VMware Virtual SAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Horizon with View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
VMware View Storage Accelerator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Login VSI 4.1 Workload Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Test 1: 400 Medium-Workload Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Test 2: 400 Heavy-Workload Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
VMware View Planner Workload Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
View Operations Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Provisioning 400 Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Refreshing 400 Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Recomposing 400 Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Deleting a Pool of 400 Linked-Clone Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Powering On 400 Desktops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Resiliency Test: One-Node Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
System Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
vSphere Clusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
ESXi Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Virtual SAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Virtual SAN Storage Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Horizon with View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
View Global Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
VMware View Manager Global Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
vCenter Server Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
View Manager Pool Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Test Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Login VSI 4.1 Workload Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Medium Workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Heavy Workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
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View Planner 3.0 Workload Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Virtual Machine Test Image Build . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
System Sizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Virtual SAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Disk Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Objects and Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Management Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Bill of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
Executive SummaryThis reference architecture showcases VMware® Horizon™ with View™ running on VMware Virtual SAN™ and is based on real-world test scenarios, user workloads, and infrastructure system configurations. It uses Dell R720 PowerEdge rack mount servers with local storage to support a scalable and cost-effective VMware Horizon with View linked-clone desktop deployment on VMware vSphere® 5.5.
Extensive user experience and operations testing, including Login VSI desktop performance and VMware View Planner testing on 400 desktops, revealed world-class performance at an extremely low cost. VMware Virtual SAN technology allows easy scalability while maintaining superior performance at a competitive price point.
The results are summarized here and described later in this paper.
400 Linked ClonesDeployed
55 Minutes
66 Minutes
5 Minutes
34 Minutes
5 Minutes
12,019 IOPS, 3 millisecond
latency
VSImax v4: Not reached
400 Linked ClonesRecomposed
400 linked clones started
400 linked clonesrefreshed
Single-host failure, recovery time objective for 77 desktops
Login VSI medium workload400 linked clones, 100% concurrency
VSImax v4: 399 desktops
Login VSI heavy workload400 linked clones, 100% concurrency
View Planner: 400 desktops
View Planner medium workload400 linked clones, 100% concurrency
Peak IOPS per host 100 concurrent desktops, 3 millisecond average latency
400
400
400
400
Figure 1. Test Results
Outstanding Desktop Performance
•Performancesimilartohigh-endphysical PCs
•Excellentuserexperiencecharacteristics, even with diverse use cases and burst- heavy workloads
Fast Desktop Operations
•Userdesktoppoolsprovisionedquickly
•Enterpriseusecasesupandrunning the same day as requested
•Newdesktops,applications,andhot fixes rolled out within a single maintenance window
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
VMware Reference Architecture OverviewVMware reference architectures are built and validated by VMware and supporting partners. They are designed to address common use cases; examples include enterprise desktop replacement, remote access, business process outsourcing, and disaster recovery. A reference architecture describes in detail the environment and workload used to simulate realistic usage, and draws conclusions based on that particular reference architecture.
This guide is intended to help customers—IT architects, consultants, and administrators—involved in the early phases of planning, design, and deployment of Horizon with View–based solutions. The purpose is to provide a standard, repeatable, and highly scalable design that can be easily adapted to specific environments and customer requirements.
The reference architecture “building block” approach uses common components to minimize support costs and deployment risks during the planning of large-scale, Horizon with View–based deployments. The building block approach is based on information and experiences from some of the largest VMware deployments in production today. While drawing on existing best practices and deployment guides pertinent to many of the individual specific components, the reference architectures are tested and validated in the field and described in detail.
Some key features that can help an organization get started quickly with a solution that integrates easily into existing IT processes and procedures include:
•Standardized,validated,repeatablecomponents
•Scalabledesignsthatallowroomforfuturegrowth
•Validatedandtesteddesignsthatreduceimplementationandoperationalrisks
•Quickimplementation,reducedcosts,andminimizedrisk
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
OverviewThis reference architecture uses common components to minimize support costs and deployment risks.
The desktop virtualization solution, which combines the best of breed of data center, virtualization, and network technologies, uses Dell R720 rack mount servers with local solid state drives (SSD) and hard disk drives (HDD) running on the vSphere 5.5 software suite for desktop workloads. In addition, standard rack mount servers running vSphere are used for server workloads. The View 5.3.2 environment runs Windows 7 virtual desktops provisioned by VMware View Composer™.
The Virtual SAN storage platform for desktop workloads allows the solution to scale linearly, with each host capable of supporting approximately 100 users per host. This reference architecture shows 400 desktops running on four VMware ESXi™ hosts. VMware testing, however, has shown that View with Virtual SAN can scale up to 1,600 desktops on 16 hosts in a single cluster.
Hardware Components
Virtual SAN Cluster:4 Dell PowerEdge R720
Dell Force10 10GbE Ethernet Switches
3 Infrastructure Hosts
Figure 2. Hardware Infrastructure
For server workloads, the solution uses existing virtual infrastructure hosts using three standard rack mount servers.
Desktop workloads use Dell R720 rack mount servers, which offer high-density memory, balanced I/O, and the latest processors for enterprise virtualization and business-processing environments. The system is optimized for running in virtualized and cloud-computing environments.
The Dell Networking S-Series S4810 is an ultra-low-latency 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) top-of-rack switch that is purpose-built for applications in high-performance data center and computing environments. Its compactdesignprovides48dual-speed1/10GbE(SFP+)portsandfour40GbEQSFP+uplinkstoconserverackspace. The switches provide 10GbE network connectivity for management, Virtual SAN, and desktop traffic.
Local SSDs and HDDs are used in conjunction with Virtual SAN technology to provide a scalable and enterprise-class storage solution. Each ESXi host has a disk group consisting of one SSD and four HDDs. The disk groups are combined to form a Virtual SAN datastore. This next-generation storage platform combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency, management, and software-defined storage.
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
VMware vSphere
vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures. It enables users to run business-critical applications with confidence and respond quickly to business needs. vSphere accelerates the shift to cloud computing for existing data centers and underpins compatible public cloud offerings, forming the foundation for the industry’s best hybrid cloud model.
VMware Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN is a hypervisor-converged, software-defined storage platform that is fully integrated with vSphere. Virtual SAN aggregates locally attached disks of hosts that are members of a vSphere cluster to create a distributed shared storage solution. Because Virtual SAN sits directly in the I/O data path, it can deliver the highestlevelsofperformance,scalability,andresiliencewithouttaxingtheCPUwithadditionaloverhead.Virtual SAN enables the rapid provisioning of storage within VMware vCenter™ during virtual machine creation and deployment operations.
Virtual SAN
vSphere
VM VM VM VM
Virtual SAN Clustered Datastore
Figure 3. Virtual SAN Clustered Datastore
Virtual SAN uses a hybrid disk architecture that leverages flash-based devices for performance and magnetic disks for capacity and persistent data storage. Its distributed datastore is an object-store file system that leverages the vSphere Storage Policy-Based Management feature to deliver centrally managed, application-centric storage services and capabilities. Administrators can specify storage attributes, such as capacity, performance, and availability, as a policy on a per virtual machine basis. The policies dynamically self-tune and load-balance the system so that each virtual machine has the right level of resources.
Horizon with View
Horizon with View brings the agility of cloud computing to the desktop by transforming desktops into highly available and agile services delivered from your cloud. View delivers virtual sessions that follow end users across devices and locations. It enables fast, secure access to corporate data across a wide range of devices, including Mac OS, Windows, and Linux machines and iOS and Android tablets.
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
You can use View with VMware vCenter Server™ to create desktops from virtual machines that are running on ESXi hosts and to deploy these desktops to end users. After you create a desktop, authorized end users can use Web-based or locally installed client software to connect securely to centralized virtual desktops, back-end physical systems, or terminal servers. View uses your existing Active Directory infrastructure for user authentication and management.
Figure 4. Horizon with View Components
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
VMware View Storage Accelerator
All tests performed in this reference architecture used View Storage Accelerator, an in-memory host caching capability that uses the Content-Based Read Cache (CBRC) feature in ESXi hosts. CBRC provides a per host RAM-based solution for View desktops, considerably reducing the read I/O requests that are issued to the storage layer. It also addresses boot storms—when multiple virtual desktops are booted at once—which cause a large number of reads. CBRC is beneficial when administrators or users load applications or data frequently.
View Storage Accelerator minimizes TCO in View deployments by reducing peak IOPS by 80 percent and peak throughput up to 65 percent.
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
Test ResultsThe test results are summarized in the following sections. The test methodology is described later in this paper.
Login VSI 4.1 Workload Testing
The test used Login VSI 4.1 to load the system with simulated desktop workloads using common applications like Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Adobe Reader.
We ran two tests on 400 desktops to observe Virtual SAN performance: One test applied a medium workload and the other a heavy workload, both with 100 percent concurrency.
Test 1: 400 Medium-Workload Linked-Clone DesktopsInTest1,theaveragehostCPUusagereachedabove95percentonallESXihostsat400desktopsundermediumworkloadwith100percentconcurrency.DespitehighCPUusage,VSImaxv4wasnotreached.
Figure 5. VSImax Not Reached on Login VSI Medium Workload, 400 Desktops
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Figure 6. ESXi CPU Usage During Login VSI Medium Workload
ThefollowinggraphcomparestheaverageVirtualSANIOPSperESXiservertotheaverageVirtualSANCPUusage(MHz)perESXiserver.ESXiVirtualSANCPUusageaveraged2.5GHzandpeakedatjustover5GHzduring an I/O-intensive phase of the workload that had over 11,000 IOPS.
Figure 7. ESXi Virtual SAN IOPS Versus ESXi Virtual SAN CPU Usage
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
The ESXi Virtual SAN latency averaged 3 milliseconds (ms) and peaked at just over 7ms during an I/O-intensive phase that reached over 11,000 IOPS.
Figure 8. ESXi Virtual SAN IOPS Versus ESXi Virtual SAN Latency
Highlights of Test 1:
•VSImaxv4notreachedatthebaselineof1,486
•CPUusagehigh,butmemoryusageremainedbelow75percent
•ExcellentVirtualSANclientresponsetimes,evenathighload(average3mslatency,peak7msatover11,000IOPS per ESXi host)
•Peakof47,045IOPSonVirtualSANdatastore(51percentwrites,49percentreads)
CPU Usage 46,608MHz
173.55GB
XMIT 45,625 / RCV 43,600
11,761 IOPS / 128,628KBps
Memory Usage
Network Adapter
Storage Adapter
Figure 9. ESXi Host Metrics – Test 1
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
Test 2: 400 Heavy-Workload Linked-Clone DesktopsInTest2,theCPUwassaturatedat100percentusageacrossallESXihostsunderheavyworkloadwith100percentconcurrency.VSImaxv4399atbaselineof1470.
Figure 10. VSImax 399 During Login VSI Heavy Workload, 400 Desktops
Figure 11. ESXi CPU Usage During Login VSI Heavy Workload
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
VirtualSANCPUusageperESXihostaveraged4.5GHzandpeakedatjustover7GHzduringanI/O-intensivephase of over 12,000 IOPS per ESXi host.
Figure 12. ESXi Virtual SAN IOPS Versus ESXi Virtual SAN CPU Usage (MHz)
The ESXi Virtual SAN latency averaged 2.7ms and peaked at just over 7ms.
Figure 13. ESXi Average Virtual SAN IOPS Versus Virtual SAN Latency
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
Highlights of Test 2:
•VSImaxv4399atthebaselineof1470
•CPUusagehigh,butmemoryusageremainedbelow75percent
•ExcellentVirtualSANclientresponsetimes,evenathighload(average2.7ms,peak7mslatencyatover12,000IOPS per ESXi host)
•Peakof48,073IOPSonVirtualSANdatastore(51percentwrites,49percentreads)
CPU Usage 51,140MHz
185GB
XMIT 49,476 / RCV 50,288KBps
12,019 IOPS / 128,203KBps
Memory Usage
Network Adapter
Storage Adapter
Figure 14. ESXi Host Metrics – Test 2
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
VMware View Planner Workload Testing
View Planner simulates user workloads by randomly running operations of applications typically used in a Windows desktop environment. This test checked the operational latencies of the 400 linked-clone desktops at 100 percent concurrency.
Figure 15. View Planner Operational Latencies for 400 Virtual Machines
In the following table, for a list of the operations performed in Group A and Group B, see the Test Methodology section.
TEST GROUP OPERATION TYPE RESULT
Group A Interactive or fast-running operations that areCPUbound,suchasbrowsingthrougha PDF file or modifying a Word document.
95thpercentile:0.528723s(BR:<=1.0sec)
Group B Long-running slow operations that are I/O bound, such as opening a large document or saving a PowerPoint file.
95thpercentile:3.249898s(BR:<=6.0sec)
Table 1. View Planner Quality of Service for 400 Virtual Machines with a Think Time of 5 Seconds
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Figure 16. View Planner Medium Workload – CPU Usage over Time
The ESXi Virtual SAN latency averaged 2.6ms and peaked at over 4ms at 5,337 IOPS.
Figure 17. ESXi Virtual SAN IOPS Versus ESXi Virtual SAN Latency
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Highlights of View Planner Workload Test:
•ViewPlannerGroupA(0.528723s<=1.0)andGroupB(3.249898s<=6.0)resultsarecomfortablywithinthresholds
•CPUusageaveraged85percentduringworkload,andmemoryusageremainedbelow75percent
•ExcellentVirtualSANclientresponsetimesoccurred,withanaverageof2.6msandapeakof4.7ms
•Peakof24,052IOPSonVirtualSANdatastore(54percentwrites,46percentreads)
CPU Usage 45,604MHz
177.33GB
XMIT 20,001 / RCV 16,795KBps
9,828 IOPS / 85,454KBps
Memory Usage
Network Adapter
Storage Adapter
Figure 18. ESXi Host Metrics – View Planner
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View Operations Tests
Provisioning 400 Linked-Clone DesktopsIn this test, a new pool of 400 linked-clone virtual desktops is provisioned on the Virtual SAN datastore, with about 100 per ESXi host. To complete this task, View Composer creates a replica copy of the 24GB base image (9.42GBthin)ontheVirtualSANdatastore.ViewComposercreatesandcustomizesthedesktopsandjoinsthem to the Active Directory domain. It then takes a snapshot of the virtual desktop, and the desktop goes into an available state.
It took less than 55 minutes to provision 400 Windows 7 linked-clone virtual desktops and for them to appear in the available state in the View Administrator console.
Figure 19. View Provisioning Operation – 400 Linked-Clone Desktops
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Refreshing 400 Linked-Clone DesktopsIn a refresh operation, a virtual desktop reverts to its snapshot. The OS disk of each virtual desktop is restored to its original state and disk size.
It took 34 minutes to refresh 400 Windows 7 linked-clone virtual desktops to their original base image.
Figure 20. View Refresh Operation – 400 Linked-Clone Desktops
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Recomposing 400 Linked-Clone DesktopsIn a recompose operation, a virtual desktop OS disk is changed to a new base image and snapshot. This feature allows administrators to push out patches and software updates with ease.
In this operation, View Composer creates a replica of the new base image on the Virtual SAN datastore, creates a new OS disk for each virtual desktop, and deletes the old one. The new desktop is then customized, and a new snapshot created.
It took 66 minutes to recompose 400 Windows 7 linked-clone virtual desktops to a fresh base image.
Figure 21. View Recompose Operation – 400 Linked-Clone Desktops
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Deleting a Pool of 400 Linked-Clone DesktopsThis test deleted a desktop pool, destroying the associated virtual desktops and replicas. Deleting a pool of 400 linked-clonevirtualdesktopstook29minutes.
Figure 22. View Pool Deletion Operation – 400 Linked-Clone Desktops
Powering On 400 DesktopsThe power-on test was carried out on a four-node Virtual SAN cluster in vCenter. It took just under five minutes for all the virtual desktops to be ready for user login.
Figure 23. View Power-On Operation – 400 Linked-Clone Desktops
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Resiliency Test: One-Node Failure
A single Virtual SAN node hardware failure was simulated for a cluster with four hosts and 300 running virtual desktops, all under simulated workload.
Figure 24. Resiliency Testing – Recovery Time for a Single-Node Failure
An ESXi host with 77 running virtual desktops was reset, and all the virtual machines became unavailable. VMware vSphere High Availability restarted the virtual desktops on the other Virtual SAN cluster nodes, and all were ready for user login within five minutes of the simulated failure.
The power was restored to the Virtual SAN node some minutes later. The node rejoined the Virtual SAN cluster, and VMware vSphere Storage DRS™ rebalanced the load across all ESXi hosts in the cluster.
Note: A single-node failure does not trigger an immediate rebuild after a host failure is detected. If a failure that returns an I/O error is detected, such as a magnetic disk or SSD, Virtual SAN immediately responds by rebuilding the disk object. However, for host failures that do not return an I/O error, Virtual SAN has a configurable repair delay time (60 minutes by default) after which components are rebuilt across the cluster. Virtual SAN prioritizes the current workload over rebuilding to minimize the impact on cluster performance.
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
System ConfigurationsThe following sections describe how the reference architecture components were configured.
Architecture
VMware Virtual SAN integrates with the View pod and block design methodology, which comprises the following components.
View Connection Server – A View Connection Server supports up to 2,000 concurrent connections. Our testing consisted of one View Connection Server, but for production use, a minimum of two is recommended, operating in active/active mode. The two View Connection Servers actively broker and possibly tunnel connections.
View block – View provisions and manages desktops through vCenter. Each vCenter instance supports up to 10,000 virtual desktops. The tests used one vCenter and one Virtual SAN cluster with four hosts. Virtual SAN supports 100 virtual machines per host and clusters of up to 32 hosts—up to 3,200 desktops per Virtual SAN cluster.
Note: The maximum HA-protected virtual machines in a vSphere cluster is 2,046 per datastore.
Desktop Cluster
Ethernet Network
vCenter Server
View Block
View Management Block
View Connection Server
Virtual SAN Datastore
View Desktop Pool
Figure 25. View Pod Configuration
View management block – A separate vSphere cluster was used for management servers to isolate the volatile desktop workload from static server workload. Because our testing used only one vCenter, it incorporated the management and View blocks, but for larger deployments, it is recommended to have a dedicated vCenter for the management and View blocks.
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vSphere Clusters
A four-node Virtual SAN cluster was deployed to support 400 virtual desktops. Each Dell R720 server had an identical configuration and ESXi booted from the local SD card.
For the management virtual machines, a three-node cluster was deployed on identical servers.
Virtual SAN DatastoreManagement Datastore
Manage
Management Cluster Desktop Cluster
SQL Server
VM VM VM VM
vCenter/View
Composer
View ConnectionServer
VM VM VM VM
ActiveDirectory
VM VM
vCenterOperations
VMware vCenter Server
Figure 26. vSphere Cluster Design
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The Virtual SAN cluster had the following settings.
PROPERTY SETTING DEFAULT REVISED
Cluster Features HA – Enabled
DRS – Enabled
vSphere HA Host Monitoring Status Enabled –
Admission Control Enabled –
Admission Control Policy Host failures the cluster tolerates=1
–
Virtual Machine Options > VM restart priority
Medium –
Virtual Machine Options > Host Isolation Response
Leave Powered On –
VM Monitoring Disabled –
Datastore Heartbeating Select any, taking into account my preferences (no datastore preferred)
–
vSphere Storage DRS Automation Level Fully automated (apply 1,2,3 priority recommendations)
–
DRS Groups Manager – –
Rules – –
Virtual Machine Options – –
Power Management Off –
Host Options Default (Disabled) –
Enhanced vMotion Capability
Disabled –
Swapfile Location Store in the same directory as the virtual machine
–
Table 2. vSphere Cluster Configuration
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ESXi Servers
Each Virtual SAN ESXi server in the Virtual SAN cluster had the following configuration.
1x Intel 10GB 2P X520
1xLSI 9207-8i
1x 200GB IntelS3700 6Gbps SSD
Dell PowerEdge R7202x Intel Xeon E5-2690 @ 2.90Ghz
256GB RAM
4x 300GB 15K SA S 6Gbph
Figure 27. ESXi Host Components
PROPERTY SPECIFICATION
ESX server model 4 Dell R720BIOS v2.2.2 (1/16/2014)
ESXhostCPU [email protected]
ESX host RAM 256GB [16 x 16GB]
ESX version ESXi 5.5.0, 1746018
Network adapter Intel Ethernet 10G 2P X520Firmware version: 0x8000030dDriver version: ixgbe 3.7.13.7.14iov
Storage adapter LSI9207_8iFirmware version: 18.00Driverversion:MPT2SAS19.00.00.00.1vmwQueueDepth:600
Power management High Performance (set in BIOS)
Disks SSD: 1 Intel 200GB S3700 MLC SATA 6GbpsHDD: 4 Dell 300GB 15K RPM 2.5in 6Gbps SAS
Table 3. ESXi Host Configuration
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Virtual SAN
The floating linked clones and replicas use Virtual SAN for storage. Each ESXi host had the same uniform configuration of a single disk group, consisting of one 200GB SSD and four 300GB 15K SAS disks. The SSD devices form the caching layer (fixed at a 70 percent read cache and 30 percent write buffer). Only the spinning magnetic disks contribute toward the usable storage capacity of the datastore. The four hosts yielded 4.8TB RAW.
4x Dell R7201 Disk Group Per Server
1x 200GB SATA 6Gbps SSD4x 300GB 15K RPM 6Gbps SAS
Virtual SAN Datastore
Figure 28. Virtual SAN Datastore Components
The virtual desktop replica did not need to be stored on a dedicated tier of flash storage because read I/O operations are served from the flash layer on Virtual SAN.
Virtual SAN Storage PolicyVirtual SAN can set availability, capacity, and performance policies per virtual machine if the virtual machines are deployed on the Virtual SAN datastore. The tests used the default storage policy settings, and VMware recommends using the defaults for View 5.3.2 virtual desktops. For Horizon 6 with View, specific storage-policy recommendations are based on pool type.
STORAGE CAPABILITY SETTING
Number of Failures to Tolerate 1
Number of Disk Stripes per Object 1
Flash Read Cache Reservation 0%
Object Space Reservation 0%
Table 4. Virtual SAN Storage Default Settings for View
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Number of Failures to Tolerate (FTT) – This Virtual SAN storage protection policy is applied to each virtual machine. The FTT policy defines how many concurrent host, network, or disk failures can occur in the cluster and still ensure the availability of the object. The configuration contains at least FTT+1 copies of the virtual machine and a witness copy to ensure that the object’s data is available even when the number of tolerated failures occurs.
Figure 29. Default Virtual SAN Storage Policy – FTT=1
Object Space Reservation – By default, a virtual machine created on Virtual SAN is thin-provisioned, so it has no capability for object space reservation. It does not consume any capacity until data is written. You can change this setting between 0–100 percent of the virtual disk size. The virtual machine consumes this capacity of the Virtual SAN datastore when it is created.
The combination of the object space reservation percentage and the FTT settings applied to the virtual machines on the Virtual SAN datastore determines the datastore’s usable capacity.
Number of Disk Stripes per Object – This policy defines how many physical disks across each copy of a storage object are striped. The default value (recommended) of 1 was sufficient for our tested workloads.
Flash Read Cache Reservation – This is the amount of flash capacity reserved on the SSD as a read cache for the storage object. By default, all virtual machines share the read cache of an SSD equally.
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Networking
A vNetwork distributed switch (dvSwitch) acted as a single vSwitch across all associated hosts in the data center. This setup allows virtual machines to maintain a consistent network configuration as they migrate across multiple hosts. The dvSwitch uses two 10GbE adapters per host.
VM VM vmk0
10GbE10GbE
Force10Switches
vmk1 vmk2
Desktop VLAN
ManagementVLAN
vMotion VLAN
Virtual SAN VLAN
vSphere Distributed Switch
Active LB based on physical NIC load
Figure 30. dvSwitch Configuration
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Properties regarding security, traffic shaping, and NIC teaming can be defined on a port group. The following table shows the settings used with this design.
PROPERTY SETTING DEFAULT REVISED
General Port Binding Static –
Policies: Security Promiscuous mode Reject –
MAC address changes Accept Reject
Forged transmits Accept Reject
Policies: Traffic Shaping
Status Disabled –
Policies: Teaming and Failover
Load balancing Route based on the originating virtual port ID
Route based on physical NIC load
Failover detection Caution Link Status only –
Notify switches Yes –
Policies: Resource Allocation
Network I/O Control Disabled Enabled
Advanced MaximumMTU 1500 –
Table 5. Port Group Properties – dvSwitch v5 .5
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Network I/O control was enabled for the distributed switch. The following settings and share values were applied on the resource allocation.
NETWORK RESOURCE POOL
HOST LIMIT (MBPS) PNIC SHARES SHARES
FT traffic Unlimited Normal 50
iSCSI Unlimited Normal 50
vMotion 8000Mbit/s Low 25
Management Unlimited Normal 50
NFS Unlimited Normal 50
Virtual machines Unlimited High 100
Virtual SAN Traffic Unlimited Normal 50
Table 6. Resource Allocations for Network Resources in dvSwitch
Horizon with View
The Horizon with View installation included the following core systems.
•Oneconnectionserver(N+1isrecommendedforproduction)
•OnevCenterServerwiththefollowingroles:
- vCenter
- vCenter single sign-on (SSO)
- vCenter Inventory Service
•ViewComposerrunningonvCenterServer
Note: Security servers were not used during this testing.
View Global PoliciesThe following global policies were in place for all system testing.
NETWORK RESOURCE POOL HOST LIMIT (MBPS)
USBaccess Allow
Multimedia redirection (MMR) Allow
Remote Mode Allow
PCoIP hardware acceleration Allow – medium priority
Table 7. View Global Policies
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VMware View Manager Global Settings The following VMware View Manager™ global policies were used.
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
Session timeout 600 (10 hours)
View Administrator Session Timeout 120 minutes
AutoUpdate Enabled
Display pre-login message No
Display warning before logout Yes
Reauthenticate secure tunnel connections after network interruption
No
Enable IPSec for security server pairing Yes
Message security mode Enabled
Disable Single Sign-On for Local Mode Operations No
Table 8. View Manager Global Settings
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vCenter Server SettingsView Connection Server uses vCenter Server to provision and manage View desktops. vCenter Server is configured in View Manager.
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
Description View vCenter Server
Connect using SSL Yes
vCenter Port 443
View Composer Port 18443
Enable View Composer Yes
Advanced Settings:Maximum Concurrent vCenter Provisioning OperationsMaximum Concurrent Power OperationsMaximum Concurrent View Composer Maintenance OperationsMaximum Concurrent View Composer Provisioning Operations
20501212
Storage Settings:Enable View Storage AcceleratorDefault Host Cache Size
√2048MB
Table 9. View Manager – vCenter Server Configuration
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View Manager Pool SettingsThe following View Manager pool settings were used
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
Pool Type Automated Pool
UserAssignment Floating
Pool Definition – vCenter Server Linked Clones
Pool ID Desktops
Display Name Desktops
View folder /
Remote Desktop Power Policy Take no power action
Auto Logoff Time Never
UserResetAllowed False
Multi-Session Allowed False
Delete on logoff Never
Display Protocol PCoIP
Allow Protocol Override False
Maximum Number of Monitors 1
Max resolution 1920x1200
HTML Access Not selected
FlashQualityLevel Do not control
Flash Throttling Level Disabled
Enable Provisioning Enabled
Stop Provisioning on error Enabled
Provision all desktops up-front Enabled
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ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
Disposable File Redirection Do not redirect
Select separate Datastores for replica and OS Not selected
Datastores – Storage Overcommit Conservative
UseViewStorageAccelerator Selected
Reclaim VM disk space* N/A
Disk Types OS disks
Regenerate Storage Accelerator after 7 days
Reclaim VM Disk Space N/A
UseQuickprep Enabled
*Virtual SAN does not support the space-efficient (SE) sparse disk format.Table 10. View Manager – Test Pool Configuration
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Test MethodologyThis reference architecture used Login VSI and View Planner to test performance and operational latency.
Login VSI 4.1 Workload Testing
Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) is the industry-standard benchmarking tool for measuring the performance and scalability of centralized desktop environments. Login VSI gradually increases the number of simulated users until saturation. When the system is saturated, the response time of the applications increases significantly. This latency indicates that the system is almost overloaded. Nearly overloading a system makes it possible to find out what its true maximum user capacity is.
After a test is performed, the response times can be analyzed to calculate the maximum active session per desktop capacity. This metric is called VSImax. When the system is approaching its saturation point, response times rise. By reviewing the average response time, you can see that the response time escalates at the saturation point.
VSI Launcher(s)
• Windows Desktop• Running View Agent• Microsoft Office and Login VSI Application Set• User Simulation Scripts
• Windows OS machine• Running Horizon Client
• Windows Domain Controller• Group Policy Objects for Login VSI• AD Users and Groups for View Pools
• Windows Server• Login VSI Binaries• Logfiles• Configuration
Viewdesktops
Active Directory Domain
(Optional)
VSI Share
Figure 31. Login VSI System Components
The simulated desktop workload is scripted in a 48-minute loop when a simulated Login VSI user is logged on performing generic office worker activities. After the loop is finished, it restarts. Within each loop, the response times of 12 operations are measured in a regular interval: 12 times within each loop. The response times of these operations are used to determine VSImax.
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The operations from which the response times are measured are listed in the following table.
ID ACTION DESCRIPTION RELATED RESOURCES
WSLD Start Microsoft Word and load a random document
Word Start/Load a local random document file from content pool
CPU,RAM,and I/O
NSLD Start VSI-Notepad and load a document
VSI-Notepad Start/Load a local random text file from content pool
CPUandI/O
WFO Press file open in VSI-Notepad VSI-Notepad file open [Ctrl+O] CPU,RAM,and I/O
NFP Press print open in VSI-Notepad VSI-Notepad print open [Ctrl+P] CPU
ZHC Compress files with high compression
Compress a local random .pst file from content pool (5MB)
CPU
ZNC Compress files with no compression Compress a local random .pst file from content pool (5MB)
I/O
Table 11. Login VSI Operations
Login VSI has built-in workloads, so you can immediately start testing. Below are brief descriptions of the medium and heavy built-in workloads.
Medium WorkloadThe Login VSI default workload is medium. It emulates a medium knowledge worker using Microsoft Office, InternetExplorer,PDFfiles,Java,andFreeMind.ThemediumworkloadisdesignedtorunontwovCPUsperdesktop virtual machine. It has these characteristics:
•Afterasessionstarts,theworkloadlooprepeatsevery48minutes.
•Theloopisdividedinfoursegments.EachconsecutiveLoginVSIuserloginstartsatadifferentsegmenttoensure that all elements in the workload are equally used throughout the test.
•Duringeachloop,theresponsetimeismeasuredevery3–4minutes.
•Fiveapplicationsareopenedsimultaneously.
•Thekeyboardtyperateis160msforeachcharacter.
•Approximately2minutesofidletimeisincludedtosimulatereal-worldusers.
Each loop opens and uses:
•Outlooktobrowsemessages
•InternetExplorer,browsingdifferentWebpages;aYouTubestylevideo(480pmovietrailer)isopenedthreetimes in every loop
•Word,oneinstancetomeasureresponsetime,oneinstancetoreviewandeditadocument
•DoroPDFPrinterandAcrobatReader,printingandreviewingPDFfiles
•Excel,openingalargerandomizedsheet
•PowerPointtoreviewandeditapresentation
•FreeMind,aJava-basedmind-mappingapplication
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Heavy WorkloadThe heavy workload requires the Login VSI PRO Content library, which includes 720p and 1080p videos.
In addition to what is performed in the medium workload, the heavy workload includes the following:
•BeginsbyopeningfourinstancesofInternetExplorer,whichremainopenthroughouttheworkloadloop.
•BeginsbyopeningtwoinstancesofAdobeReader,whichremainopenthroughouttheworkloadloop.
•MorePDFprinteractions.
•A720pvideoanda1080pvideoarewatched.
•IncreasesthetimeforplayingaFlashgame.
•Idletimeisreducedto2minutes.
View Planner 3.0 Workload Testing
VMware View Planner is a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) workload generator that automates and measures a typical office user’s activity, such as using Microsoft Office applications, browsing the Web, and reading a PDF file. Each View Planner operation runs in an iterative fashion, and each iteration is a randomly sequenced workload. The results of a run consist of operational latencies collected for the applications and operations for all iterations.
VirtualAppliance
Physical Servers
Storage
Virtual Desktops
Manage
ClientManagement
DesktopManagement
Remote Display Protocol
vCenterView
WebInterface
ViewPlanner
Physical Servers
Storage
Virtual Client VMs
Harness
Figure 32. View Planner Components
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ThestandardizedViewPlannerworkloadconsistsof9applicationsperformingatotalof44useroperations.These user operations are separated into three groups: interactive operations (Group A), I/O operations (Group B), and background load operations (Group C).
TheoperationsinGroupAareusedtodeterminequalityofservice(QoS).QoS,determinedseparatelyforGroupAuseroperationsandGroupBuseroperations,isthe95thpercentilelatencyofalltheoperationsinagroup. The default thresholds are 1.0 seconds for Group A and 6.0 seconds for Group B.
The operations in Group C are used to generate additional load.
GROUP A GROUP B GROUP C
AdobeReader: Browse AdobeReader: Open 7zip: Compress
AdobeReader: Close Excel_Sort:Open Outlook: Restore
AdobeReader: Maximize Excel_Sort:Save PowerPoint: SaveAs
AdobeReader: Minimize Firefox: Open Video: Play
Excel_Sort:Close IE_ApacheDoc:Open
Excel_Sort:Compute IE_WebAlbum:Open
Excel_Sort:Entry Outlook: Attachment-Save
Excel_Sort:Maximize Outlook: Open
Excel_Sort:Minimize PowerPoint: Open
Firefox: Close Video: Open
IE_ApacheDoc:Browse Word: Open
IE_ApacheDoc:Close Word: Save
IE_WebAlbum:Browse
IE_WebAlbum:Close
Outlook:Close
Outlook: Read
PowerPoint: AppendSlides
PowerPoint: Close
PowerPoint: Maximize
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GROUP A GROUP B GROUP C
PowerPoint: Minimize
PowerPoint: ModifySlides
PowerPoint: RunSlideShow
Video: Close
Word: Close
Word: Maximize
Word: Minimize
Word: Modify
Table 12. View Planner Operations
For our testing, View Planner performed a total of five iterations:
•Rampup(firstiteration)
•Steadystate(second,third,fourthiterations)
•Rampdown(fifthiteration)
During each iteration, View Planner reports the latencies for each operation performed within each virtual machine.
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Virtual Machine Test Image Build
Two different virtual machine images were used to provision desktop sessions in the View environment, one for View Planner testing and one for Login VSI workload testing. Both conformed to testing tool standards and were optimized in accordance with the View Optimization Guide for Windows 7 and Windows 8. The VMware OS Optimization Tool was used to make the changes.
ATTRIBUTE VIEW PLANNER LOGIN VSI
Desktop OS Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (32-bit) Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (32-bit)
Hardware VMwareVirtualHardwareversion9 VMwareVirtualHardwareversion9
CPU 1 2
Memory 1536MB 1536MB
Memory reserved 0MB 0MB
Video RAM 35MB 35MB
3D graphics Off Off
NICs 1 1
Virtual network adapter 1 VMXNet3 Adapter VMXNet3 Adapter
Virtual SCSI controller 0 Paravirtual Paravirtual
Virtual disk – VMDK 1 24GB 24GB
Virtual disk – VMDK 2 – 1GB
Virtual floppy drive 1 Removed Removed
Virtual CD/DVD drive 1 Removed Removed
Applications Adobe Acrobat 10.1.4Firefox 7.01Internet Explorer 10MS Office 2010
Adobe Acrobat 11Adobe Flash Player 11Doro PDF 1.82FreeMindInternet Explorer 10MS Office 2010
VMware Tools™ 9.4.5build-1734305 9.4.5build-1734305
VMware View Agent 5.3.2 5.3.2
Table 13. Virtual Machine Test Images
The Windows 7 Golden Image was modified in line with the View Planner 3 requirements. See Sections A, B, and C of the View Planner Installation and User’s Guide.
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System SizingThis reference architecture used the following sizing specifications.
Hosts
Aspartofthesizingcalculations,itisimportanttofactorintheCPUandmemoryoverheadofVirtualSAN.VirtualSANisdesignedtointroducenomorethan10percentofCPUoverheadperhost.
DESKTOP PERFORMANCE METRIC RECORDED VALUE
AveragenumberofCPUsperphysicaldesktopsystem 1
AverageCPUutilizationperphysicaldesktopsystem 350MHz
vCPUoverhead 10%
Table 14. Host Sizing – Desktop CPU Requirements
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
NumberofCPUs(sockets)perhost 2
NumberofcoresperCPU 8
GHzperCPUcore 2.9GHz
TotalCPUGHzperCPU 23.2GHz
TotalCPUGHzperhost 46.4GHz
Virtual SAN overhead 10%
AvailableCPUGHzperhost 41.76GHz
Desktops per host 108
Table 15. Host Sizing – CPU
ItisrecommendedtoallowsomeheadroomforCPUspikes,hostfailures,andmaintenancewithinyourvSphereclusters.
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The host memory requirement depends on various factors, including memory allocated per virtual desktop, virtualdesktopgraphicsrequirements,vCPUmemoryoverhead,VirtualSANoverheadof10percent,andvSphere transparent page sharing (TPS).
ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION
Virtual SAN memory usage 10%
Total amount of RAM per virtual machine 1536MB
VMCPUNo’s 1
Anticipated TPS saving 30%
VM Memory Reservation 0%
VM Resolution 1x[1920x1600]
VM Video Memory 8.79MB
3D -
VM Memory Overhead 35.27MB
Total amount of RAM per host 207GB TPS
Table 16. Host Sizing – Memory
Virtual SAN
Virtual SAN introduces some new constructs that have sizing requirements.
Disk GroupsA disk group is a container for magnetic disks and an SSD that acts as a read cache and write buffer. Each disk group must have one SSD and at least one magnetic disk, with a maximum of seven. Each ESXi host can have up to five disk groups.
The type of magnetic disk depends on the level of performance and capacity required. For linked clones, it is recommended to have at least three magnetic 10K or 15K disks per disk group.
When an individual magnetic disk is 80 percent utilized, Virtual SAN rebalances the components to other magnetic disks. This action incurs a performance overhead on the cluster.
The recommended sizing for the SSD is 10 percent of the total consumed storage capacity (excluding FTT). For example, a pool of 400 linked-clone desktops is expected to use 5GB of disk space per virtual desktop:
10% (400 x 5) = 200GB
With a Virtual SAN cluster of four hosts, the minimum recommended SSD size is 50GB per host.
Only magnetic disks count toward cluster capacity. Cluster capacity equals:
Num_hosts x Num_disk_groups x Num_disks_per_group x disk_size
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For our test configuration, the capacity is:
4 x 1 x 4 x 300 = 4800GB = 4.8TB
Objects and ComponentsVirtual SAN objects include the virtual machine home (namespace), virtual machine swap files, virtual machine disk format (VMDK) files, and snapshots. The namespace includes VSA files, log files, and virtual machine configuration files. The default number of objects per virtual desktop type is listed in the following table.
USER ASSIGNMENT
VIRTUAL MACHINE TYPE
DISPOSABLE DISK
OBJECTS NUMBER OBJECTS PER DESKTOP
NUMBER COMPONENTS PER DESKTOP
Floating Linked clone
N Namespace, VMDK, snapshot, internal disk, swap
5 9replicaplus15 per virtual machine
Floating Linked clone
Y Namespace, VMDK, snapshot, internal, disposable, swap
6 9replicaplus18 per virtual machine
Dedicated Linked clone
Y Namespace, VMDK, snapshot, internal disk, disposable disk, persistent disk, swap
7 9replicaplus21 per virtual machine
Floating Full clone – Namespace, VMDK, swap
3 9
Dedicated Full clone – Namespace, VMDK, swap
3 9
Table 17. Default Number of Objects per View Desktop Type
Note: Adjusting the default Space Policy-Based Management policies alters the component counts listed here.
For our test configuration, 400 floating, linked-clone virtual machines with no disposable disk comes to objects per desktop. The total number of objects for our pool of 400 virtual machines is:
400 x 5 = 2000
The number of objects per virtual machine, in addition to their performance and availability requirements, dictates the number of components that will be created. Virtual SAN supports a maximum of 3,000 components per host.
The default storage policies for Virtual SAN and Horizon with View are as follows. VMware recommends using the default policies.
•FTT=1
•Numberofdiskstripesperobject=1
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FTT defines the number of hosts, disk, or network failures that a storage object can tolerate. For n failures tolerated, n+1 copies of the object are created, and 2n+1 host contributing storage is required.
FTT has the greatest impact on capacity in a Virtual SAN cluster. Based on the availability requirements of a virtual machine, the setting defined in a virtual machine storage policy can lead to the consumption of several multiples of the virtual desktop consumed space.
The number of disk stripes per object is the number of HDDs across which each replica of a storage object is distributed.
You can use the following formula to calculate the number of components per desktop. It accounts for the replicas and witnesses created based on the FTT setting. The resulting number of components is split across all the hosts in the cluster.
Number of components = Objects x [FTT x 2 + 1]
For our configuration this is 2000 x [(1 x 2) +1] = 6000 components.
Inaddition,threeobjects(namespace,swap,andVMDK)arecreatedforthereplicavirtualdisk.WithFTT=1,thatis9additionalcomponents,so6,009intotal.
Management Blocks
SERVER ROLE VCPU RAM (GB) STORAGE (GB) OS
Domain Controller 2 6 40 Server 2008 64-bit R2
SQLServer 2 8 140 Server 2008 64-bit R2
vCenter Server 4 10 50 Server 2008 64-bit R2
View Connection Server
4 10 60 Server 2008 64-bit R2
vCenter Operations Manager Analytics Server
8 21 212 SLES 11–64-bit
ManagerUIServer 8 13 132 SLES 11–64-bit
Table 18. Management Block Sizing
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The following table shows the peak resource usage by management block components throughout workload, operations, and resiliency testing.
RESOURCE MAX CPU (MHZ)
MAX MEM USAGE (MB)
MAX NETWORK RX/TX (KBPS)
MAX DISK I/O (KBPS)
MAX DISK I/O OPERATIONS [PS]
View Manager 3826MHz 6982MB 206/109KBps 8861KBps R437 / W32
VMware vCenter Operations [Analytics virtual machine]
6439MHz 20468MB 216/1995KBps 26252KBps R890/W63
VMware vCenter Operations [UIvirtualmachine]
2193MHz 13191MB 1992/377KBps 5852KBps R358 / W80 IOPS
VMware vCenter
7421MHz 10314MB 9089/8964KBps 13456KBps R461 / W645 IOPS
SQLServer 963MHz 6148MB 467/289KBps 3790KBps R33/W89IOPS
Domain Controller
1010MHz 3197MB 40 / 82KBps 3558KBps R9/W50IOPS
Table 19. Management Peak Resource Usage
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Bill of MaterialsThe following table summarizes the bill of materials for this reference architecture.
AREA COMPONENT QUANTITY
Host hardware Dell PowerEdge R720 4
256GB RAM
LSI9207_8i 1
Intel Ethernet 10G 2P X520 1
1GB SD Card 1
Intel 200GB S3700 MLC SATA 6GBps SSD 1
Dell 300GB 15K RPM 2.5in 6Gbps SAS 4
Network switch Dell Force10 S4810 10/40GbE 2
Software VMware ESXi 5.5, 1746018 7
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.0, 1623101 1
View 5.3.2 1
VMware vCenter Operations for View 1.5.1, 1286478 1
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 4
MicrosoftSQLServer2008R2 1
Table 20. Bill of Materials
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ConclusionVMware Virtual SAN is a low-cost, high-performance storage platform that is rapidly deployed, easy to manage, and fully integrated into the industry-leading VMware vSphere cloud suite.
It scales as your VDI user base does, keeping CapEx costs down and eliminating the need for the large upfront investment that traditional storage arrays often require.
Extensive workload, operations, and resiliency testing shows that Horizon with View on Virtual SAN delivers high levels of performance, a great end-user experience, and solid system resiliency, all at a low price point.
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About the AuthorsMattCoppingerisagroupproductmanagerwiththeVMwareEnd-UserComputing(EUC)TechnicalMarketingGroup, with a focus on best practice technical architecture and customer implementations. Previously, Matt ledtheGlobalEUCConsultingPracticeatVMware,participatedinlarge-scaleEUCdeploymentsinEMEA,andworked as an engineer on the original View product.
DonalGearyworksasaReferenceArchitectEngineerwiththeVMwareEnd-UserComputingTechnicalMarketing Group, with a focus on performance testing. Previously he worked as Technical Lead for VMware IT’s EMEA and APAC regions, and as Escalation Engineer for the VMware Global Support Services Organization. He holds a BSc. in Applied Computing and is a certified Cloud Architect Expert (EMCCAe) and Storage Networking Specialist (EMCDCA).
Wade Holmes, VCDX #15, CISSP, CCSK, is a senior technical marketing architect at VMware, currently focusing on software-defined storage reference architectures. He has more than 17 years of industry experience in the design and implementation of complex computing environments of all scopes and sizes. He has presented at many industry conferences and is a co-author of VMware vCloud Architecture Toolkit. He holds a bachelor’s degree in information technology and a master’s degree in information assurance.
Follow Wade’s blogs:
•http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/storage
• http://www.vwade.com
Follow Wade on Twitter: @wholmes
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VMware Horizon with View and Virtual SAN Reference Architecture
ReferencesView Documentation
View Technical Resources
View Optimization Guide for Windows 7 and Windows 8
View Planner 3 Resources
View Storage Accelerator
VMware vCenter Database Performance Improvements + Best Practice for Large-Scale Environments
Dell PowerEdge R720
Dell Force10 S4810 High-performance 10/40GbE top-of-rack switch
Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520-T2
LSI SAS 9207-8i
Virtual SAN Sizing Guide for VDI and other technical resources
Virtual SAN Hardware Quick Reference Guide
Virtual SAN Design and Sizing Guide
VDI Performance Benchmarking on VMware Virtual SAN 5.5