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VMware Horizon with View Reference Implementation Case Study for European Financial Services CompanyIncluding a Reference Architecture for a VMware Horizon with View Enterprise Implementation on Converged Infrastructure

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R

VMware Horizon with View Reference Implementation Case Study for European Financial Services Company

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R / 2

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

About VMware Reference Implementation Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Implementation Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Business Drivers, Business Case, and Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Project Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Architecture Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

About VMware Horizon with View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

VMware Horizon with View Solution Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Reference Implementation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Business Drivers, Business Case, and Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Business Drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Business Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Business Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Project Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

VMware Expertise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Implementation Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Nineteen-Month Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Lessons Learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Project Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Technical Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Operational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Architecture Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

VDI Solution Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

VMware Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The View Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

End User Persona, Session, and Device Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Application Provisioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Bill of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

About VMware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24



IntroductionThis document provides a reference implementation case study for VMware® Horizon with View™ at a European financial services company. The case study represents a 23,000-user environment running on converged infrastructure.

The intended audience for this document is the technical decision-maker who is considering deploying Horizon with View at scale. The Executive Summary and Business Drivers, Business Case, and Benefits sections of this document are also suitable for non-technical decision makers.

The purpose of this document is to illustrate how the technical solution provides tangible business benefits. The document includes an overview of business benefits and cost savings (where possible), an architectural overview and its bill of materials, and key configurations that the customer used to deploy the solution.

About VMware Reference Implementation Case StudiesA reference implementation case study shows how specific customers in a variety of locations and industry verticals have deployed and benefited from Horizon with View. A reference implementation describes in detail the project approach, architecture, and business benefits at a real customer site, and provides lessons learned for that particular deployment. These implementations are often built on reference architectures validated by VMware.

While a reference implementation is often built on best practices, sometimes tradeoffs are made to meet project requirements or constraints. When a reader references these implementations, it is critical to understand where the architecture has deviated from best practices, and where improvements can be made. This is easily achieved by comparing a reference implementation to reference architecture documentation provided by VMware. For further information regarding this and other technical reference architectures, visit the VMware Horizon with View design resources on the VMware Web site.

This case study is intended to help customers—IT architects, consultants, and administrators—involved in the early phases of planning, design, and deployment of Horizon with View solutions. The purpose is to provide an example of a successful architecture that represents specific industry vertical challenges met, and the benefits gained from the solution.

http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/view/technical-resources.html%23Design



Executive SummaryFor the customer’s Workspace Services group, there was no question whether they should undertake a move to a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). End users required more features and flexibility, including session portability, enhanced application performance, and the ability to access applications remotely from a broad range of devices. In addition, their end-user computing platform—mostly desktop PCs running Windows XP—was approaching obsolescence. Up to 70 percent of their legacy PCs needed to be replaced.

Implementation Overview

The customer viewed VMware technology as the cornerstone of its VDI solution, with VMware vSphere® as their choice for hypervisor technology. “We saw VMware as the virtualization standard,” said their EUC lead architect. “Based on the capabilities of the Horizon with View product and our strategic view of VMware technology, we chose Horizon for the VDI implementation. We did not see other vendors as strategic in these areas.”

7,200 concurrent

virtual desktops

23,000 users migrated

19-month project

Figure 1: Implementation Highlights

Business Drivers, Business Case, and Benefits

The customer VDI design team identified two key drivers for the implementation—retail branches and remote access. Retail branches required a new workplace paradigm to support features such as session portability and better application performance. The VDI team recommended a thin-client approach for the retail branches, as it provided a low footprint, lower costs, and more flexibility. The customer’s large user population also required a secure and flexible remote access solution that would support the company’s BYOD policy, and allow users to, at a later stage of the implementation, leverage the remote access solution to bring their own laptops on site.

Project Overview

The customer launched the project in April 2010, with the specific goal of providing a more flexible and productive working environment while lowering management overhead and costs. The customer’s partner Virtual Clarity provided an exhaustive TCO and ROI analysis, and a number of options including the VMware-based VDI solution, which IT management selected. The customer then proceeded with the design, deployment, and testing of a pilot project aimed at proving the value of VDI within its retail branch offices.

“Like every big project, there were many challenges in the design, pilot, and deployment phases,” said the lead architect. “Some had to do with hardware, some with software, and some with the adjustments that were required to application builds, backend systems, and processes. But the key to success was the close cooperation between our team, VMware, and the other vendors. We had quick access to experts that could effectively help to address and resolve issues.”



Lessons Learned

As is common with customers deploying new technology for the first time, the company faced many challenges along the way. They divided the key lessons learned into Project, Technical, and Operations categories, outlined in Figure 2.

Project

• Work closely with all vendors

• Take a phased approach

• Undertake load testing which is critical

• Periodically review the solution

• Get an early start on application virtualization

• Consider the impact of deploying to geographi-cally dispersed locations

Technical

• Optimize OS image for virtual desktops

• Ensure firmware and software versions are compatible and supported

• Understand different client device features

Operations

• Adjust security processes and procedures for VDI

• Monitor solution end-to-end

• Ensure service providers are integrated into VDI support processes

Figure 2: Key Lessons Learned

Architecture Overview

The customer solution is a hosted model, where virtualized desktops run on VMware vSphere servers hosted in two datacenters. View is the software component that brokers client requests, and authenticates and allocates virtual desktops to users.

The implementation originated with View 4.6. IT later architected the VDI solution to accommodate View 5, a release that provided enhanced scalability and functionality over previous versions, such as the ability to use multiple tiers of storage to run the virtual desktops. It also supports Windows 7, the OS to which the customer migrated its desktops.

Conclusion

The VDI solution has quickly delivered the business benefits that it was designed for. Just 19 months after the project launched, the customer was able to migrate 23,000 users onto the production environment, and support up to 7,200 concurrent users—with scalability for even more. The VDI solution has transformed the end-user experience for workers; it has also delivered key management and service improvements, and increased flexibility for both end users and business processes.

The VDI solution has also provided some unexpected benefits, such as a quieter workplace environment due to the use of thin clients.

“We’re happy when users are happy, even if not for the expected reasons,” said the company’s lead architect. “Overall, we’re very pleased with the way this project progressed, and especially pleased with the way our vendors came together to ensure success, every step of the way. We have achieved our objectives and now have an efficient, future-ready platform for end-user computing.”



About VMware Horizon with View Horizon with View is a desktop virtualization solution that simplifies IT manageability and control while delivering the highest fidelity end-user experience across devices and networks.

The Horizon with View solution helps IT organizations automate desktop and application management, reduce costs, and increase data security by centralizing the desktop environment. This centralization results in greater end-user freedom and increased control for IT organizations. By encapsulating the operating systems, applications, and user data into isolated layers, IT organizations can deliver a modern desktop. IT organizations can then deliver dynamic, elastic desktop cloud services such as applications, unified communications, and 3D graphics for real-world productivity and greater business agility.

Unlike other desktop virtualization products, Horizon with View is built on and tightly integrated with VMware vSphere, the industry-leading virtualization platform, allowing customers to extend the value of VMware infrastructure and its enterprise-class features such as high availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity.

Horizon with View delivers important features and enhancements that improve the performance, security, management, and flexibility of virtual desktops.

Support for VMware vSphere 5 leverages the latest functionality of the leading cloud infrastructure platform for highly available, scalable, and reliable desktop services.

Visit the VMware Web site for more information on Horizon with View

https://www.vmware.com/products/horizon-view/



VMware Horizon with View Solution Components

Typical Horizon with View deployments consist of several common components, as shown in Figure 3, which represent a typical architecture. The solution includes Horizon with View components as well as other components commonly integrated with Horizon View.

Local Connection

Android iPad ZeroClient

ThinClient

Windows Horizon Client

Windows Horizon Client

with Local Mode

Macintosh Horizon Client

Remote Connection

IntermittentNetworkConnection

Private Cloud (vSphere)

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vCenter

View Composer

ViewAdministrator

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Local Mode Only

Local Mode Only

Local Mode Only

ThinApp Virtualized Application Repository

ParentImage

Linked Clones

For PCoIP Direct Connect

VM

View transferserver(s)

View Connection Server(s)

VM Hypervisors

(ESX)

VMVM

VM

VMVM

VM

View AgentOS

NativeApp ThinAppVirtualAppShortcut to

ThinAppVirtual App

Internal Network External Network

View securityserver(s)

MS ActiveDirectory

Figure 3: Horizon with View Solution Components



Reference Implementation OverviewThe customer and its partners planned and implemented a VDI solution that serves 23,000 total users and up to 7,200 concurrent virtual desktops, efficiently and cost-effectively, in just 19 months. The Workspace Services group chose a VDI solution to resolve employee complaints about excessive login times and lack of flexibility. They also used the implementation to replace obsolete desktop PCs.

The question was, how could Workspace Services make the move to VDI and provide a more flexible and productive working environment, while at the same time reducing management overhead and costs? How could the solution be designed, tested, piloted, and rolled out at maximum speed but with minimal disruption? How could the organization make the transformation from a siloed approach—with systems located in a fixed working area—to a “managed diversity” approach that accommodated an increasingly mobile workforce?

The following Reference Implementation Study tells the story of how the VDI solution selected by the customer successfully addressed each of the requirements mentioned above. It shows how the customer and its partners were able to plan and implement a VDI solution serving 23,000 total users and up to 7,200 concurrent desktop users, efficiently and cost-effectively, in just 19 months. It also describes key lessons learned along the way—valuable information and insights for other companies contemplating their move to VDI.



Business Drivers, Business Case, and BenefitsThe customer engaged with a partner to undertake an extensive assessment of the business drivers, business case, and business benefits of a VDI solution. The assessment took place over an eight-week period where the partner worked closely with the customer to capture current costs, and to model the costs and savings of a VDI solution compared to a refresh of its current baseline.

Business Drivers

• Support for retail branches requires new workplace paradigm with benefits like session portability and enhanced application performance

• Secure and flexible remote access solution required for large user population

• Hardware is failing (70% PCs > 5 years) and must be refreshed

• Windows XP is in extended support and must be refreshed

• Workplace is highly standardized but service level low

Business Case

• Virtual desktop costs significantly less than PC or laptop

• ROI is three years

• Considerable cost savings seen in workplace power and cooling

Business Benefits

• Reduced support costs

• Improved end-user experience

• Increased security

• Faster provisioning

• Utilities and equipment cost savings

• Improved Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery

Figure 4: VDI Business Drivers, Business Case, and Business Benefits

Business Drivers

During the solution assessment, the customer identified the key business drivers behind changing their current EUC solution. They saw the opportunity to dramatically change the way their users worked, and improve both user and administrative productivity while reducing the solution’s environmental impact. The drivers identified were:

• Support retail branches with benefits like session portability and enhanced application performance

• Implement a secure and flexible remote access solution that supports BYOD

• Enable the “Change the Way We Work” initiative

• Improve end-user productivity—workplace highly standardized, but service level low

• Reduce carbon emissions in the workplace

• Reduce current workplace support costs

• Refresh failing hardware (70 percent of PCs older than 5 years)

• Refresh Windows XP, which was in extended support

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R / 1 0


Business Case

The solution assessment also defined comparisons for desktop, laptop, and virtual desktop costs. Figure 5 illustrates the cost-comparison data derived from the assessment, which revealed major savings for VDI in end-user computing (productivity and management), power, and hardware.

Note: Infrastructure management costs represent <0.5% of total costs for laptop, desktop, and VDI scenarios, and do not appear in the graph.

LAPTOP

Cos

t in

€

DESKTOP

VIRTUAL DESKTOP

Service desk

End-user computing

Power

Licensing

Hardware

Figure 5: Device Cost Breakdown Comparison

Additionally, the customer calculated the following savings and return on investment when moving to a virtual desktop solution:

• The customer could support 50–67 percent of users with VDI, with the high end of this range obtainable. Thirty-two percent of the employees were identified as targets for initial VDI deployment.

• NPV = €20MM for 67 percent VDI usage compared to a baseline with no VDI usage.



Business Benefits

Finally, the customer identified the functional benefits that VDI has over physical desktops, which are difficult to quantify within the cost model. Namely, these were:

1. Centralized Management

• One-to-many management of desktop images is linked to standardized templates.

• Centralization simplifies management in keeping with managed diversity.

• Infrastructure is logically segmented in the datacenter and managed separately, which enables seamless transition of users in the insurance organization.

2. Flexibility

• Users can connect to the same desktop environment from any network-connected client, which enables “Change the Way We Work” initiatives.

3. Security

• All data remains within the datacenter and can be backed up.

• All datacenter access is authenticated and audited.

4. Power Reduction

• VDI results in a reduction in overall workplace-related carbon emissions .

5. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity

• In the event of office locations becoming unavailable, VDI allows users to work from remote locations.



Project OverviewAs with any project of the size and scope of this VDI implementation, multiple partners were involved in the overall solution deployment. In this case, the prime contractor was Cisco, which provided network infrastructure and services; Virtual Clarity provided solution assessment, TCO and ROI analysis, and a proof of concept; EMC delivered storage infrastructure and services; CheckPoint Software provided firewall protection; and McAfee provided antivirus software. Other partners were involved as well.

VMware Expertise

The onsite expertise VMware brought to the project was helpful in preparing for the implementation. “VMware Professional Services sped up the project considerably and built our team’s expertise along the way,” said the lead architect. “The results underscore why we consider our relationship with VMware to be one of the best—it’s a true partnership and better than we could have ever hoped to have.”

Implementation Timing

The question of where to start in preparing a migration to VDI can be daunting, especially for a geographically dispersed financial services enterprise. The Workspace Services group made one key decision up front that paid many dividends down the road: address the use case that will benefit the most from VDI first. According to the Workspace Services architect, they had three basic use case scenarios to consider:

• Roaming and remote access – The customer has approximately 16,000 users that require remote and roaming access to applications and data. These include contractors, outsourcing staff, or employees who must have access to their corporate desktop while traveling or working from other locations.

• Internal business process users – The customer has 5,000+ users internally who could benefit from an improved user experience, security, and manageability of a virtual desktop—along with the reduced physical footprint and lower power consumption.

• Retail branch offices – The customer has more than 275 retail branch offices with around 2,500 users who could benefit from the remote-access features of VDI.

Working in conjunction with VMware Professional Services and strategic partner Virtual Clarity, the customer team determined that the retail branch office use case was the optimal place to start. “Users at the retail branches were experiencing performance problems due to the distributed nature of the legacy environment, and support costs were too high. The need to cut costs and provide a better user experience made it the top-priority case.”



Nineteen-Month ProjectThe customer launched the project in April 2010 with the specific goal of providing a more flexible and productive working environment, while lowering management overhead and costs. Workspace Services preferred a thin client and laptop approach, as it provides a low footprint, lower costs, and more flexibility.

They spent the first six months of the project preparing a detailed a business case analysis. Virtual Clarity provided an exhaustive TCO and ROI analysis and a number of solution options, of which the VMware-based VDI solution was selected. The customer then proceeded with the design, deployment, and testing of a pilot project aimed at proving the value of VDI within its retail branch offices. This pilot implementation eventually became the production environment for the other use cases as well. The customer conducted a number of load tests to ensure their infrastructure could scale to meet the final demand prior to extending the pilot.

Solution Assessment

TCO/RIO Study

Tuning / Expansion

Pilot (User

Acceptance)Load

Testing

Phased Rollout

Proof of Concept

Figure 6: Project Phases

This customer has worked with VMware to continue to expand and improve the environment, reviewing new features as VMware releases patches and updates to Horizon with View.



Lessons LearnedThe customer learned many lessons in facing the challenges of deploying new technology for the first time. IT management organized the key lessons learned among project, technical and operations categories.

Project

• Work closely with all vendors

• Take a phased approach

• Undertake load testing which is critical

• Periodically review the solution

• Get an early start on application virtualization

• Consider the impact of deploying to geographi-cally dispersed locations

Technical

• Optimize OS image for virtual desktops

• Ensure firmware and software versions are compatible and supported

• Understand different client device features

Operations

• Adjust security processes and procedures for VDI

• Monitor solution end-to-end

• Ensure service providers are integrated into VDI support processes

Figure 7: Key Lessons Learned

Project Approach

This customer’s solution is made up of technologies from several key vendors including VCE, EMC, Cisco, VMware, Wyse, F5, and Microsoft. Ensuring that all vendors were integrated into the project and working with the project team was critical. The inherent nature of virtualization requires that firmware and software versions are supported on converged infrastructure hardware such as Vblock.

By using a phased project approach, the customer ensured success with the least complex use cases first. This approach also allowed them to slowly ramp up both their operations and the utilization of the shared infrastructure.

As the project team became more adept at migrating users and use cases, this process was accelerated. Before ramping up production users, the customer mitigated any performance issues by working with VMware to validate the environment’s maximum performance. Using the Login VSI tool, the customer tested thousands of concurrent desktops on their production environment prior to release to live users.

The inherent complexity of the migration to VDI was compounded by the fact that the retail branch offices were scattered across ten countries, from Belgium to Singapore, and each office needed to provide service to both remote and internal users.

As the project progressed, it became obvious to the Workspace Services team that the more applications were virtualized, the faster users and use cases could be migrated. Virtualizing applications yields a smaller number of unique desktop images to be managed. This allows users easy access to their applications from a “vanilla” desktop image. In hindsight, if the team had started the application virtualization effort earlier, they could have accelerated the project and made the management of desktops easier.

Once in production, the customer worked closely with VMware to identify ways to continue to improve and optimize the solution. This involved looking at improving storage performance, image optimization, and relocating user data and profiles. This review work continues as this customer plans to expand the deployment. In addition, it was imperative that the customer’s current IT outsourcer supported the transition to a VDI solution.



Technical Challenges

From a technical perspective, the customer and its partners had a number of challenges. User data and profiles used on the virtual desktops are stored in a different location than the desktops themselves. Although they have improved the user experience, they still have gains to make by moving user data physically closer to the desktops. This will improve data transfer and login times even more than the gains they have already made by centralizing desktops.

Optimizing the operating system ensures that this customer is getting the most out of its infrastructure by increasing desktop densities. Small changes to a single image can lead to significant improvements to performance impact—a change occurs on thousands of desktops, so small optimizations actually do improve user experience.

The customer was already taking advantage of thin-client technology in certain areas; but not all of these clients supported the full range of View features. Initially, this limited the customer in its choice of display protocol. With this realization, the customer moved to ensure that future thin and zero clients, such as the Wyse P20, could fully support View. The customer employed the use of Wyse TCX to make up for any shortfall in the original thin client feature set.

Operational Change

The Workspace Services team had to address the implementation of new security policies, which required changes to management policies and processes. Examples included changes to the antivirus solution, and policies to better fit the virtual desktop. Moreover, this customer adopted technology supported by Horizon with View to continue to enable the use of removable drives.

In order to adequately support users, the customer has noted that troubleshooting in a VDI environment can be complex. This customer put in place a monitoring solution that utilized and leveraged current system management tools. If it had been available, VMware vCenter™ Operations Manager for View™ would have been ideal to provide a single pane of glass view of issues in the environment.



Architecture OverviewThe customer selected a VDI hosted solution that has virtualized desktops that run on Type 1 hypervisors hosted in two datacenters. Horizon with View is tightly integrated into VMware vSphere, providing ease of management and less complexity than comparable VDI solutions.

For this implementation, the customer’s IT management designed a building block–based desktop solution capable of supporting at least 4,000 virtual desktops, as shown in Figure 8. The building block is based on a single VCE Type 2 Vblock containing 64 ESX hosts. This customer solution includes the typical components necessary to integrate 10,000 users into a View pod. IT manages the pod as a single unit, leveraging the 4,000-user building block as the single replicated entity. This architecture uses common components and a standardized design across the building blocks, which reduces the overall cost of implementing and managing the solution.

8 ESX

Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

HA/DRS Enabled

8 ESX

Hosts

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Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

VMs x Storage

Switched Network

8 ESX

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Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

8 ESX

Hosts

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HA/DRS Enabled

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Hosts

VMs x Storage

Switched Network

Virtual Desktops

Vblock 1 Vblock 2 Vblock 3

Virtual Desktops

View, vCenter 5.0, ESXi 5.0

Virtual Desktops

Figure 8: Architecture Overview

The VDI desktops are hosted in two datacenters with duplicate infrastructures running on dedicated Vblock hardware (each supporting 10,000 desktops). The Vblocks run the VDI desktops and View connection brokers, while the VMware vCenter servers run within the customer’s management environment. The customer’s network load-balancing service handles the load between datacenters. When additional datacenters are added within the VDI solution, the load-balancing service spreads the load between existing self-contained VDI infrastructures.

The datacenter the user connects to is determined by the DNS name that is configured in the Horizon client, which the global load balancers resolve to a preferred datacenter. This optimizes load between datacenters, helping ensure maximum performance for end users.



Figure 9 illustrates the high-level architecture of the customer’s VDI solution.

Client Sites

ConnectionBrokers

LTM Load Balancer

LTM Load Balancer

GTMLoad Balancer

WP DCV

Atos DatacenterEindhoven

Thin Clients(H/W or S/W)

UserPro�le Server

ManagementVblock

ManagementZone

PublicZone

ManagementZone

ManagementVblock

VDC Vblock

ConnectionBrokers

vCenterDB

vCenterServer

vCenterDB

vCenterServer

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

Virtual Desktops

ESX Host

VM VM VM

VM VM VM

Virtual Desktops

ESX Host

VDC Vblock

LAN LAN

Figure 9: VDI Solution Architecture



VDI Solution Elements

The following elements are integrated into this customer’s VDI solution.

1. Thin Clients – Users connect to their virtual desktop via hardware devices or software clients installed on existing PCs. Depending on the configuration of the load balancers, they are directed to one of the two datacenters.

2. Global Traffic Manager (GTM) – The GTM acts as a DNS server for the thin clients, directing them to one of the two datacenters based on the URL the thin clients present. The GTM detects site failure and redirects users to the remaining datacenter in the event of a disaster.

3. Local Traffic Manager (LTM) – The LTM performs the role of the load balancer, redirecting incoming connections to one of the connection brokers in a datacenter. The LTM also monitors the health of the connection brokers.

4. Connection Brokers – There are five connection brokers in each datacenter. They are hosted on the Vblocks and not within the management environment, as they service direct client connections. They perform the initial authentication and desktop allocation as well as monitor the state of the desktop session.

5. VDI Vblocks – The underlying vSphere infrastructure is built on Vblocks and configured per the customer’s standard virtual infrastructure hosting design.

6. Management Vblock – The five VDI vCenter servers per datacenter are hosted within the the customer’s management environment.

7. User Profile Servers – User profiles are the same as in the physical desktop system, and are located in an outsourced datacenter.

VMware Infrastructure

The VMware vSphere infrastructure is deployed on VCE Vblock technology, specifically three Vblock 300s with EMC VMAX storage per datacenter. Two Vblocks contain 64 UCS B200 servers each with eight cores (2.53Ghz) and 96GB RAM per server. The third Vblock contains 16 UCS B230 servers with 16 cores (2.4Ghz) and 256GB RAM per server. Each datacenter can support up to 9,000 concurrent virtual desktops.

One VMware vCenter Server™ instance is deployed for every 2,000 virtual desktops. Each vCenter server is a 4vCPU 8GB RAM virtual machine running on a VMware infrastructure separate from the VDI Vblocks. There are five vCenter Server instances per datacenter, which can cater to up to 10,000 virtual desktops. Multiple vCenter Server instances maximize the number of concurrent operations possible on the VDI platform. VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) and DRS are configured on all VDI clusters (fully automated). A cluster is limited to eight hosts due to the use of linked clone technology (with View 5.1 and below with VMFS). Therefore, each Vblock has up to eight clusters of eight hosts.

A separate 4vCPU 16GB RAM SQL Server (virtual machine) is used for vCenter and Horizon View–related databases totaling about 110GB in size. Each vCenter server has an instance of VMware View Composer™ installed to manage linked-clone operations.

Each Vblock has its own EMC VMAX SAN. The VMAX provides multiple tiers of storage for the VDI solution, as outlined in Table 1. Storage sizing and tiering is based on an in-depth analysis of the expected IOPS, and capacity required to run 4,500 concurrent virtual desktops per Vblock.



TIER PURPOSE SIZE DISK MAXIMUM LIMITS

1 Replica, full-clone templates

200GB EFD • 9 Replicas (templates) per datastore

• 512 linked clones reading from same datastore

2 Parent image 400GB EFD • Maximum 12 parent images per datastore

3 Floating linked clones

1600GB 15K FC • 76 linked clones per datastore

• 18GB maximum allowable growth per linked clone

4 Dedicated linked clones

1600GB 15K FC • 76 linked clones per datastore

• 18GB maximum growth per linked clone

Table 1: Storage Tiers

Each vSphere host is configured to use a Cisco Nexus Distributed Virtual Switch, with port groups configured for management traffic and each virtual machine VLAN. Sixteen VLANs are provided for the hosted virtual desktop traffic in each datacenter location. Each VLAN has a /22 subnet providing 1,024 IP addresses with three-day lease times (IPs released on power-off via a script). With 64 virtual machines per host, within the Vblock there is sufficient bandwidth to cater to display protocol usage, outlined in Table 2.

PROTOCOL MEAN PEAK TRAFFIC (KBPS) PER USER

NUMBER OF USERS

TOTAL REQUIREMENT PER VBLOCK

TOTAL REQUIREMENT PER POD

RDP 100 9,000 (1 pod)

0.9Gbps 1.8Gbps

PCoIP 70 9,000 0.6Gbps 1.2Gbps

Table 2: Virtual Machine Network Bandwidth Requirements Overall Analysis (Estimated)

The View Environment

The View environment is accessed via a mixture of clients running both RDP and PCoIP. The customer’s WAN has very high bandwidth and low latency between sites and the datacenters. Remote sites often have a low number of users (maximum of five) and good bandwidth (10Mb/s average), as shown in Table 3.

LOCATION MAXIMUM CONCURRENT CONNECTIONS

NETWORK BANDWIDTH

LATENCY

Branch Offices > Datacenters 5 (average) 10Mb/s (18Mb/s burst)

<5ms

Regional / Head Offices > Datacenters ~4,000 Gigabit <5ms

Table 3: WAN User to Bandwidth Ratio



Client devices on the LAN/WAN access the View environment by a configured URL that points to the closest datacenter with a View instance. An F5 Global Traffic Manager (GTM) ensures that clients are redirected to an available datacenter if one goes offline. An F5 Local Traffic Manager (LTM) then load-balances the client requests across five View Connection Servers in the datacenter. Initial connections are via HTTPS/SSL over port 443. Each connection has a timeout limit of 14 hours. The solution automatically logs out users are if they are disconnected for more than five hours.

Each View Connection Server supports up to 2,000 concurrent connections, or 10,000 per datacenter. Each View Connection Server is configured with four vCPUs with 10GB RAM. For remote access purposes, each datacenter has two View security servers and two View Connection Servers available, in addition to the five internal servers. All View servers run on a separate infrastructure than the VDI Vblocks. The View Connection Servers return connection information back to the client devices, and client devices connect directly to a virtual desktop.

By default, each virtual desktop is configured with one vCPU with 1.5GB RAM and a 30GB disk. The image is optimized to reduce the CPU and disk resource requirements per desktop. In addition, the View Agent (USB redirection enabled) and the Wyse TCX Agent are installed. Wyse TCX provides user experience enhancements for users with RDP and legacy Wyse clients. The virtual desktop can support 2 * 1,920 * 1,200 displays.

End User Persona, Session, and Device Design

Once a user is connected (and authenticated using Active Directory) to a View Connection Server, they are presented with a choice of desktops or are automatically connected to a desktop in a pool they have been entitled to. Global policies for View disable USB access by default and enable multimedia redirection (for Windows XP).

Based on the user’s requirements, the VDI solution allocates them a linked clone floating desktop or a dedicated desktop. Linked clone desktops are provisioned automatically via View Composer based on pool parameters. In each datacenter, there are 20 pools, each with varied numbers of desktops ranging from 10 at the low end to a maximum of 700. Larger pools are configured to always have 50 spare desktops to accommodate peaks in usage, and desktops are provisioned up front. The desktops are left powered on so that access to a desktop is very quick.

View Composer provisions all virtual desktops. A View Composer instance is installed on each of the five vCenter servers. View Composer takes advantage of a single replica image for each pool of 1,000 desktops. Each pool of linked clones is split across a number of datastores (128 clones per datastore). When using View Composer with View 5.1 or below and VMFS, ESX clusters are limited to eight hosts per cluster. Linked clones are recomposed when they reach ninety percent capacity (of 18GB), or recomposed monthly for floating desktops. The customer rebalances datastores manually when needed. View Composer refresh operations are not used.

View Composer is allocated a service account with Active Directory (AD) in order to join virtual desktops to the appropriate AD organizational unit (OU). Each VDI OU has a number of group policies applied for user and computer settings based on XP or Windows 7. These group policies include View logging and PCoIP settings. PCoIP is configured to disable build-to-lossless and use of a clipboard.

Every domain user has been added to the Remote Desktop Users group to ensure any authenticated domain user can remotely access their virtual desktop. In addition, Microsoft Roaming Profiles is configured along with Microsoft Folder Redirection to provide a consistent user experience across both virtual and physical desktops. Network drives store user data.

In a shared infrastructure such as VDI, desktops share a common set of CPUs, NICs, and HBAs. If an antivirus update or scan is initiated across all virtual desktops on a single ESX host, the resources will be flooded with I/O requests. This kind of event has the potential to bring the VDI environment to a standstill. In order to avoid a resource storm, IT management staggers antivirus updates to ensure that no single ESX host is overwhelmed.



The existing printing mechanism, which utilized Windows networked printers searchable in Active Directory, is used for VDI. Users add printers in the normal way, which roam with users in their profile. The number of potential printers that need to be supported within the customer’s organization is extensive, and in order to provide a tested printing solution familiar to the users, the VDI designers selected the existing printing method.

The customer uses multiple types of Horizon Clients. Wyse C10LE devices run Wyse ThinOS, and the Horizon software client is installed on existing desktops and the PCoIP enabler Wyse P20. The majority of users have the Wyse client with the software client installed, in order to provide access to their virtual desktops when they roam to locations that do not have thin client devices. This allows the customer to maintain their hot-desking capability. The Wyse C10 supports RDP and advanced features such as USB redirection, multimedia redirection (MMR) for Windows XP, and the Wyse TCX extensions. The Wyse P20 supports only PCoIP and the regular View features.

Application ProvisioningThe large number of applications within the customer’s environment present a major challenge. VDI uses two approaches based on user requirements. First, standard desktop images are created based on a common application set. Users that require only these applications are entitled to floating pools, where they have access to any desktops within that pool. Once their session ends, the desktop is released back into the pool and is available for other users, allowing more users per desktop pool with the login concurrency. For users requiring additional applications, they are allocated a dedicated desktop from a pool, and applications are deployed via SCCM to them.

Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR)The View environment benefits from the inherent HA features of vSphere—DRS, HA, etc. This customer solution includes backup and restore procedures for the View environment. Additionally, each datacenter runs active-passive, with users directed to the datacenter named primary on the GTM. Thin clients use the GTM as their DNS server, which then directs them to one of the datacenters, based on the connection broker URL. The GTM monitors each datacenter location, and if one becomes unresponsive it directs all users to the remaining datacenter. Each datacenter mirrors the other with duplicate pools and entitlements.

Failback occurs when one of the GTMs detects that the site is once again online, and presents new sessions to the correct site. Existing sessions for users that have already connected to their DR site remain until their current session ends.

Bill of Materials

This customer solution required the following list of hardware and VMware software licenses.

There are two View pods in the customer implementation.

COMPONENT QUANTITY DESCRIPTION

View pod 7 View Connection Servers

2 View security servers

5 VMware vCenter servers (with View Composer)

3 VCE Vblock Type 2 converged infrastructure platforms (Horizon with View building blocks)

1 Microsoft 2005 SQL cluster supporting vCenter and Horizon databases



COMPONENT QUANTITY DESCRIPTION

Horizon with View building block

64 Cisco UCS B200 Servers (or 16 UCS B230 Servers) running vSphere 4.1

2 Cisco UCS 6140 Fabric Interconnects

1 EMC Symmetrix VMAX SAN

9 400GB EFD drives

385 15k RPM 450GB FC drives

8 Cisco Nexus 1000v Series Switches (distributed virtual switches)

Up to 4,000 Virtual desktops

8 VMware vSphere clusters

Networking 6 Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director switches (1 per Vblock)

16 Virtual desktop VLANs

1 Management VLAN

1 vSphere vMotion® VLAN

Software 10,000 Horizon Premier concurrent user licenses, including ThinApp, View Composer, and unlimited vSphere and vCenter

1 Microsoft VDA subscription

1 Microsoft MDOP subscription (App-V)

1 Microsoft SCCM subscription

Table 4: Implementation Bill of Materials



ConclusionThe customer has realized a full spectrum of benefits from the VDI solution. The benefits of the VDI deployment include:

•Increased security with reduced cost – The VDI solution establishes a more secure and centralized environment, while reducing the bank’s investment in desktop computers through the use of thin clients.

•Faster provisioning – The solution provides the ability to provision hundreds of virtual desktops in minutes, compared to the one to two weeks previously required for a physical desktop.

•Reduced support costs – VDI has eliminated problematic login times, improving the user experience and dramatically reducing support calls and associated costs.

•Improved end-user productivity – Users now have instant session portability between thin clients, as well as the flexibility to connect using any device from any location.

Because of the success of the initial implementation, this customer plans to expand VDI to additional users worldwide to maximize the benefits of the solution, drive greater efficiency into its infrastructure management, and continue to enhance the user experience.

About the AuthorsMatt Coppinger is a Group Product Manager at VMware End-User Computing.

VMware would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their contributions to this paper and the project, as well as for providing information relating to the project approach, architecture, design, and implementation:

VMware – John Dodge, Jason Miles, Simon Long, Rasmus Jensen

ReferencesVMware Horizon with View

VMware vSphere

VMware Horizon with View Technical Resources

VMware Horizon with View Documentation

VMware vSphere Documentation

http://www.vmware.com/products/view/

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/

http://www.vmware.com/products/desktop_virtualization/view/technical-resources.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/view_pubs.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-pubs.html

VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.comCopyright © 2014 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed athttp://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: VMW-TWP-REFERIMPLIMEUFINANC-20140617-WEB


Additional ResourcesFor more information or to purchase VMware products, call 1-877-4VMWARE (outside of North America dial +1-650-427-5000), or visit www.vmware.com/products, or search online for an authorized reseller. For detailed product specifications and system requirements, please refer to the Horizon documentation.

About VMwareVMware, the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, delivers customer-proven solutions that accelerate IT by reducing complexity and enabling more flexible, agile service delivery. VMware enables enterprises to adopt a cloud model that addresses their unique business challenges. VMware’s approach accelerates the transition to cloud computing while preserving existing investments and improving security and control. With more than 250,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware solutions help organizations of all sizes lower costs, increase business agility and ensure freedom of choice.

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