Date post: | 22-Nov-2014 |
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Citrix Desktop Master Class Driving XenApp and XenDesktop storage performance with Atlantis ILIO
Andrew Wood @gilwood_csSolutions Architect
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Atlantis Computing Overview
Software company delivering unique optimization through software defined
storage (SDS) for virtualized environments
HQ in Silicon Valley with offices in Europe and Asia
Partnerships with over 200 resellers, distributors, and integrators globally
550+ customers
Over 650,000 licenses sold
Some of the largest VDI and XenApp deployments in the world:
Strategic relationships with key industry vendors
Delivering Successful XenApp and XenDesktop Deployments
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Success Factors for Desktop Virtualization
IT Organization – wants less project risks!• Easy to deploy, operationalize, and manage at scale
• High Availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR)
Users• Provide fast, consistent user experience
Chief Financial Officer• Minimise CAPEX
• Tangible datacenter OPEX costs reduction
• Lower risk, avoid unexpected costs
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Storage for XenApp..is it that Important?
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What does my storage deliver?
Use Iometer to simulate the users ‘steady state’
In steady state, the IO profile will be approximately;
80/20 write/read
80/20 random/sequential
Block size of the reads and writes will be in 4KB blocks
Block size in a real windows workload varies between 512B and 1MB, but the
vast majority will be at 4KB
http://lnk.glwdcs.tv/158QzkS
How to use Iometer to Simulate a Desktop Workload
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..baseline…baseline…baseline…
• Starting “VSI Notepad”• Starting the “File Open” dialogue• Starting the “Print” dialogue• Compress the document into a zip file
with 7-zip command line (2x)• Starting Microsoft Word with a
document
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Smaller is better
‘Best’ XenApp user experience at
20 IOPS per session
ILIO User Experience
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Case Study – Kelway (Atlantis ILIO Partner and Customer)
Business Drivers
Absorb acquisition headcount – grow XenApp deployment by 20%
Lower helpdesk call volume
Sales team hindered by poor user experience
Challenges
Storage bottleneck with traditional SAN storage
Acceptable application performance
XenApp Deployment Metrics
1,000 XenApp users across 4 physical servers
Citrix XenApp with PVS Write cache on EMC CLARiiON CX4-480
Atlantis ILIO for XenApp In-Memory
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Kelway XenApp Storage Utilization Pre Atlantis ILIO
-
50
100
150
200
250
6 AM 10 AM 2 PM 6 PM
Number of SAN Disks Required
RAID-5 15k # Drives RAID-10 15k # Drives
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
6 AM 10 AM 2 PM 6 PM
EMC IOPs
SP A SP B
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Kelway XenApp Storage Utilization Post Atlantis ILIO
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
6 AM 10 AM 2 PM 6 PM
EMC IOPs
SP A SP B
-
50
100
150
200
250
6 AM 10 AM 2 PM 6 PM
Number of SAN Disks Required
RAID-5 15k # Drives RAID-10 15k # Drives
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SAN Storage Requirements after Atlantis ILIO
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Ok..so storage performance is important ..how do I manage the images?
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PVS vs MCS Decision Trees
@djfeller 2011: http://lnk.glwdcs.tv/1uA5uOh
@djfeller 2013: http://lnk.glwdcs.tv/1q7uwV9
@barryschiffer 2013: http://lnk.glwdcs.tv/1soKw9v
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Speed of RAM?
You have sufficient IOPs available on shared storage –
unlike PVS, which provides a ‘RAM cache’ of disk blocks,
MCS directs more read activity to the shared storage. “ “
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Write Cache Choices PVS 7.1
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PVS Cache in RAM with over flow to disk
PVS Write Cache File
Page File Space forCrash Dump
Anti-VirusDefinitions
Log Files
Hard Drive associated with target VM
In RAM On Disk
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Write Cache per XenApp server= 30GB
XenApp VMs per server= 6
Write Cache per Physical server= 180GB
Lifetime Writes Drive Writes / Day
for 5 years
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/14038_div/14038_div.pdf
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IOPS per session = 8
XenApp sessions per server = 150
IOPS per server = 1200
Working seconds in a day = 43200
IO per day= 51840000
Average block size = 23KB
Data volume per day = 1.2 TB
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SSD lifetime = 145/1.2= 120 days
Lifetime of current SSD (5 Years) = 145
Drives needed over 5 years = 15
Drives needed in RAID 1 = 30
Lifetime Writes Drive Writes / Day
for 5 years
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Key Takeaway
Don’t use MLC SSD for XenApp
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Stateless vs Persistent (including XenApp)
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lack of storage for capacity and performance for Persistent VMs
Atlantis ILIO – How the magic happens
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Endpoints
Connection Broker
Hypervisor
StorageRAM/SAN/NAS/SSD/Local Disk
Atlantis ILIO
NFS, iSCSI
NFS, iSCSI, Fiber Channel
Thin Client/iPAD/Desktop
Atlantis ILIO overview
Software only Virtual Machine (VM)
No agents or changes to desktop images
Any hypervisor or broker
Citrix XenServer, MSFT Hyper-V 2008R2/2012R2
Citrix XenDesktop or Citrix XenApp
Any server or storage platform
RAM as primary storage
SAN or NAS shared storage: Tier 1, 2, or 3
Flash or SSD Arrays
Server-side inline deduplication
Reduce storage capacity and/or increase density
Reduce or remove storage traffic
Provide consistent high performance user experience
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How Atlantis ILIO works
ILIO DisklessILIO
Virtual Desktops
Atlantis ILIO Storage
Optimization
Physical Server
Virtualization Layer
Storage
Server Hardware
NFS or iSCSI
Application Analysis
Inline Deduplication
Compression
Coalescing (I/O Blender Fix)
Content-Aware I/O Processing
Hypervisor
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Atlantis ILIO Fast Clone
Atlantis Fast Clone Technology
Cold clone operation for full persistent VMs
Roll out large numbers of VMs without incurring a high I/O
penalty
VMs registered to vCenter/XenCenter
Images are customised after cloning operation using standard
tools such as Microsoft Sysprep
Benefits
Generates no network traffic
No increase in storage capacity required during cloning
Quick disaster recovery within or between sites
Fast Clone
Atlantis ILIO – Architectures
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Stateless Architecture – for XenApp and XenDesktop
ILIO deployed per physical host
ILIO uses RAM for VM storage –
including for MCS
Seamless Integration with existing
hypervisor and broker
No HA / DRS required for stateless
XenDesktop or XenApp
Same architecture for XenDesktop and
XenApp
Backing Store
RAM
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Backing Store
RAM
SnapClone storedon local or
shared storage
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Persistent Architecture – Disk-backed
ILIO deployed per physical host
Any shared storage array; FC, iSCSI or
NFS or media; SSD, SAS, SATA
Minimal RAM required for ILIO
Seamless Integration with existing
hypervisor and broker
Increases performance and density of
any storage
Persistent desktops, Personal vDisks
continue to leverage full functionality of
the HypervisorShared Storage
HA / DRSBacking
Store
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Backing Store
N
E
T
W
O
R
K
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Persistent Architecture – In-Memory
ILIO deployed per physical host
ILIO uses RAM for VM storage
ILIO Fast Replication will de-dupe and
replicate data to shared storage for
persistent and redundancy
Seamless Integration with existing
hypervisor and broker
Persistent desktops continue to
leverage full functionality of the
Hypervisor, e.g. HA / DRS / vMotion
Shared Storage
ILIO Fast Replication
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
BackingStore
BackingStore
BackingStore
Hypervisor
DRS /vMotion
Hypervisor
HA Standby Host
HA
Atlantis ILIO Driving XenApp and XenDesktop Performance
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Citrix PVS with Atlantis ILIO
Provisioning Services Infrastructure
PVS Gold Images
SAN
PVS Streamed Images via Network
Writecache On-Disk Instances
Host Server
ILIO
Write to ILIO Optimized Storage
Writecache On-Disk Instances
Host Server
Host Server
ILIO
Host Server
ILIO
Host Server
ILIO
Host Server
ILIO
Host Server
ILIO
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Atlantis ILIO Benefits for PVS deployments
ILIO stores Write Caches In-Memory
Very high optimization rates (90+%)
Greater RAM utilization through deduplication
compared with PVS RAM write cache option
Accommodates Write Cache growth
De-risks under sizing through optimization
Avoid costly storage reconfiguration and CAPEX
Eliminates external storage
Lower storage OPEX and CAPEX
Reduce network traffic
Make blade form-factor viable
Compliments RAM + HDD by allowing HDD in
RAM
Hypervisor
Atlantis ILIO VM
Hypervisor
VM
Master image WC
Storage
VM
WC
PVS
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Atlantis ILIO Best Practices PVS deployments
Review Citrix Best Practices
Best Practices for Configuring Provisioning Server
on a Network
PVS and the forgotten antivirus exclusions
Atlantis ILIO is not for PVS Server
Atlantis USX for server workloads
Atlantis ILIO to host HDD in RAM
Persistent ILIO can be utilised when persistent
logging is required
Hypervisor
Atlantis ILIO VM
Hypervisor
VM
Master image WC
Storage
VM
WC
PVS
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Atlantis ILIO Benefits for MCS deployments
Atlantis ILIO stores MCS VMs in RAM
Bring In-Memory storage performance to MCS
Benefits of Atlantis ILIO for MCS:
Provides up to 90% reduction in storage capacity
needed for differencing disks
Reduces storage required to support multiple
base images
Improves performance due to increased IOPS
Hypervisor
Atlantis ILIO VM
Hypervisor
Master VM VM
Master image
Storage
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Atlantis ILIO Best Practices for MCS deployments
Review Citrix Best Practice Guides
• XenDesktop Planning Guide Storage Best
Practices
• Machine Creation Services Primer – Part
1, 2 and 3
MCS has a storage location per host
create separate machine catalogues mapped to
storage resources
Use ILIO Persistent for PVD
Provides up to 80% reduction in storage capacity
needed for personal v disks
Hypervisor
Atlantis ILIO VM
Hypervisor
Master VM VM
Master image
Storage
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Atlantis ILIO Benefits for Persistent VMs
Seamless integration with existing
hypervisor and broker
Increases performance and
density of any storage
Full Persistent desktops Personal
vDisks
Fast Clone for rapid provisioning
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Leverage Atlantis Fast Clone – CFD Provisioning Workflow
Register fora desktop
Analyze Current Utilization
Chose leastLoaded Server
ProcessRegistration
Ensure Template Avail
Fast CloneTemplate
PersonalizeDesktop
Create ADAccount
Add DesktopTo Broker
Ensure VMRegistered
e-mail logindetails to user
Target:10 – 15 Mins
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Use sdelete (et al)
Key for Gold Build Efficient Disk Use
• Ideal for Persistent
• Less req’d for Stateless
High CPU Resource Use
Scheduling is key
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Summary Read performance is important
Write Performance is key
MCS - I/O demand not 60% more than PVS
• PVS - RAM+HDD is key going forward
Atlantis ILIO
Consistently fast user experience
Provides storage at speed of RAM for MCS
Reduces Storage Capacity for Persistent VMs
Check with Iometer
Avoid MLC SSD for XenApp
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Call to Action – Information Resources
Atlantis Computing Resources
• Citrix Ready Page: http://www.citrix.com/ready/en/atlantis-computing
• Citrix Partner Page: http://www.atlantiscomputing.com/citrix
• ILIO for VDI Solution Brief: http://bit.ly/CitrixXDbrief
• ILIO for XenApp Solution Brief: bit.ly/citrixXAbrief
• Blog Posts: blog.atlantiscomputing.com/
• Free ILIO Appliance for ESX: http://lnk.glwdcs.tv/UMQ272
• NEW! Citrix Ready Certification:
https://www.citrix.com/ready/en/atlantis-computing/atlantis-ilio