Technical white paper HP Client Virtualization SMB Reference Architecture for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box An all in one VDI on HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server Table of contents Introduction 2 Value proposition 2 Target customers and use cases 2 Solution architecture 3 Solution deployment 3 Hardware architecture 4 Software architecture 5 Scaling and sizing 6 Performance and testing 8 Server overview 9 Metric descriptions 9 50 user solution 10 100 user solution 14 Conclusion 20 For more information 21 Call to action 21 About Citrix 21
Transcript
Technical white paper
HP Client Virtualization SMB Reference Architecture for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box An all in one VDI on HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server
Table of contents
Introduction 2
Value proposition 2
Target customers and use cases 2
Solution architecture 3
Solution deployment 3
Hardware architecture 4
Software architecture 5
Scaling and sizing 6
Performance and testing 8
Server overview 9
Metric descriptions 9
50 user solution 10
100 user solution 14
Conclusion 20
For more information 21
Call to action 21
About Citrix 21
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Introduction
Client virtualization used to be considered a large enterprise solution, but with improvements in virtualization software, BYOD (bring your own device) plans and lower overall costs/user, client virtualization is quickly getting into the mainstream small and medium-sized business (SMB) market. This technical document, or reference architecture, is designed to help a channel reseller or customer design a simple Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) configuration starting at 50 users. Based on the HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server and Citrix® VDI-in-a-Box™ the HP Client Virtualization SMB Reference Architecture for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box (HP CV SMB RA for Citrix) is an appliance-like configuration that removes the guesswork from sizing and deploying a virtual desktop solution. With the recommended guidelines tested and validated by this reference architecture, you know upfront how many servers and what software licenses you need to support various user workloads. And because the solution follows a building-block approach, it scales on demand with no re-architecture or expensive infrastructure to deliver predictable, repeatable performance and costs.
Value proposition
By providing a blueprint that has been fully tested, pre-sized, and optimized, the HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box helps you achieve faster time to production.
The HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box is developed using the following components:
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box software
HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Server
HP Flexible Series Thin Clients or HP Smart Zero Clients
Benefits of this solution include:
Rapid deployment – In less than two hours you can import the VDI-in-a-Box software appliance to your HP ProLiant server, configure your desktop images, and you are ready to deliver virtual desktops to your users. Nothing to architect or install. No additional infrastructure to deploy such as management servers, SQL databases, or storage area networks.
Predictable, repeatable cost, and performance – Whether you use a single stand-alone HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server or a grid of multiple servers, the performance capacity per server remains unchanged—and that means predictable, affordable costs and performance.
Built-in high availability to protect your users in the event of server failure without requiring shared storage. Add additional HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers to the grid and the system automatically balances the load across all servers—and that ensures high availability.
Rich high-definition end-user access to applications – Delivered securely no matter what the access device. Using Citrix HDX™ and Citrix Receiver™ provided with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, users experience excellent performance over WAN and LAN environments.
Assured log-in performance – Users can access the information they need, when they need it, even when numerous users log in at the same time.
Integrated solution-level performance – To reduce the demands on your IT staff, we’ve validated all the software and hardware components so everything works correctly, right out of the box.
Target customers and use cases
Typical VDI-in-a-Box customers need a simple affordable virtual desktop setup. These customers come from various industries such as, but not limited to
Education, such as universities and schools, and training centers
Public service, such as libraries, city halls, and police stations
Healthcare, such as hospitals and medical group offices
Financial services, such as credit unions and insurance companies
Manufacturing facilities
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In addition, regional or divisional offices of large organizations tend to look for simple and affordable virtual desktop solutions where the HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box may be a good fit. It is important to understand how employees at these customer organizations connect to their VDI desktops. There are two types of users to consider. First, there are on-premise desktop users connecting to their desktops over wired and wireless connections, and there are mobile executives, road warriors, or remote and offshore employee-users that access their desktops using various mobile devices connecting through wireless connections sitting in off-premise locations such as external client sites. HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box with HDX provides excellent user experience over both LANs and WANs enabling users to connect anytime, from anywhere, on any device and support both the desk and mobile use-cases.
For customers looking to deploy desktop virtualization across a large enterprise targeting multiple use case scenarios and requiring more advanced management capabilities please refer to the HP CV2 Reference Architecture with Citrix XenDesktop® for Hyper-V and the technical documentation at hp.com/go/cv.
Solution architecture
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box is a simple, all-in-one software that enables Microsoft® Windows® administrators to rapidly deliver centrally managed virtual desktops to any user, anytime, on any device—for less than the cost of traditional PCs. Comparing a production deployment setup using a traditional enterprise VDI solution with a setup of VDI-in-a-Box the traditional enterprise-class VDI deployment includes a pair of load balancers and connection brokers to manage the connections to desktop sessions and ensure high-availability, as well as compute servers to run the desktops and management servers to provision and control the environment. SANs, high-speed interconnects and clustered SQL databases are also required.
VDI-in-a-Box consolidates all of this functionality into its software virtual appliance and eliminates much of the infrastructure in an enterprise implementation. With VDI-in-a-Box, the connection brokering, load balancing, high availability, desktop provisioning and management are all built-in and managed through an intuitive web-based console. This radically simplifies setup and management, and lowers costs.
Figure 1. How VDI-in-a-Box eliminates cost and complexity
Solution deployment
The components required to deploy this reference architecture are:
The HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Server
A hypervisor. VDI-in-a-Box runs on multiple hypervisors. This reference architecture has been tested with Microsoft Hyper-V.
For more information on Citrix VDI-in-a-Box supported hypervisors, please go to the Citrix VDI-in-a-Box website.
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box for Hyper-V which runs as a virtual appliance on any Hyper-V-enabled server.
Endpoint devices. Recommendations for HP Thin Clients are provided in this reference architecture.
In addition, for secure remote access, Citrix NetScaler® can be used.
The HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server provides a full solution that is modular and scalable for an array of customer needs. For the HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, the HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Server can be configured to support 50 and 100 user configurations running a standard “medium” user workload.
Figure 2. HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8
Table 1. Tested Server Specs for 50 and 100 Virtual Desktop Users
Server Specs for 50 Users Server Specs for 100 Users
HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Server HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 Server
8 Drives – 10,000 RPM SAS * 8 Drives – 15,000 RPM SAS *
HP Smart Array P420i/2GB with FBWC (RAID 0+1) HP Smart Array P420i/2GB with FBWC (RAID 0+1)
*Can be expanded to 16 drives
Endpoint devices
VDI-in-a-Box uses Citrix Receiver along with Citrix HDX protocol to provide virtual desktops to almost any device form factor: thin clients, desktop PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Through Citrix Receiver, VDI-in-a-Box provides fast, reliable virtual desktops to over 2 billion Citrix Receiver enabled devices. In addition, HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box works with the following recommended HP thin clients:
Flexible Series Thin Clients: HP t610 or HP t510 Flexible Series Windows Embedded Standard 7 (WES7) Thin Clients benefit from full HDX capabilities while potentially improving server scalability as they are able to perform all of Citrix’ client-side rendering features. These thin clients are ideal for customers requiring an advanced graphical user experience. Customers selecting the HP t610 over the HP t510 will benefit from a more powerful CPU, graphics hardware acceleration, quad-display, internal dual-antenna Wi-Fi, Fiber NIC, and PCIe expansion bay options. Customers who purchase the HP t610 typically have a greater mix of remotely virtualized apps and locally embedded apps. Both the HP t610 family and the HP t510 come standard with dual core CPUs and legacy ports for powerful, flexible connectivity to a broad array of peripheral devices. Smart Zero Technology can also be deployed on the Flexible Series Thin Clients, providing the “zero touch” experience at the endpoint device.
For additional details go to HP Flexible Series Thin Clients.
Smart Zero Clients: HP Smart Zero Clients, like the Power Over Ethernet, All-in-One HP t410, offer customers great value by combining zero client manageability with cost-effective hardware and HDX “System on a Chip” (SoC) performance. Leveraging HP’s Smart Zero Technology, HP Smart Zero Clients intelligently boot and connect to HP’s CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box without user interaction. Upon verification and confirmation of user credentials, users can begin their normal activities. A secure operating system means little manageability and enables the customer to focus on productivity in their growing business. Further, when Citrix delivers a new Receiver, HP Smart Zero Clients automatically update at startup using Smart Zero Service pointers – a true “zero touch” capability.
For additional information go to HP Smart Zero Clients.
Software architecture
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box provides an end-to-end solution to deliver Windows XP or Windows 7 virtual desktops to any device, anytime, anywhere using the built-in Citrix HDX protocol.
A VDI-in-a-Box environment consists of:
VDI-in-a-Box
The VDI-in-a-Box software appliance is designed to make virtual desktop administration easy, automated and cost-effective for desktop IT while delivering a brilliant experience for users.
Key features include:
High-availability without shared storage: Traditional VDI solutions require shared storage to deliver high availability. In production settings this means a SAN with high-speed interconnects. This can get complex and requires additional expertise. VDI-in-a-Box eliminates this requirement and provides high availability and scaling using inexpensive direct-attached storage (DAS). Simply run VDI-in-a-Box on two or more servers and the grid automatically load balances and ensures redundancy. An N+1 design where one extra server is added to the grid is used to ensure high availability. In the event of a server failure, VDI-in-a-Box automatically balances the desktop load across all the remaining healthy servers to prevent outages.
Eliminate centralized bottlenecks such as “boot storms”: By eliminating centralized bottlenecks such as separate connection servers, management servers and shared storage pools, the VDI-in-a-Box grid architecture avoids issues such as "boot storms" that create bottlenecks in traditional VDI architectures.
On-demand scaling: You can start small with one or two servers and grow as your needs evolve by simply adding more servers to the grid. No re-design is required. Adding servers to the grid is a snap because VDI-in-a-Box automatically prepares and provisions the new server and prepares it to run virtual desktops.
Simple intuitive management: Desktop administrators manage a grid of VDI-in-a-Box servers centrally with an intuitive wizard-driven interface that abstracts virtualization details. The grid of servers appear as one logical server thus eliminating the need to manage the servers individually. Automated policy-based management cuts desktop support costs.
Citrix Receiver
Citrix Receiver is an easy-to-install, free, client software that lets you access enterprise data, applications and desktops from any computing device including smartphones, tablets and PCs. Users today typically use multiple computing devices and crave a consistent computing experience across all of them. Organizations everywhere are struggling to cope with the rapid proliferation of these devices and give users the mobile, high-definition experience they demand. Working in tandem with a Citrix-enabled IT infrastructure, Citrix Receiver gives users consistent, secure, high-performance access from any device without introducing layers of management complexity for IT.
Citrix Receiver is a client-based plug-in that is installed on the user’s endpoint device. This is to be used in-conjunction with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box when the user requires the ability to interact with their virtual desktop. When a user logs into a VDI-in-a-Box site to access a virtual desktop, the website can detect that Citrix Receiver is absent from endpoint devices, and automatically prompt users to download and install it from the site.
Hyper-V
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is the hypervisor-based server virtualization product from Microsoft that allows you to consolidate workloads onto a single physical server. It is a stand-alone product that provides a reliable and optimized virtualization solution enabling organizations to improve server utilization and reduce costs. Since Hyper-V Server is a dedicated stand-alone product which contains only the Windows Hypervisor, Windows Server driver model, and virtualization components, it provides a small footprint and minimal overhead.
The free Microsoft Hyper-V solution is sufficient and was used in the testing for this reference architecture. VDI-in-a-Box is licensed on a per Concurrent User (CCU) basis as a perpetual license with annualized maintenance and support. For this reference architecture, a 50 CCU and a 100 CCU configuration were tested.
Smart Zero technology
Available on HP Smart Zero (HP t410) and Flexible Thin Clients (HP t510 and HP t610), HP Smart Zero Technology gives you a simple, reprogrammable, and affordable solution. It supports multiple protocols and can be reprogrammed on the fly, delivering a no-compromise, intelligent zero client experience for remote and cloud computing environments. With HP Smart Zero Technology installed on the virtualization infrastructure, it allows end users to be up and running in seconds with no configuration or management required on the device side. Just set up your server, boot the client and connect. HP Smart Zero Technology combines the benefits of a zero client with HP auto-sensing technology that automatically connects to the network and searches for the right client virtualization infrastructure and downloads everything it needs to deliver a robust user experience. The user is up and running quickly with no local user interface and just three steps from log on to productivity.
For more details go to Server-Side Smart Zero Technology Component.
Scaling and sizing
This reference architecture provides sizing options for servers tested with 50 and 100 users running standard ‘‘Medium” virtual desktop workloads. The HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server was configured with the necessary CPU cores, RAM, and disk spindles to support the given number of Windows 7 desktops.
Scaling and high-availability
VDI-in-a-Box provides on-demand scaling and provides built-in high-availability using the N+1 model. HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box servers can be added as more desktop capacity is required. A newly added server is automatically
configured and provisioned to run virtual desktops by the VDI-in-a-Box software. To provide high availability, all that is required is one additional server in the grid and VDI-in-a-Box automatically ensures that if a server fails, another server is able to host the virtual desktops. Due to its Shared-Nothing architecture, all servers are equally replaceable. VDI-in-a-Box grid architecture delivers built-in high availability without shared storage or connection brokers. Templates and images are stored on multiple servers so they are not lost if a physical server fails. When a physical server fails, the remaining servers in the grid have the needed information to create extra desktops to replace those on the failed server. When the failed server is repaired and rejoins the grid, the key operational and configuration information is sent to it and it then resumes desktop provisioning.
The figure below illustrates a single server sized to host 100 virtual desktops. The second figure illustrates two servers joined together in a grid and sized to either run 100 virtual desktops with high availability or 200 desktops without high-availability. With high-availability, 100 desktops are run across the two servers. When one fails, the remaining server will run all 100 desktops until the failed server is repaired and joined back into the grid. In non-high availability mode, 200 desktops can be run across the two servers. If a server fails only 100 desktops are available for use until the failed server is repaired and returned to the grid. The third figure shows a 200 with high-availability or 300 desktop configuration. Likewise, more servers can be added to the grid to increase the capacity of the solution. This illustrates the simplicity of VDI-in-a-Box and the advantages of its all-in-one appliance approach where everything that’ s needed, all the management software and all the hardware including local storage, is provided in a single appliance thus allowing a “no think” approach to production scaling with high availability.
100 Users
200 Users or 100 Users with High Availability
300 Users or 200 Users with High Availability
Calculating necessary storage requirements
While the CPU cores, server memory and IOPS figures have been pre-calculated within this reference architecture, it must be determined by an individual’s use case how much storage capacity will be required in any particular environment. Linked clones where desktops share a common “golden” image reduces storage significantly and is provided out of the box with VDI-in-a-Box.
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With Linked clones, when desktops are created, a separate, small difference disk is created. All changes to the desktop—such as registry changes or installation of new applications—are stored in its difference disk. All reads use the parent disk or the golden image itself. The difference disk grows with use and grows over time. For non-persistent desktops that are refreshed periodically, these difference disks are typically very small and are about 10-15% of the golden image. However, since persistent desktops, are long running, as users add more applications or make other permanent changes to their desktops, their difference disks can potentially grow up to the size of the golden image.
Calculating your storage requirements should follow two basic formulas. You will need to know how many golden images you will require, what the size of the each golden image is, and how many desktops/linked clones you will need to create from your golden images.
Formula 1: 2 X Size of Golden image X Number of Golden Images = Disk space (GB) for Golden Images
In this formula, you will determine how many golden images you will require, and multiply the size of those images by two. If you have two 20GB images, the formula will appear as follows:
Example 1: 2 x 20GB x 2 Golden Images = 80GB
The second part of the formula is determining how much space your linked clones will consume. The rule here is that each linked clone will take up roughly 15% of the golden image size. Using the same 20GB image size, the linked clone storage calculation for 100 desktops would appear as follows:
Formula 2: 15% X Size of Golden image X Number of Linked Clones = Disk space (GB) for Linked Clones
Example 2: 15% of 20GB x 100 Linked Clones = 300GB
In addition, it is recommended that 100GB of extra disk space be reserved for growth and another 100GB be reserved for swap space. As such, in this example 600GB of disk storage across the 8 disks would suffice (80 GB (rounded to 100) for the golden images, 300GB for linked clones, 100GB for growth, and 100GB swap space). More disk space can be provided and will allow for greater expansion and the use of persistent desktops.
The figure below illustrates a single golden image plus five linked clone virtual desktops.
Figure 4. Disk Example
40 GB
55 GB
Please note that this figure illustrates sizing for frequently refreshed pooled desktops. Persistent desktops may grow larger over time as user data accumulates.
Performance and testing
The following information lists the key data for the HP CV SMB RA for Citrix VDI-in-a-Box testing. Single server hardware configurations have been customized to accommodate 50, and 100 user deployments.
Tests were performed using Login VSI V3.6 to generate desktop workloads, and gather data. All tests were done using the standard user workload profile which consisted of exercising email, office applications such as word processing, spreadsheet editing, and slideshow creation, as well as viewing HD Flash video.
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Server overview Server configuration summary
HP DL380p Gen8 100 user configuration
– 2 CPUs – Xeon E5-2680@ 2.70GHz
– 192GB RAM – 16GB DDR3 DIMMs, 1333 MHz, 12 DIMM slots per CPU
– 8 Drives – 10,000 RPM SAS, RAID0+1
Environment
Test Rig and Workload – Login VSI 3.6, Java VDI-in-a-Box client, 30 second launch interval (sequential), 10 launchers
Profiles – Configured with roaming profiles and deleting the locally cache profiles at logoff
HDX and Session – Resolution 1024x768, default HDX settings for ViaB (Flash Redirection enabled by default and used in testing)
Hypervisor – Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with Hyper-V
Desktop VM – Windows 7 32-Bit, 1 vCPU, Dynamic Memory (1GB-2GB, 20% buffer), 1 NIC
Testing results
Information contained in this section provides data points that a customer may reference in designing their own implementations
Metric descriptions
VSImax Scores: Derived from the Login VSI Analysis Tool, this data determines the VSImax, which is the maximum capacity of the tested system expressed as the number of Login VSI sessions. Within each workload test loop the response times of seven specific operations are measured at a regular interval: six times within each loop. The response times of these seven operations are used to establish VSImax.
Hyper-V Physical Server Processor Analysis: This analysis checks the processor utilization of physical processors of the host computer. The "\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(*)\% Total Run Time" performance counter is more accurate than using the "% Processor Time" counter on the host, root partition computer because the "% Processor Time" counter only measures the processor time of the host, root partition computer only. The "\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(*)\% Total Run Time" performance counter is the best counter to use to analyze overall processor utilization of the Hyper-V server.
Note: Because the other server components (RAM, storage, etc.) were sized and configured proportionally, CPU utilization was the gating factor for determining the desktop host servers’ capacity.
Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor Context Switches/sec: The rate of virtual processor context switches on the processor. This is the number of times a new Virtual Processor (VP) has been scheduled to a particular Logical Processor (LP).
Memory Available Mbytes: Available MBytes is the amount of physical RAM, in Megabytes, immediately available for allocation to a process or for system use. It is equal to the sum of memory assigned to the standby (cached), free and zero page lists. If this counter is low, then the computer is running low on physical RAM.
PhysicalDisk Calculated IOPS: Disk Reads and Writes/sec is the rate of read and write operations on the disk.
PhysicalDisk Avg. Disk Queue Length: Avg. Disk Queue Length is the average number of both read and write requests that were queued for the selected disk during the sample interval.
Network Interface Bytes Total/sec: Bytes Total/sec is the rate at which bytes are sent and received over each network adapter, including framing characters. Network Interface\Bytes Total/sec is a sum of Network Interface\Bytes Received/sec and Network Interface\Bytes Sent/sec.
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50 user solution
The following are Login VSI test results for the server configured to run 50 Windows 7 desktops. The Login VSI tests indicate that “VSImax” was not reached. This means that good user experience was achieved with this configuration when running 50 users.
Server configuration summary
1 CPU
96GB RAM
8 Drives – 10,000 RPM SAS, RAID0+1
Figure 5. Login VSI Data (no VSI Max)
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Figure 6. CPU (Single, 16 logical cores)
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Figure 7. Memory (96GB Total)
Figure 8. Storage IOPS & Queue Length
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Figure 9. Network
100 user solution
The following are Login VSI test results for the server configured to run 100 Windows 7 desktops. The Login VSI tests indicate that “VSI MAX” was not reached. This means that good user experience was achieved with this configuration when running 100 users.
Server configuration summary
2 CPU
128GB RAM
8 Drives – 10,000 RPM SAS, RAID0+1
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Figure 10. Login VSI Data (no VSI Max)
Figure 11. CPU (Dual, 32 logical cores)
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Figure 12. Memory (128GB Total)
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Figure 13. Storage IOPS & Queue Length
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Figure 14. Network
Conclusion
The testing of the hardware and software configurations described in this reference architecture has been validated to be a good fit for the 50 users and 100 users solutions. Together with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box and HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers, the reference architecture delivers a predictable performance, building block based scalability, and the many benefits of a traditional enterprise VDI without its complexity and startup cost, a very practical VDI solution for small and medium sized businesses.
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For more information
To read more about HP and client virtualization, go to hp.com/go/cv
To read more about HP and Citrix, go to hp.com/go/citrix
To read more about Citrix XenDesktop, go to citrix.com/XenDesktop
To read more about Login VSI, go to loginvsi.com
To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at hp.com/solutions/feedback.
Call to action
Contact your HP representative or HP reseller partner today to engage and discover how you can benefit from this client virtualization reference architecture. Achieve greater user mobility, anytime, anywhere access, and efficient user management all without the cost and complexity of traditional enterprise VDI.
About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the company transforming how people, businesses and IT work and collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 enterprises. Citrix touches 75 percent of Internet users each day and partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at citrix.com.
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