XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 on vSAN 6.5 All-Flash · January 08, 2018 XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 on...

January 08, 2018

XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 onvSAN 6.5 All-Flash

Copyright © 2018 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary 1.1.Business Case1.2.Key Results

2. Introduction 2.1.Scope2.2.Audience

3. Technology Overview 3.1.VMware vSphere 6.53.2.VMware vSAN 6.53.3.Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.123.4.Citrix Provisioning Services3.5.Citrix Machine Creation Services3.6.VMware App Volumes 2.11

4. Solution Configuration 4.1.Architecture Diagram4.2.Hardware Resources4.3.Software Resources4.4.Virtual Machine Test Image Build4.5.Network Configuration4.6.vSAN Configuration4.7.VMware Cluster Configuration4.8.VMware ESXi Server: Storage Controller Mode4.9.Desktop Provisioning Mechanism

5. Solution Validation 5.1.Testing Overview5.2.Testing Tools5.3.PVS XenDesktop with Natively Installed Application5.4.MCS XenDesktop with AppStack5.5.PVS XenApp with Windows Server5.6.MCS XenApp with Windows Server

6. Best Practices 6.1.AppStack Storage Policy6.2.vSAN Sizing

7. Recommendation 7.1.Recommendation

8. Conclusion 8.1.Conclusion

9. Reference 9.1.Reference

10. About the Author 10.1.Author

XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 on vSAN 6.5 All-Flash


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1. Executive SummaryThis is the executive summary of the solution RA.



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1.1 Business Case

Business Case

Customers today wanting to deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure on all-flash require a cost-effective, highly scalable, and an easy-to-manage solution. Applications need to be refreshed andpublished at will and should not require multiple levels of IT administration. Most importantly, theinfrastructure itself must be able to scale with minimal cost impact yet still provide enterprise-classperformance.

All-flash storage products have traditionally been regarded as too expensive. VMware vSAN™ changesthis by supporting all-flash configurations with extreme performance and radically simplemanagement at a cost that is lower than many competing solutions.

This solution demonstrates the performance of virtual desktops enabled by vSAN 6.5 all-flash with

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12, and VMware vSphere® 6.5.

Through extensive tests, we provide an optimal configuration for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)deployments including various provisioning methods. Using Login VSI, we validate the performance toensure the optimal configuration.

1.2 Key Results

Key Results

VSImax v4.1: Not reached

Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI)Knowledge Worker workload1,000* PVS XenDesktops, 100 percentconcurrency


Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI)Knowledge Worker workload1,000* MCS Desktops with VMware AppVolumes™, 100 percent concurrency


Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI)Knowledge Worker workload1,000* sessions PVS XenApp, 100 percentconcurrency


Login VSI Knowledge Worker workload1,000* sessions MCS XenApp, 100 percentconcurrency

Outstanding Performance with Substantial Space Saving

• Up to 80 percent space saving by vSAN deduplication and compression, erasure coding.• Excellent user experience characteristics, even with diverse use cases and burst-heavy

workloads



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Real-time Application Delivery and Management

• Provision, deliver, update, and retire applications in real time at scale• Dynamically attach applications to users, groups, or devices

Ease of VDI management

• Simplified storage configuration and provisioning• Tight integration with other vSphere features (high availability, VMware vSphere Distributed

Resource Scheduler™, and others)

* Workloads push the limits of cost-effective hardware, particularly CPUs



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2. IntroductionThis document is the reference architecture of VDI deployments, which is enabled by vSAN 6.5 all-flash, Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12, and VMware vSphere 6.5.



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2.1 Scope

Scope

This reference architecture:

• Demonstrates the storage performance of VDI deployments using vSAN 6.5 all-flash with CitrixXenApp and XenDesktop.

• Proves that vSAN with space efficiency features enabled can easily support sustainableworkloads with minimal resource overhead and impact on desktop application performance.

• Validates that Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 with App Volumes 2.11 works well with vSANto manage desktops and applications.

2.2 Audience

Audience

This reference architecture is intended for customers—IT architects, consultants, and administrators—involved in the early phases of planning, design, and deployment of VDI solutions running on all-flashvSAN. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the concepts and operations of Citrix XenApp andXenDesktop technologies and VMware vSphere products.



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3. Technology OverviewThis section provides an overview of the technologies that are used in this solution.



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3.1 VMware vSphere 6.5

VMware vSphere 6.5

VMware vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures. Itenables users to run business-critical applications with confidence and respond quickly to businessneeds. vSphere accelerates the shift to cloud computing for existing data centers and underpinscompatible public cloud offerings, forming the foundation for the industry’s best cloud model.VMware vSphere 6.5 accelerates customer transition to digital transformation and cloud computing byaddressing key challenges:

• Environments growing increasingly complex• Growing IT security threads• The need to support both existing and new applications and services

3.2 VMware vSAN 6.5

VMware vSAN 6.5

VMware vSAN is VMware’s software-defined storage solution for hyper-converged infrastructure, asoftware-driven architecture that delivers tightly integrated compute, networking, and shared storagefrom virtualized x86 servers.

• vSAN 6.5 delivers new capabilities that further help customers respond faster to dynamicbusiness needs across a broader set of workloads while lowering total cost of ownership of yourIT infrastructure. The most significant new capabilities and updates include:

• License required: support all-flash in all vSAN editions providing greater choice and flexibility todeploy all-flash solutions for any workload.

• 2-node direct connect: minimize the upfront cost of deployment in remote sites by directlyconnecting two vSphere servers together using simple crossover cables.

• Full-featured PowerCLI: improve automation with a complete set of PowerCLI cmdlets.

All-Flash Architecture

All-flash vSAN aims at delivering extremely high IOPS with predictable low latencies. In an all-flasharchitecture, two different grades of flash devices are commonly used: lower capacity and higherendurance devices for the cache layer; more cost-effective, higher capacity, and lower endurancedevices for the capacity layer. Writes are performed at the cache layer and then destaged to thecapacity layer, only as needed. This helps extend the usable life of lower endurance flash devices in thecapacity layer and lower the overall cost of the solution.



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Figure 1. vSAN All-Flash Datastore

Deduplication and Compression

Near-line deduplication and compression happens during destaging from the caching tier to thecapacity tier. Deduplication and compression is a cluster-wide setting that is disabled by default andcan be enabled using a simple drop-down menu. The deduplication algorithm utilizes a 4K-fixed blocksize and is performed within each disk group. In other words, redundant copies of a block within thesame disk group are reduced to one copy, but redundant blocks across multiple disk groups are notdeduplicated. Bigger disk groups might result in a higher deduplication ratio. The blocks arecompressed after they are deduplicated.



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Figure 2. Deduplication for Space Efficiency

Erasure Coding

Erasure coding provides the same levels of redundancy as mirroring, but with a reduced capacityrequirement. In general, erasure coding is a method of taking data, breaking it into multiple pieces andspreading it across multiple devices, while adding parity data so it may be recreated in the event thatone or more pieces are corrupted or lost.

In vSAN, two modes of erasure coding are supported:

• RAID 5 in 3+1 configuration, which means 3 data blocks and 1 parity block per stripe.• RAID 6 in 4+2 configuration, which means 4 data blocks and 2 parity blocks per stripe.

RAID 5

In this case, RAID 5 requires four hosts at a minimum because it uses a 3+1 logic. With four hosts, onecan fail without data loss. This results in a significant reduction of required disk capacity. Normally, a20GB disk would require 40GB of disk capacity in a mirrored protection, but in the case of RAID 5, therequirement is only around 27GB.



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Figure 3. RAID 5 Data and Parity Placement

RAID 6

With RAID 6, two host failures can be tolerated the same as RAID 1 protection. In the RAID 1 scenariofor a 20GB disk, the required disk capacity would be 60GB. However, the required disk capacity is 30GB with RAID 6. Note that the parity is distributed across all hosts and there is no dedicated parityhost. A 4+2 configuration is used in RAID 6, which means that at least six hosts are required in thisconfiguration.

Figure 4. RAID 6 Data and Parity Placement

Space efficiency features (including deduplication, compression, and erasure coding) work together toprovide up to 10x reduction in dataset size.

Client Cache

vSAN has a small in-memory read cache. Small in this case means 0.4 percent of a host’s memorycapacity up to a max of 1GB. Note that this in-memory cache is a client side cache, meaning that theblocks of a VM are cached on the host where the VM is located. This feature is enabled by default.

3.3 Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12

Citrix provides a complete virtual app and desktop solution to meet customers’ needs from a single,easy-to-deploy platform. Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 integrates Citrix XenApp applicationdelivery technologies and XenDesktop desktop virtualization technologies into a single architecture



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and management experience. This new architecture unifies both management and deliverycomponents to enable a scalable, simple, efficient, and manageable solution for delivering Windowsapplications and desktops as secure mobile services to users anywhere on any device.

Figure 5. XenDesktop 7.12 Architecture Components

The XenDesktop 7.12 architecture includes the following components:

• Citrix Director—Director is a web-based tool that enables IT support and helps desk teams tomonitor an environment, troubleshoot issues before they become system-critical, and performssupport tasks for end users.

• Citrix Receiver—Installed on user devices, Citrix Receiver provides users with quick, secure, self-service access to documents, applications, and desktops from any of the user’s devicesincluding smartphones, tablets, and PCs. Receiver provides on-demand access to Windows,web, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

• Citrix StoreFront—StoreFront provides authentication and resource delivery services for CitrixReceiver. It enables centralized control of resources and provides users with on-demand, self-service access to their desktops and applications.

• Citrix Studio—Studio is the management console that enables you to configure and manageyour deployment, eliminating the need for separate consoles for managing delivery ofapplications and desktops. Studio provides various wizards to guide you through the process ofsetting up your environment, creating your workloads to host applications and desktops, andassigning applications and desktops to users.

• Delivery Controller—Installed on servers in the data center, Delivery Controller consists ofservices that communicate with the hypervisor to distribute applications and desktops,authenticate and manage user access, and broker connections between users and their virtualdesktops and applications. Delivery Controller manages the state of the desktops, starting andstopping them based on demand and administrative configuration. In some editions, thecontroller enables you to install profile management to manage user personalization settings invirtualized or physical Windows environments.

• License Server—License server assigns a user or device license to the XenDesktop environment.Install License Server along with other Citrix XenDesktop components or on a separate virtualor physical machine.

• Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)—Installed on server or workstation operating systems, VDAenables connections for desktops and applications. For remote PC access, install the VDA onthe office PC.

• Database—Database stores all the XenDesktop site configuration and session information.Microsoft SQL server is required as a database server.



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• Server OS machines—Virtual machines or physical machines, based on the Windows Serveroperating system, used for delivering applications or hosted shared desktops (HSDs) to users.

• Desktop OS machines—Virtual or physical machines, based on the Windows Desktop operatingsystem, deliver personalized desktops to users or applications from desktop operating systems.

3.4 Citrix Provisioning Services

Citrix Provisioning Services

Citrix Provisioning Services (PVS) takes a different approach from traditional desktop imagingsolutions by fundamentally changing the relationship between hardware and software that runs on it.By streaming a single shared disk image (vDisk) instead of copying images to individual machines, PVSlets organizations reduce the number of disk images that they manage. Because the number ofmachines continues to grow, PVS provides the efficiency of centralized management with the benefitsof distributed processing.

Because machines stream disk data dynamically in real time from a single shared image, machineimage consistency is ensured. In addition, large pools of machines can completely change theirconfiguration, applications, and even the operating system during a reboot operation.

3.5 Citrix Machine Creation Services

Citrix Machine Creation Services

Machine Creation Services (MCS) is a provisioning mechanism that is integrated with the XenDesktopmanagement interface, Citrix Studio, to provision, manage, and decommission desktops throughoutthe desktop lifecycle from a centralized point of management.

MCS enables the management of several types of machines within a catalog in Citrix Studio. Desktopcustomization is persistent for machines that use the Personal vDisk (PvDisk or PvD) feature, whilenon-Personal vDisk machines are appropriate if desktop changes are discarded when the user logs off.

Desktops provisioned using MCS share a common base image within a catalog. Because of this, thebase image is typically accessed with sufficient frequency to naturally use the VMware vSAN cache,where frequently accessed data is promoted to flash drives to provide optimal I/O response time withfewer physical disks.

3.6 VMware App Volumes 2.11

VMware App Volumes 2.11

VMware App Volumes 2.11 is an integrated and unified application delivery and end-usermanagement system for VDI and virtual environments:

• Quickly provision applications at scale.• Dynamically attach applications to users, groups, or devices, even when users are logged into

their desktop.• Provision, deliver, update, and retire applications in real time.• Provide a user-writable volume allowing users to install applications that follow them across

desktops.

App Volumes makes it easy to deliver, update, manage, and monitor applications and users across VDIand published application environments. It uniquely provides applications and user environmentsettings to desktop and published application environments and reduces management costs by



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efficiently delivering applications from one virtual disk to many desktops or published applicationservers. Provisioning applications requires no packaging, no modification, and no streaming.

• App Volumes works by binding applications and data into specialized virtual containers calledAppStacks, which are attached to each Windows user session at login or reboot, ensuring themost current applications and data are delivered to the user.

• App Volumes integrates a simple agent-server-database architecture into an existing VDIdeployment. Centralized management servers are configured to connect to deploy virtualdesktops that run an App Volumes Agent. An administrator can grant application access toshared storage volumes for users or virtual machines or both.

Figure 6. App Volumes High-Level Architecture



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4. Solution ConfigurationThis section introduces the resources and configurations for the solution including.



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4.1 Architecture Diagram

Architecture Diagram

Figure 7 shows the solution architectural design.

Figure 7. vSphere Cluster Design

4.2 Hardware Resources

Hardware Resources

Table 2 shows two vSAN Clusters used in the environment.

• One 8-node all-flash vSAN Cluster was deployed to support 1,000 virtual desktops.• One 4-node hybrid vSAN Management Cluster was deployed to support infrastructure,

management, and Login VSI launcher virtual machines used for the scalability testing.

Table 2. Server Profile

Property Specification

Server 8 x rack server

CPU2 sockets, Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU of 3 GHz 10-core



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Property Specification

RAM 512GB

Network adapter 2 x Intel 10 Gigabit SFI/SFP

Storage adapter 2 x 12Gbps SAS PCI-Express

Disks

SSD: 2 x 800GB class-D 6Gbps SAS drive ascache SSDSSD: 8 x 400GB class-D 6Gbps SAS drive ascapacity SSD

Note: The recommendation cache value is updated on Designing vSAN Disk Groups—All-flash CacheRatio Update and you can adjust it based on your real environment requirements. The high cachesetting in this solution is unnecessary in your environment.

4.3 Software Resources

Software Resources

Table 3 shows software resources used in this solution and Table 4 lists the system configurations fordifferent server roles.

Table 3. Software Resources

Software Version Purpose

VMware vCenter and ESXi 6.5

ESXi Cluster to host virtualmachines and provide vSANCluster. VMware vCenterServer provides a centralizedplatform for managingVMware vSphereenvironments.

VMware vSAN 6.5Software-defined storagesolution for a hyper-converged infrastructure.

Citrix XenApp andXenDesktop

7.12

Provides a complete virtualapp and desktop solution tomeet customers’ needs from asingle, easy-to-deployplatform. The Citrix Hotfix forXenApp and XenDesktop 7.12MCS is valid for all vSAN 6.xreleases.



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https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/01/18/designing-vsan-disk-groups-cache-ratio-revisited/

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/01/18/designing-vsan-disk-groups-cache-ratio-revisited/

Software Version Purpose

Citrix Provisioning Service 7.12

Allows customers to have asingle instance imagemanagement of XenApp andXenDesktop VMs.

VMware App Volumes 2.11

An integrated and unifiedapplication delivery and end-user management system forVDI and virtual environments.

Table 4. System Configuration

InfrastructureVM Role

vCPU RAM (GB) Storage (GB) OS

DomainController andDNS)

2 8 100Windows Server2012 R2 64-bit

Table 5 lists the configuration details of Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop.

Table 5. Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Configuration

InfrastructureVM Role

Quantity vCPU RAM (GB) Storage (GB) OS

XenDesktopControllers

2 4 8 100WindowsServer 2012R2 64-bit

StoreFrontServers


LicenseServer


PVS Servers 2 4 16100 (OS) 250(Store)

WindowsServer 2012R2 64-bit

4.4 Virtual Machine Test Image Build

Virtual Machine Test Image Build

Two different virtual machine images were used to provision desktop sessions in the Citrixenvironment, one for desktop image and one for Server OS image. Table 6 lists the virtual machine testimages. We used optimization tools according to VMware OS Optimization Tool and the Citrix



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https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool

XenDesktop Windows 7 Optimization Guide. The test image configurations were the same for MCSand PVS except that the PVS template installed a PVS target device to create the vDisk image.

Table 6. Virtual Machine Test Images

Attribute login vsi XenDesktop Image Login VSI XenAPP IMAGE

Desktop OSWindows 7 Enterprise SP1(32-bit) Windows 2012 R2 (64-bit)

HardwareVMware Virtual Hardwareversion 11

VMware Virtual Hardwareversion 11

CPU 2 8

Memory 2,048MB 24,576MB

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 VMware Paravirtual VMware Paravirtual

Virtual disk—VMDK 1 30GB 100GB

Virtual disk—VMDK 2 10GB 40GB

Applications

Adobe Acrobat 11Adobe Flash Player 16Doro PDF 1.82FreeMindInternet Explorer 11Microsoft Office 2010

Adobe Acrobat 11Adobe Flash Player 16Doro PDF 1.82FreeMindInternet Explorer 11Microsoft Office 2010

VMware Tools™ 10.0.6.3560309 10.0.6.3560309

Citrix VDA 7.12 7.12

4.5 Network Configuration

Network Configuration

A VMware vSphere Distributed Switch™ (VDS) acts as a single virtual switch across all associated hostsin the data cluster. This setup allows virtual machines to maintain a consistent network configurationas they migrate across multiple hosts.



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http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127050

Figure 8. vSphere Distributed Switch

Network I/O control was enabled for the distributed switch. The following settings and share valueswere applied on the resource allocation as shown in Table 7.

Table 7. Resource Allocations for Network Resources in vSphere Distributed Switch

Network ResourcePool

Host Limit (Mbps) Shares

vSphere vMotion 8000Mbit/s Low 25

Management Unlimited Normal 50

Virtual machines Unlimited High 100

vSAN traffic Unlimited Normal 50

4.6 vSAN Configuration

vSAN Configuration

Each ESXi server had the same configuration of two disk groups, each consisting of one 800GB cache-tier SSD and four 400GB capacity-tier SSDs.



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vSAN Storage Policy

vSAN can set availability, capacity, and performance policies per virtual machine if the virtualmachines are deployed on the vSAN datastore. Citrix uses the default storage policy. We need tomodify the default storage policy to enable or disable certain vSAN features. Table 8 shows thestorage policy setting of RAID 5.

Table 8. vSAN Storage Settings with RAID 5

Storage Capability Setting

Number of FTT 1

Number of disk stripes per object 1

Flash read cache reservation 0%

Object space reservation 0%

Failure tolerance method RAID 5 (erasure coding)—capacity

Several vSAN features were used in this solution including deduplication and compression, softwarechecksum, and Erasure Coding (RAID 5).

App Volumes Setting

We tested all the applications in a single AppStack except that IE was installed on the OS by default onMCS XenDesktop.

Table 9. App Volumes-AppStack Configuration

ATTRIBUTE SPECIFICATION

Location [vsanDatastore] cloudvolumes/apps/newapp.vmdk (6,536 MB)

Template[vsanDatastore] cloudvolumes/apps_templates/template.vmdk (2.11.0)

Assignments 1,000

Attachments 1,000

Applications

Adobe_Flash_Player_16_ActiveX,Adobe_Reader_XI_-11.0.10, Doro_1.82,FreeMind,Microsoft_Office_Professional_Plus_2010)

4.7 VMware Cluster Configuration



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VMware Cluster Configuration

Table 10 lists the VMware Cluster configuration. We should enable VMware vSphere High Availability(vSphere HA) and DRS features in VMware Cluster.

Table 10. ESXi Cluster Configuration

Property Setting Default Revised

Cluster featuresvSphere HA – Enabled

DRS – Enabled

4.8 VMware ESXi Server: Storage Controller Mode

VMware ESXi Server: Storage Controller Mode

The storage controller supports both pass-through and RAID mode. It is recommended to usecontrollers that support the pass-through mode with vSAN to lower complexity and ensureperformance.

4.9 Desktop Provisioning Mechanism

Desktop Provisioning Mechanism

Overview

This solution was validated using PVS and MCS virtual desktops, both random and static (with PvD), toobserve any performance and scaling differences between various provisioning methods.

PVS Desktops

Provisioning Services streaming technology allows computers to be provisioned and re-provisioned inreal-time from a single shared-disk image.

vDisks can exist on a Provisioning Server, file share, or in larger deployments, on a storage system thatthe Provisioning Server can communicate with (iSCSI, SAN, NAS, and CIFS). vDisks can be assigned toa single target device as Private Image Mode, or to multiple target devices as Standard Image Mode.

When a target device is turned on, it is set to boot from the network and to communicate with aProvisioning Server:

1. Unlike the thin-client technology, processing takes place on the target device.2. The target device downloads the boot file from a Provisioning Server, and then the target

device boots.3. Based on the device boot configuration settings, the appropriate vDisk is located and mounted

on the Provisioning Server.

The software on that vDisk is streamed to the target device as needed. To the target device, it appearslike a regular hard drive to the system. Figure 9 shows the process of booting a target device.



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Figure 9. Boot Process of a PVS Target Device

MCS Desktops

Citrix XenDesktop 7.12 with MCS supports the use of linked clones to quickly provision virtualdesktops.

In a linked clone desktop, the operating system reads all the common data from the read-only basedisk, and creates the unique data on the linked clone. Figure 10 shows a logical representation of thisrelationship.

Figure 10. Logical Representation of an MCS-base Disk and Linked Clone

Note: The Citrix Hotfix for XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 MCS must be applied on MCS desktops. See Binary fix for Catalog Deletion Error on vSAN 6.2 for detailed information.



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https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX219670

5. Solution ValidationThe solution validates the VDI performance with vSAN 6.5 all-flash, Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp7.12, and VMware vSphere 6.5.



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5.1 Testing Overview

Testing Overview

The solution validates the VDI performance with vSAN 6.5 all-flash, Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp7.12, and VMware vSphere 6.5.

We deployed Windows 7 virtual desktops for both PVS and MCS, and recorded the performance andresource utilization differences for these two provisioning methods:

• For PVS mode, we used native applications installed on the OS image.• For MCS mode, we used VMware AppStack to provision and assign the applications.

For XenApp, we used Windows 2012 R2 as the Server OS and validated the performance and resourceutilization for PVS and MCS provisioning methods.

We used Login VSI to load the target environment with simulated user workloads and activities.Common applications such as Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Adobe PDF Reader wereutilized during the testing.

Login VSI 4.1 has several different workload templates depending on the type of user to be simulated.Each workload differs in application operations executed and also in the number of operationsexecuted simultaneously. The medium-level Knowledge Worker workload was selected for this testbecause it was the closest analog to the average desktop user in our customer deployments.

The testing was based on the Login VSI in the benchmark mode, which was a locked-down workloadtest based on the Knowledge Worker template. In benchmark mode, if you select one workload, all theparameters are fixed (read only). This is an accurate way of performing a side-by-side comparisonbetween VSIMax results in different configurations and platforms.

Note: You might notice the wording of “VSImax was not reached” in some of the test results. This isbecause we have more server capacity available for Login VSI. We have previously determined thenumber of sessions to run concurrently to achieve optimal results.

5.2 Testing Tools

Testing Tools

We used the following monitoring and benchmark tools in the solution:

• Monitoring tools◦ vSAN Performance Service

The performance service collects and analyzes performance statistics and displays the data in agraphical format. vSAN administrators can use the performance charts to manage the workloadand determine the root cause of problems. When the vSAN Performance Service is turned on,the cluster summary displays an overview of vSAN performance statistics, including IOPS,throughput, and latency. vSAN administrators can view detailed performance statistics for thecluster, for each host, disk group, and disk in the vSAN Cluster.

• esxtop

esxtop is a command line tool that can be used to collect data and provide real-timeinformation about the resource usage of a vSphere environment such as CPU, disk, memory,and network usage. We measure the ESXi Server performance by this tool.

• Workload testing tool◦ Login VSI 4.1.5



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Use the Login VSI in Benchmark mode with 20 sessions to measure VDI performance in termsof Login VSI baseline performance score (also called VSIbase or Login VSI index average score).The Login VSI baseline performance score is based on the response time reacting to the LoginVSI workloads. A lower Login VSI score is better because it reflects that the desktops canrespond in less time. In the tests, the workload type is ‘Knowledge Worker * 2vCPU’. For variousLogin VSI notations, see VSImax.

Monitoring Parameters

We took the following parameters into consideration to measure the testing performance:

• Benchmark VSImax• CPU memory usage• vSAN IO latency and IOPS• Capacity and deduplication ratio

5.3 PVS XenDesktop with Natively Installed Application

PVS XenDesktop with Natively InstalledApplications

Testing ScenariosIn this test, PVS Imaging Wizard was used to create a vDisk image from the master target device, thena collection of 1,000 streamed Windows 7 VM desktops was provisioned on the vSAN datastore fromthe PVS server Console and was added to the machine catalogue from the Delivery Controller. Theapplications were installed with OS disk and a deliver group was created for Login VSI benchmarktesting.

The standard vDisk image was configured with cache in device RAM with overflow on the hard disk.The maximum RAM size was 512 MB.

Testing ResultsAs shown in Figure 11, there were 1,012GB used space and 1.23TB deduplication and compressionoverhead, which was 5 percent of the vSAN datastore capacity. Deduplication and compression ratiowas 4.35x, which was original used space/space used after deduplication and compression. The totalcapacity used was 23.29-21.07=2.22TB.

Figure 11. Capacity Information about 1,000 PVS Windows 7 Desktops



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https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/VSImax

Login VSI Knowlege Worker Results

As shown in Figure 12, the 1,000 Windows 7 PVS desktops passed the Knowledge Worker workloadeasily without reaching VSIMax v4.1 at the baseline of 671. This was a stress testing so the peaks wereacceptable while running 1,000 PVS desktops.

Figure 12. VSImax on Login VSI Knowlege Worker Workload, PVS XenDesktop

From the average ESXi CPU usage in Figure 13, the CPU usage increased steadily because the numberof active session increased. The peak average CPU usage was 71 percent.

Figure 13. CPU Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenDesktop

Figure 14 illustrates the average peak memory consumed was 249,814MB (around 244GB). ESXimemory was 512GB, which was about 48 percent usage. The average kernel memory usage was29,718MB (around 29GB).



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Figure 14. Memory Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenDesktop

From vSAN Performance Service as shown in Figure 14, peak write IOPS was 5,770 and peak readIOPS was 6,068. IOPS increased as the number of active sessions increased. vSAN IOPS was lowbecause Login VSI testing was CPU bound.

Figure 15. vSAN IOPS during Login VSI Knowledge Workload, PVS XenDesktop

As shown in Figure 16, vSAN peak write latency was 0.960ms and peak read latency was 0.491ms.There was a sharp increase in latency when sessions became active.

Figure 16. vSAN Latency during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenDesktop

5.4 MCS XenDesktop with AppStack



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MCS XenDesktop with Appstack

Testing Scenarios In this test, 1,000 MCS random Windows 7 virtual desktops were deployed from the DeliveryController in the machine catalog and a delivery group was created. The AppStack was assigned tothose 1,000 desktops.

Testing ResultsThere were 1.21TB used space for 1,000 desktops with AppStack on vSAN datastore as shown inFigure 17 and 1.23TB deduplication and compression overhead, which was 5 percent of the vSANdatastore capacity. Deduplication and compression ratio was 2.43x. The total capacity used was2.44TB.

Figure 17. Capacity Information about 1,000 MCS XenDesktops with AppStack


As shown in Figure 18, the MCS Windows 7 desktops with AppStack passed the Knowledge Workerworkload without reaching VSIMax v4.1 at the baseline of 1,206 and average of 1,482.

Figure 18. VSImax on Login VSI Knowlege Worker Workload, MCS XenDesktop withAppStack



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From the average ESXi CPU usage in Figure 19, the peak average CPU usage was 80 percent duringthe Login VSI testing.

Figure 19. CPU Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenDesktop

Figure 20. Memory Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenDesktop

From vSAN Performance Service, IOPS increased nearly steadily as the number of active sessionsincreased. Peak read IOPS was 9,540 and peak write IOPS was 6,896 during the Login VSI test.



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Figure 21. vSAN IOPS during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenDesktop

Figure 22. vSAN Latency during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenDesktop

5.5 PVS XenApp with Windows Server

PVS XenApp with Windows Server

Testing Scenarios PVS Imaging Wizard was used to create a vDisk image from the master target device Windows 2012R2 Server, then a collection of 25 streamed Windows 2012 R2 VMs was provisioned on the vSANdatastore from the PVS server Console and was added to the machine catalog from the DeliveryController. The applications were installed with the OS disk and a deliver group was created for LoginVSI benchmark testing.

Testing ResultsAs shown in Figure 23, there were 895.15GB used space and 1.23TB deduplication and compressionoverhead, which was 5 percent of the vSAN datastore capacity. Deduplication and compression ratiowas 2.23x. The ratio was relatively low because only 25 Windows 2012 VMs were deployed for 1,000sessions. The total capacity used was 2.11TB.

Figure 23. Capacity Information about 25 PVS Windows 2012 VMs


During the testing with 1,000 sessions, VSImax 4.1 was not reached with a baseline score of 566 andan average of 995. This was a stress testing so the peaks were acceptable while running the 1,000sessions.



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Figure 24. VSImax on Login VSI Knowlege Worker Workload, PVS XenApp

During the Login VSI test, CPU usage was high and peak average CPU usage was 90 percent as shownin Figure 25.

Figure 25. CPU Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenApp

The memory usage increased less than 1 percent during Login VSI tests as shown in Figure 26. Peakaverage memory consumed was 75,200MB (around 73GB). The ESXi memory was 512GB, which wasabout 14 percent usage. The average kernel memory usage was 29,005MB (around 28GB).



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Figure 26. Memory Usage during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenApp

From vSAN Performance Service as shown in Figure 27, IOPS increased steadily as the number ofactive session increased. Peak write IOPS was 8,896.

Figure 27. vSAN IOPS during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenApp

Figure 28. vSAN Latency during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenApp

5.6 MCS XenApp with Windows Server



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MCS XenApp with Windows Server

Testing Scenarios In this test, 25 MCS random Windows 2012 R2 virtual machines were deployed from the DeliveryController using the machine catalog wizard and a delivery group was created for the applications.These virtual machines are server OS that allows multiple users to log on.

Testing Results

Capacity

As shown in Figure 29, there were 1.01TB used space and 1.23TB deduplication and compressionoverhead, which was 5 percent of the vSAN datastore capacity. Deduplication and compression ratiowas 1.68x. The ratio was relatively low because only 25 Windows 2012 VMs were deployed for 1,000sessions. The total capacity used was 2.24TB.

Figure 29. Capacity Information about 25 MCS Windows 2012 R2 VMs


Figure 30 shows that 986 sessions ran successfully. VSImax V4.1 was not reached with the baselinescore of 570 and average of 1,112 for 1,000 sessions.

Note: VSImax is measured by the average VSI response time. When the threshold is not exceeded bythe average VSI response time during the test, VSImax is considered as the maximum amount of usersthat have launched. See VSImax for detailed information.



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https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=VSImax

Figure 30. VSImax on Login VSI Knowlege Worker Workload, MCS XenApp

From the average ESXi CPU usage as shown in Figure 31, CPU usage increased because the number ofactive sessions increased. Peak CPU usage was high, which was about 84 percent. The CPU usagewent down when the sessions logged off.

Figure 31. CPU Usage on Login VSI Knowlege Worker Workload, MCS XenApp

Memory usage increased at the first half hour during Login VSI tests as shown in Figure 32. Peakaverage memory consumed was 75,683MB (around 75GB). ESXi total memory was 512GB. Theaverage kernel memory usage was 28,408MB (around 28GB).



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Figure 32. Memory Usage on Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenApp

From the backend view of vSAN Performance Service as shown in Figure 33, peak write IOPS was21,216 and peak read IOPS was 27,540. The IOPS was high from the vSAN backend because vSANsplit the client IOs to several disk IOs.

Figure 33. vSAN IOPS during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, MCS XenApp

Figure 34. vSAN Latency during Login VSI Knowledge Worker Workload, PVS XenApp



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6. Best PracticesWe provided the best practices based on our solution validation.



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6.1 AppStack Storage Policy

AppStack Storage Policy

When we place AppStack on vSAN datastore, make sure FTT is not less than the FTT value of thedesktop policy because AppStack is shared by users and desktops. Do not set it to be the availabilitybottleneck.

6.2 vSAN Sizing

vSAN Sizing

Acceptable performance of a virtual desktop is the ability to complete any desktop operation in areasonable amount of time from a user’s perspective. This means the backend storage that supportsthe virtual desktop must be able to deliver the data (read or write operation) quickly. Therefore, sizingstorage configuration should meet the IOPS requirements in a reasonable response time. With variousspace efficiency features, the required capacity differs. Refer to the vSAN TCO and Sizing Calculatorfor the virtual desktop sizing on vSAN.



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https://vsantco.vmware.com/

7. RecommendationWe provided the solution recommendation in this section.



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7.1 Recommendation

Recommendation

For both PVS and MCS, if the user to core ratio (user number/core number per host) value equals or isless than 6.25, it is recommended to enable deduplication and compression, RAID 5, and softwarechecksum features to achieve a good balance of performance and cost.



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8. ConclusionCheck out the solution conclusion in this section.



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8.1 Conclusion

Conclusion

VMware vSAN is a low-cost and high-performance storage platform for a virtual desktop infrastructurethat is rapidly deployed and easy to manage. Moreover, it is fully integrated into the industry-leadingVMware vSphere Cloud Suite. Using SSDs in all-flash vSAN with space efficiency features offers theenterprise performance while reducing capacity cost substantially and other Operating Expense(OPEX) costs such as maintenance by IT as well as power consumption and cooling costs.

Extensive workload and operation tests show that Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop with App Volumes2.11 on an all-flash vSAN delivers exceptional performance, a consistent end-user experience, and aresilient architecture, all with a relative low price.

All-flash vSAN provides an easily scalable Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.12 environment in bothPVS and MCS provisioning methods together with App Volumes 2.11, which provides superiorperformance and manageability.



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9. ReferenceCheck out the references for additional resources.



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9.1 Reference

Reference

White Paper

For additional information, see the following white papers:

• VMware vSAN 6.2 Space Efficiency Technologies

Product Documentation

For additional information, see the following product documents:

• vSAN Management• VMware APP Volumes 2.10• Citrix XenApp 7.6 Feature Pack 2 Blueprint• Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop

Other Documentation

For additional information, see the following documents:

• VMware OS Optimization Tool• Citrix PVS RAM Cache Overflow Sizing• Citrix XenDesktop Windows 7 Optimization Guide



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http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/vsan/vmware-vsan-62-space-efficiency-technologies.pdf

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsan.apiref.doc%2Fright-pane.html

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-app-volumes-reference-architecture.pdf

https://www.citrix.com/content/dam/citrix/en_us/documents/products-solutions/xenapp-deployment-blueprint.pdf

https://www.citrix.com/products/xenapp-xendesktop/

https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vmware-os-optimization-tool

https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2015/01/19/size-matters-pvs-ram-cache-overflow-sizing/

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX127050

10. About the AuthorThis section contains the author information.



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10.1 Author

Author

Sophie Yin, solution architect in the Product Enablement team of the Storage and Availability BusinessUnit wrote the original version of this paper. Catherine Xu, technical writer in the Product Enablementteam of the Storage and Availability Business Unit edited this paper to ensure that the contentsconform to the VMware writing style.



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