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A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell XC Web-Scale Converged Appliance for Citrix® XenDesktop® Dell Engineering September 2015
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Revisions
Date Description
March 2015 Initial release
Sep 2015 Document overhaul, XC730 + vGPU Addition
THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND
TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, HARDWARE SELECTIONS CONTAINED WITHIN ARE
FROM THE BASIS OF BEST WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.
Copyright © 2015 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the
express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
Dell, the Dell logo, and the Dell badge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc.
NVIDIA GRID™ and vGPU™ are registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may
be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell Inc.
disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade names other than its own.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
1.1 Purpose ............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
1.2 Scope ................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
1.3 What’s New ...................................................................................................................................................................... 6
2 Solution Architecture Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 7
2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7
2.2 Nutanix Architecture....................................................................................................................................................... 7
2.3 Nutanix Web-scale Converged Infrastructure ........................................................................................................... 9
2.4 Dell XC Web Scale – Solution Pods ............................................................................................................................ 11
Network Architecture ................................................................................................................................................... 13
3 Hardware Components .......................................................................................................................................................... 14
3.1 Network .......................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Dell Networking S60 (1Gb ToR Switch) .................................................................................................................... 14
Dell Networking S4810 (10Gb ToR Leaf Switch) ..................................................................................................... 15
3.2 Dell XC Converged Appliance .................................................................................................................................... 17
Dell XC630 (A5) ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
Dell XC630 (B5) ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
Dell XC630 (B7) ............................................................................................................................................................. 19
Dell XC730 (Graphics) .................................................................................................................................................. 20
3.3 GPUs ................................................................................................................................................................................ 22
NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 ............................................................................................................................................... 22
3.4 Dell Wyse Cloud Clients .............................................................................................................................................. 23
Wyse 3020 Thin Client ................................................................................................................................................. 24
Wyse 5010 Thin Client ................................................................................................................................................. 24
Wyse 7020 Thin Client with WES7 ............................................................................................................................. 24
Wyse 7020 Thin Client with WES8 ............................................................................................................................. 24
Wyse 7010 Thin Client with Linux .............................................................................................................................. 25
Dell Wyse Zero – Xenith 2 ........................................................................................................................................... 25
Dell Wyse Zero – Xenith Pro 2 ................................................................................................................................... 25
Dell Wyse Cloud Connect ........................................................................................................................................... 26
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell Venue 11 Pro .......................................................................................................................................................... 26
Dell Chromebook 11 ................................................................................................................................................ 26
4 Software Components ............................................................................................................................................................ 27
4.1 Citrix ................................................................................................................................................................................ 27
Citrix XenDesktop ......................................................................................................................................................... 27
Machine Creation Services (MCS) .............................................................................................................................. 29
Citrix Profile Manager ................................................................................................................................................... 30
Citrix XenApp ................................................................................................................................................................. 30
Citrix NetScaler .............................................................................................................................................................. 34
4.2 Hypervisor Platforms .................................................................................................................................................... 36
VMware vSphere 6 ........................................................................................................................................................ 36
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V .......................................................................................................... 37
4.3 NVIDIA GRID vGPU ....................................................................................................................................................... 37
vGPU Profiles ................................................................................................................................................................. 38
5 Solution Architecture for XenDesktop 7 ............................................................................................................................. 40
5.1 Management Role Configuration .............................................................................................................................. 40
vSphere Management Role Requirements .............................................................................................................. 40
Hyper-V Management Role Requirements .............................................................................................................. 41
XenApp on vSphere ...................................................................................................................................................... 42
XenApp on Hyper-V...................................................................................................................................................... 42
SQL Databases ............................................................................................................................................................... 43
DNS .................................................................................................................................................................................. 43
5.2 Storage Architecture Overview .................................................................................................................................. 44
Nutanix Containers ....................................................................................................................................................... 44
5.3 Virtual Networking ........................................................................................................................................................ 44
vSphere ........................................................................................................................................................................... 45
Hyper-V........................................................................................................................................................................... 46
5.4 Scaling Guidance .......................................................................................................................................................... 48
5.5 Solution High Availability ............................................................................................................................................. 49
5.6 Dell Wyse Datacenter for XenDesktop Communication Flow ............................................................................. 51
6 Solution Performance and Testing ....................................................................................................................................... 52
6.1 Load Generation and Monitoring ............................................................................................................................... 52
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Login VSI 4 – Login Consultants ................................................................................................................................ 52
VMware vCenter ............................................................................................................................................................ 52
Microsoft Perfmon ........................................................................................................................................................ 52
6.2 Performance Analysis Methodology .......................................................................................................................... 52
Resource Utilization...................................................................................................................................................... 53
Dell Wyse Datacenter Workloads and Profiles ........................................................................................................ 54
Dell Wyse Datacenter Workloads ............................................................................................................................... 54
6.3 Testing and Validation .................................................................................................................................................. 56
Testing Process ............................................................................................................................................................. 56
6.4 XC630-B5 Test Results for Citrix XenDesktop ......................................................................................................... 57
XenDesktop, 420 Pooled VMs, MCS, Light Workload – XC630-B5 ................................................................... 60
XenDesktop, 260 Pooled VMs, MCS, Medium Workload – XC630-B5 ............................................................... 63
XenDesktop, 200 Pooled VMs, MCS, Heavy Workload – XC630-B5 .................................................................. 66
XenApp, 290 Sessions, Heavy Workload – XC630-B5 ........................................................................................... 70
6.5 XC630-B7 Test Results for Citrix XenDesktop ......................................................................................................... 74
Test Results .................................................................................................................................................................... 76
Results summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 77
Bensen B7 Configuration, ESXi/XenDesktop MCS, 200 User Test, Heavy Workload ....................................... 77
XenApp, 290 Sessions, User Test, Heavy Workload ................................................................................................ 81
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................................................ 87
About the Authors ........................................................................................................................................................................... 88
A Dell Appliance Architecture
1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose This document addresses the architecture design, configuration and implementation considerations for
the key components required to deliver virtual desktops or shared sessions via Citrix® XenDesktop® and
XenApp® on Microsoft® Windows Server® Hyper-V® 2012 R2 or VMware® vSphere® 6.
1.2 Scope Relative to delivering the virtual desktop environment, the objectives of this document are to:
Define the detailed technical design for the solution.
Define the hardware requirements to support the design.
Define the constraints which are relevant to the design.
Define relevant risks, issues, assumptions and concessions – referencing existing ones where possible.
Provide a breakdown of the design into key elements such that the reader receives an incremental or
modular explanation of the design.
Provide solution scaling and component selection guidance.
1.3 What’s New
Introduce support for VMware vSphere 6
Introduce support for Citrix XenDesktop 7.6
Introduce support for new Dell XC730 Graphics appliance
Introduce support for NVIDIA GRID vGPU on vSphere 6
A Dell Appliance Architecture
2 Solution Architecture Overview
2.1 Introduction The Dell XC series delivers an out-of-the-box infrastructure solution for virtual desktops that eliminates
the high cost, variable performance, and extensive risk of conventional solutions. The Nutanix™ web-scale
converged infrastructure is a turnkey solution that comes ready to run your VDI solution of choice. The
Nutanix platform’s unique architecture allows enterprises to scale their virtual desktops from 50 to tens of
thousands of desktops in a linear fashion, providing customers with a simple path to enterprise
deployment with the agility of public cloud providers.
2.2 Nutanix Architecture The Nutanix web-scale converged infrastructure is a scale-out cluster of high-performance nodes (or
servers), each running a standard hypervisor and containing processors, memory, and local storage
(consisting of SSD Flash and high capacity SATA disk drives). Each node runs virtual machines just like a
standard virtual machine host.
In addition, local storage from all nodes is virtualized into a unified pool by the Nutanix Distributed File
System (NDFS). In effect, NDFS acts like an advanced NAS that uses local SSDs and disks from all nodes to
A Dell Appliance Architecture
store virtual machine data. Virtual machines running on the cluster write data to NDFS as if they were
writing to shared storage.
NDFS understand the concept of a virtual machine and provides advanced data management features. It
brings data closer to virtual machines by storing the data locally on the system, resulting in higher
performance at a lower cost. Nutanix platforms can horizontally scale from as few as three nodes to a
large number of nodes, enabling organizations to scale their infrastructure as their needs grow.
The Nutanix Elastic Deduplication Engine is a software-driven, massively scalable and intelligent data
reduction technology. It increases the effective capacity in the disk tier, as well as the RAM and flash cache
tiers of the system, by eliminating duplicate data. This substantially increases storage efficiency, while also
improving performance due to larger effective cache capacity in RAM and flash. Deduplication is
performed by each node individually in the cluster, allowing for efficient and uniform deduplication at
scale. This technology is increasingly effective with full/persistent clones or P2V migrations.
Nutanix Shadow Clones delivers distributed localized caching of virtual disks performance in multi-reader
scenarios, such as desktop virtualization using Citrix XenDesktop or XenApp. With Shadow Clones, the
NDFSNDFS
Only a single instance of the shared VM data is pulled into the cache upon read
StorageStorage
... VM NVM NVM 1VM 1
CacheCache
HypervisorHypervisor
CacheCVMCVM
Each node participates in, and performs, its own fingerprinting and deduplication
StorageStorage
... VM NVM NVM 1VM 1
CacheCache
HypervisorHypervisor
CacheCVMCVM
Sequential streams of data are fingerprinted at 4K granularity for efficient deduplication
StorageStorage
... VM NVM NVM 1VM 1
CacheCache
HypervisorHypervisor
CacheCVMCVM
...
A Dell Appliance Architecture
CVM actively monitors virtual disk access trends. If there are requests originating from more than two
remote CVMs, as well as the local CVM, and all of the requests are read I/O and the virtual disk will be
marked as immutable. Once the disk has been marked immutable, the virtual disk is then cached locally by
each CVM, so read operations are now satisfied locally by local storage.
The benefits of the Nutanix Platform are now exposed to scale out vSphere or Hyper-V deployments:
2.3 Nutanix Web-scale Converged Infrastructure The Nutanix web-scale converged infrastructure provides an ideal combination of both high-performance
compute with localized storage to meet any demand. True to this capability, this reference architecture
contains zero reconfiguration of or customization to the Nutanix product to optimize for this use case.
The next figure shows a high-level example of the relationship between an XC node, storage pool,
container, pod and relative scale out:
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell XC Web Scale allows organizations to deliver virtualized or remote desktops and applications through
a single platform and support end users with access to all of their desktops and applications in a single
place.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
2.4 Dell XC Web Scale – Solution Pods The networking layer consists of the 10Gb Dell Networking S4810 utilized to build a world-class leaf/spine
architecture with robust 1Gb switching in the S60 for iDRAC connectivity.
The compute, management and storage layers are converged into a single server XC Series appliance
cluster, hosting either VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors. The recommended boundaries
of an individual pod are based on number of nodes supported within a given hypervisor cluster, 64 nodes
for vSphere or Hyper-V.
Dell recommends that the VDI management infrastructure nodes be separated from the compute
resources onto their own appliance cluster with a common storage namespace shared between them
based on NFS for vSphere or SMB for Hyper-V. One node for VDI management is required, minimally, and
expanded based on size of the pod. The designations ds_rdsh, ds_compute, and ds_mgmt as seen below
are logical NDFS containers used to group VMs of a particular type. Using distinct containers allows
features and attributes, such as compression and deduplication, to be applied to groups of VMs that share
similar characteristics. Compute hosts can be used interchangeably for XenApp or RDSH as required.
Distinct clusters should be built for management and compute hosts for HA, respectively, to plan
predictable failover, scale and load across the pod. The NFS or SMB namespace can be shared across
multiple hypervisor clusters adding disk capacity and performance for each distinct cluster.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
High-performance graphics capabilities compliment the solution and can easily be added at any time to
any new or existing Dell XC vSphere deployment. Simply add the appropriate number of XC730 appliances
to your NDFS cluster and provide a superior user experience with vSphere 6 and NVIDIA GRID vGPU
technology.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network Architecture Designed for true linear scaling, Dell XC series leverages a Leaf-Spine network architecture. A Leaf-Spine
architecture consists of two network tiers: an L2 Leaf and an L3 Spine based on 40GbE and non-blocking
switches. This architecture maintains consistent performance without any throughput reduction due to a
static maximum of three hops from any node in the network.
The following figure shows a design of a scale-out Leaf-Spine network architecture that provides 20Gb
active throughput from each node to its Leaf and scalable 80Gb active throughput from each Leaf to
Spine switch providing scale from 3 XC nodes to thousands without any impact to available bandwidth:
4
LAG
10 Gb/s
40+ Gb/s
MLAG Link
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
QSFP+
MASTERSYS FAN PSU
RS-232
ETHERNETLNK ACT4644424038363432302826242220181614121086420 48 56
52 60
SFP+
Force10 S4810P
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
L2 Leaf
QSFP+
MASTERSYS FAN PSU
RS-232
ETHERNETLNK ACT4644424038363432302826242220181614121086420 48 56
52 60
SFP+
Force10 S4810P
4
QSFP+
MASTERSYS FAN PSU
RS-232
ETHERNETLNK ACT4644424038363432302826242220181614121086420 48 56
52 60
SFP+
Force10 S4810P
QSFP+
MASTERSYS FAN PSU
RS-232
ETHERNETLNK ACT4644424038363432302826242220181614121086420 48 56
52 60
SFP+
Force10 S4810P
4
18 2014 1610 126 82 4 30 3226 2822 24
17 1913 159 115 71 3 29 3125 2721 23 33SFP+
34SFP+
Stack ID
EST
L3 Spine
18 2014 1610 126 82 4 30 3226 2822 24
17 1913 159 115 71 3 29 3125 2721 23 33SFP+
34SFP+
Stack ID
EST
A Dell Appliance Architecture
3 Hardware Components
3.1 Network The following sections contain the core network components for the Dell Wyse Datacenter solutions.
General uplink cabling guidance to consider in all cases is that TwinAx is very cost effective for short 10Gb
runs and for longer runs use fiber with SFPs.
Dell Networking S60 (1Gb ToR Switch) The Dell Networking S-Series S60 is a high-performance 1/ 10Gb access switch optimized for lowering
operational costs at the network edge and is recommended for iDRAC connectivity. The S60 answers the
key challenges related to network congestion in data center ToR (Top-of-Rack) and service provider
aggregation deployments. As the use of bursty applications and services continue to increase, huge spikes
in network traffic that can cause network congestion and packet loss, also become more common. The
S60 is equipped with the industry’s largest packet buffer (1.25 GB), enabling it to deliver lower application
latency and maintain predictable network performance even when faced with significant spikes in network
traffic. Providing 48 line-rate Gb ports and up to four optional 10Gb uplinks in just 1-RU, the S60
conserves valuable rack space. Further, the S60 design delivers unmatched configuration flexibility, high
reliability, and power and cooling efficiency to reduce costs.
Model Features Options Uses
Dell Networking
S60
44 x BaseT (10/100/1000)
+ 4 x SFP
High performance
High Scalability
Redundant PSUs 1Gb
connectivity
for iDRAC
4 x 1Gb SFP ports the
support copper or fiber
12Gb or 24Gb stacking
(up to 12 switches)
2 x modular slots for
10Gb uplinks or
stacking modules
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Guidance:
10Gb uplinks to a core or distribution switch are the preferred design choice using the rear 10Gb uplink
modules. If 10Gb to a core or distribution switch is unavailable the front 4 x 1Gb SFP ports are used.
The front 4 SFP ports can support copper cabling and are upgraded to optical if a longer run is needed.
For more information on the S60 switch and Dell Networking, please visit: LINK
3.1.1.1 S60 Stacking The S60 switches are optionally stacked with 2 or more switches, if greater port count or redundancy is
desired. Each switch will need a stacking module plugged into a rear bay and connected with a stacking
cable. The best practice for switch stacks greater than 2 is to cable in a ring configuration with the last
switch in the stack cabled back to the first. Uplinks need to be configured on all switches in the stack back
to the core to provide redundancy and failure protection.
Dell Networking S4810 (10Gb ToR Leaf Switch) The Dell Networking S-Series S4810 is an ultra-low latency 10/40Gb Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch purpose-
built for applications in high-performance data center and computing environments. Leveraging a non-
blocking, cut-through switching architecture, the S4810 delivers line-rate L2 and L3 forwarding capacity
with ultra-low latency to maximize network performance. The compact S4810 design provides industry-
leading density of 48 dual-speed 1/10Gb (SFP+) ports as well as four 40Gb QSFP+ uplinks to conserve
valuable rack space and simplify the migration to 40Gb in the data center core (Each 40Gb QSFP+ uplink
can support four 10Gb ports with a breakout cable). Priority-based Flow Control (PFC), Data Center Bridge
Exchange (DCBX), Enhance Transmission Selection (ETS), coupled with ultra-low latency and line rate
throughput, make the S4810 ideally suited for converged leaf/spine environments.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Model Features Options Uses
Dell Networking S4810
48 x SFP+ (1Gb/10Gb) + 4 x QSFP+ (40Gb)
Redundant Power Supplies
Single-mode/ multimode optics, TwinAx, QSFP+ breakout cables
ToR switch for 10Gb converged connectivity
Stack up to 6 switches or 2 using VLT, using SFP or QSFP ports
Guidance:
The 40Gb QSFP+ ports are split into 4 x 10Gb ports using breakout cables for stand-alone units, if
necessary. This is not supported in stacked configurations.
10Gb or 40Gb uplinks to a core or distribution switch is the preferred design choice.
The front 4 SFP ports can support copper cabling and are upgraded to optical if a longer run is needed.
For more information on the S4810 switch and Dell Networking, please visit: LINK
3.1.2.1 S4810 Stacking The S4810 switches are optionally stacked up to 6 switches or configured to use Virtual Link Trunking
(VLT) up to 2 switches. Stacking is supported on either SFP or QSFP ports as long as that port is configured
for stacking. The best practice for switch stacks greater than 2 is to cable in a ring configuration with the
last switch in the stack cabled back to the first. Uplinks need to be configured on all switches in the stack
back to the core to provide redundancy and failure protection. It is recommended that the S4810 be
configured for use in the leaf layer connective up to another switch in the spine layer.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
3.2 Dell XC Converged Appliance Consolidate compute and storage into a single chassis with Dell XC Series web-scale converged
appliances, powered by Nutanix software. XC Series appliances install quickly, integrate easily into any data
center, and can be deployed for multiple virtualized workloads including desktop virtualization, test and
development, and private cloud projects. For general purpose virtual desktop and virtual application
solutions, Dell recommends the XC630. For more information please visit: Link
While the XC630 is ultimately a flexible and highly configurable converged appliance, Dell offers three
optimized platforms with which to build your desktop virtualization project. The A5 configuration is
recommended for entry-level, small scale or POC deployments where maximizing a balance of low cost
and performance is crucial. The B5 boats a balanced configuration best suited for small or large
production deployments consisting of task or knowledge workers. Finally the B7 configuration is
positioned as the ultimate in performance and scalability providing an abundance of CPU power and tiered
disk capacity to suit a virtual desktop project of any scale or user workload.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell XC630 (A5) The Dell XC630-A5 platform is perfect for POCs, lighter user workloads, shared sessions or application
virtualization. Each appliance comes equipped with dual 8-core CPUs and 256GB of high-performance
RAM. Six disks come in each host, 2 x 200GB SSD for the hot tier (Tier1) and 4 x 1TB NL SAS disks for the
cold tier (Tier2). The 64GB SATADOM boots the hypervisor and Nutanix Controller VM while the H730
PERC is configured in pass-through mode connecting to the SSDs and HDDs. 64GB is consumed on each
of the first two SSDs for the Nutanix “home”. These six disks are presented to the Nutanix Controller VM
running locally on each host. Each platform can be outfitted with SFP+ or BaseT NICs.
Dell XC630 – A5
CPU 2 x E5-2630v3 (8C, 2.4GHz)
Memory 16 x 16GB 2133MHz RDIMMs
Effective speed: 2133MHz @ 256GB
RAID Ctrls PERC H730 Mini – no RAID
Storage 64GB SATADOM (CVM/ Hypervisor)
2 x 200GB MLC SATA SSD 2.5” (T1)
4 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5” (T2)
Network 2 x 10Gb, 2 x 1Gb SFP+/ BT
iDRAC iDRAC8 Ent w/ vFlash, 8GB SD
Power 2 x 750W PSUs
Dell XC630 (B5) The Dell XC630-B5 platform is perfect for larger POCs, medium user workloads, shared sessions or
application virtualization. Each appliance comes equipped with dual 12-core CPUs and 384GB of high-
performance RAM. Six disks come in each host, 2 x 400GB SSD for the hot tier (Tier1) and 4 x 1TB NL SAS
disks for the cold tier (Tier2). The 64GB SATADOM boots the hypervisor and Nutanix Controller VM while
the H730 PERC is configured in pass-through mode connecting to the SSDs and HDDs. 64GB is
consumed on each of the first two SSDs for the Nutanix “home”. These six disks are presented to the
Nutanix Controller VM running locally on each host. Each platform can be outfitted with SFP+ or BaseT
NICs.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell XC630 – B5
CPU 2 x E5-2680v3 (12C, 2.5GHz)
Memory 24 x 16GB 2133MHz RDIMMs
Effective speed: 1866 MHz @ 384GB
RAID Ctrls PERC H730 Mini – no RAID
Storage 64GB SATADOM (CVM/ Hypervisor)
2 x 400GB MLC SATA SSD 2.5” (T1)
4 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5” (T2)
Network 2 x 10Gb, 2 x 1Gb SFP+/ BT
iDRAC iDRAC8 Ent w/ vFlash, 8GB SD
Power 2 x 750W PSUs
Dell XC630 (B7) The Dell XC630-B7 platform is ideal for high performance requirements, heavy user workloads, and dense
shared sessions or application virtualization. Each appliance comes equipped with dual 16-core CPUs and
384GB of high-performance RAM. Six disks come in each host, 2 x 400GB SSD for the hot tier (Tier1) and 6
x 1TB NL SAS disks for the cold tier (Tier2). The 64GB SATADOM boots the hypervisor and Nutanix
Controller VM while the H730 PERC is configured in pass-through mode connecting to the SSDs and
HDDs. 64GB is consumed on each of the first two SSDs for the Nutanix “home”. These eight disks are
presented to the Nutanix Controller VM running locally on each host. Each platform can be outfitted with
SFP+ or BaseT NICs.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell XC630 – B7
CPU 2 x E5-2698v3 (16C, 2.3GHz)
Memory 24 x 16GB 2133MHz RDIMMs
Effective speed: 1866 MHz @ 384GB
RAID Ctrls PERC H730 Mini – no RAID
Storage 64GB SATADOM (CVM/ Hypervisor)
2 x 400GB MLC SATA SSD 2.5” (T1)
6 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5” (T2)
Network 2 x 10Gb, 2 x 1Gb SFP+/ BT
iDRAC iDRAC8 Ent w/ vFlash, 8GB SD
Power 2 x 750W PSUs
Dell XC730 (Graphics) The Dell-optimized XC730 platform is ideal for high performance graphics workloads. Each appliance
comes equipped with dual 14-core 120w CPUs and 256GB of high-performance RAM supporting up to 64
users per XC730. Six disks come standard in each host, 2 x 400GB SSD for the hot tier (Tier1) and 4 x 1TB
NL SAS disks for the cold tier (Tier2). The 64GB SATADOM boots the hypervisor and Nutanix Controller VM
while the H730 PERC is configured in pass-through mode connecting to the SSDs and HDDs. 64GB is
consumed on each of the first two SSDs for the Nutanix “home”. These six disks are presented to the
Nutanix Controller VM running locally on each host. Each platform can be outfitted with SFP+ or BaseT
NICs.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Important to note that this platform must be configured using CPUs with a max TDP of 120w and requires
1100w PSUs.
Dell XC730 – Graphics
CPU 2 x E5-2695v3 (14C, 2.3GHz)
Memory 16 x 16GB 2133MHz RDIMMs
Effective speed: 2133 MHz @ 256GB
GPU 2 x NVIDIA Grid K2; vGPU Profile: K220Q
RAID Ctrls PERC H730 Mini – no RAID
Storage 64GB SATADOM (CVM/ Hypervisor)
2 x 400GB MLC SATA SSD 2.5” (T1)
4 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5” (T2)
Network 2 x 10Gb, 2 x 1Gb SFP+/ BT
iDRAC iDRAC8 Ent w/ vFlash, 8GB SD
Power 2 x 1100W PSUs
A Dell Appliance Architecture
3.3 GPUs
NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 NVIDIA GRID™ technology offers the ability to offload graphics
processing from the CPU to the GPU in virtualized environments,
allowing the data center manager to deliver true PC graphics-rich
experiences to more users for the first time. NVIDIA's Kepler™-
based GRID K1 and K2 boards are specifically designed to enable
rich graphics in virtualized environments.
GPU Virtualization
GRID boards allow hardware virtualization of the GPU. This means
multiple users can share a single GPU, improving user density while providing true PC performance and
compatibility.
Low-Latency Remote Display
NVIDIA's patented low-latency remote display technology greatly improves the user experience by
reducing the lag that users feel when interacting with their virtual machine. With this technology, the
virtual desktop screen is pushed directly to the remoting protocol.
Maximum User Density
NVIDIA GRID boards have an optimized multi-GPU design that helps to maximize user density. GRID K1
boards, which include four Kepler-based GPUs and 16GB of memory, are designed to host the maximum
number of concurrent users. GRID K2 boards, which include two higher end Kepler GPUs and 8GB of
memory, deliver maximum density for users of graphics-intensive applications.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Specs Grid K1 Grid K2
Number of GPUs 4 x Kepler GPUs (GK107) 2 x high-end Kepler GPUs (GK104)
Total CUDA cores 768 (192 per GPU) 3072 (1536 per GPU)
Core Clock 850 MHz 745 MHz
Total memory size 16 GB DDR3 8 GB GDDR5
Max power 130 W 225 W
Form Factors Dual slot (4.4” x 10.5”) Dual slot (4.4” x 10.5”)
Aux power 6-pin connector 8-pin connector
PCIe x16 (Gen3) x16 (Gen3)
Cooling solution Passive Passive/ Active
For more information on NVIDIA Grid, please visit: Link
3.4 Dell Wyse Cloud Clients
The following Dell Wyse clients will deliver a superior Citrix user experience and are the recommended
choices for this solution.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Wyse 3020 Thin Client Build out a simple or vast virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and stay
within your budget using Wyse 3000 series thin clients. This easy-to-
use family of clients for Citrix®, Microsoft®, VMware® or Wyse
vWorkspace environments includes models that are available with
virus-immune Wyse ThinOS or Wyse enhanced Ubuntu™ Linux®. All
offer vibrant multimedia performance, System-on-Chip (SoC)
processors and hands-off Wyse Automated Management capability.
Using about 7-watts of power in full operation, the T10D creates very
little heat for a greener, more comfortable working environment. Link
Wyse 5010 Thin Client The Wyse 5000 series thin client is a highly efficient and powerful endpoint platform for Citrix®,
Microsoft®, VMware®, and Wyse vWorkspace virtual desktop environments. It is
available as a zero client, a diskless cloud desktop or a thin client with Windows
Embedded Standard®, Wyse-enhanced enterprise Linux, or virus-immune Wyse
ThinOS. With its extremely compact size and high performance, it’s a versatile
virtual desktop endpoint or cloud desktop when used with Wyse WSM software.
For more information, please visit: Link
Wyse 7020 Thin Client with WES7 The Dell Wyse 7020 is a super high-performance Windows Embedded Standard 7 thin client for virtual
desktop environments. Featuring a quad-core AMD processor, and an integrated graphics engine that
significantly boost performance; the 7020 achieves exceptional speed and power for the most demanding
VDI and embedded Windows applications, rotational 3D graphics, 3D simulation and modeling, unified
communications, and multi-screen HD multimedia. Take a unit from box to productivity in minutes. Just
select the desired configuration and the 7020 does the rest automatically—no need to reboot. Scale to
tens of thousands of endpoints with Dell Wyse WDM software or leverage your existing Microsoft System
Center Configuration Manager platform. The 7020 is the thin client for power users who need
workstation-class performance on their desktop or within a desktop virtualization environment (x86 or
x64). For more information, please visit: Link
Wyse 7020 Thin Client with WES8 Dell Wyse 7020 is a super high-performance Windows Embedded 8 Standard thin client for virtual desktop
environments. Featuring a quad-core AMD processor, the 7020 offers a vibrant Windows 8 experience and
achieves exceptional speed and power for the most demanding embedded Windows applications, rich 3D
graphics and HD multimedia. And you can scale to tens of thousands of 7020 endpoints with Dell Wyse
Device Manager (WDM) software, or leverage your existing Microsoft System Center Configuration
Manager platform. With single-touch or multi-touch capable displays, the 7020 adds the ease of an
A Dell Appliance Architecture
intuitive touch user experience. The 7020 is an ideal thin client for offering a high-performance Windows
8 experience with the most demanding mix of virtual desktop or cloud applications (x86 or x64). For more
information please visit: Link
Wyse 7010 Thin Client with Linux Designed for power users, the new Dell Wyse 7010 is the highest performing thin
client on the market. Highly secure and ultra-powerful, the 7010 combines Dell
Wyse-enhanced SUSE Linux Enterprise with a dual-core AMD 1.65 GHz processor
and a revolutionary unified engine for an unprecedented user experience. The
7010 eliminates performance constraints for high-end, processing-intensive
applications like computer-aided design, multimedia, HD video and 3D modeling.
Scalable enterprise-wide management provides simple deployment, patching and
updates. Take a unit from box to productivity in minutes with auto configuration.
Delivering unmatched processing speed and power, security and display
performance, it’s no wonder no other thin client can compare. For more information, please visit: Link
Dell Wyse Zero – Xenith 2 Discover new levels of performance, simplicity and ease-of-use in the
next generation of Wyse Xenith™ zero clients. They’re built for Citrix®
HDX™, so users receive an instant-on desktop, and can enjoy a rich
media experience that doesn’t tax servers and networks. And it’s easy,
too. With simple operation and auto-configuration, Wyse 3000 and
5000 series Xenith zero clients for Citrix are always adapting to new
network security and protocol advances. For more information, please
visit: Link
Dell Wyse Zero – Xenith Pro 2 Dell Wyse Xenith Pro 2 is the next-generation zero client for Citrix HDX and
Citrix XenDesktop, delivering ultimate performance, security and simplicity. With
a powerful dual core AMD G-series CPU; Xenith Pro 2 is faster than competing
devices. This additional computing horsepower allows dazzling HD multimedia
delivery without overtaxing your server or network. Scalable enterprise-wide
management provides simple deployment, patching and updates—your Citrix
XenDesktop server configures it out-of-the-box to your preferences for plug-
and-play speed and ease of use. Virus and malware immune, the Xenith Pro 2
draws under 9 watts of power in full operation—that’s less than any PC on the
planet. For more information please visit: Link
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell Wyse Cloud Connect Designed to promote bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments, Dell Wyse
Cloud Connect allows you to securely access and share work and personal files,
presentations, applications and other content from your business or your home.
Managed through Dell Wyse Cloud Client Manager software-as-a-service (SaaS), IT
managers can ensure that each Cloud Connect device is used by the appropriate
person with the right permissions and access to the appropriate apps and content
based on role, department and location. Slightly larger than a USB memory stick,
Cloud Connect is an ultra-compact multimedia-capable device. Simply plug it into
any available Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) / HDMI port on a TV or monitor,
attach a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and you’re off and running. Easy to slip into your pocket or bag, it
enables an HD-quality window to the cloud, great for meetings and presentations while on business travel,
or for cruising the internet and checking email after a day of work. For more information, please visit: Link
Dell Venue 11 Pro Meet the ultimate in productivity, connectivity and collaboration. Enjoy full
laptop performance in an ultra-portable tablet that has unmatched flexibility
for a business in motion. This dual purpose device works as a tablet when
you're out in the field but also enables you to work on your desktop in the
office thanks to an optional dock. For more information, please visit: Link
Dell Chromebook 11 The lightweight, easy-to-use Dell Chromebook 11 helps turn education into
exploration - without the worries of safety or security. Priced to make 1:1
computing affordable today, Chromebook 11 is backed by Dell support
services to make the most of your budget for years to come. The Chrome
OS and Chrome browser get students online in an instant and loads web
pages in seconds. A high-density battery supported by a 4th Gen Intel®
processor provides up to 10 hours of power. Encourage creativity with the
Chromebook 11 and its multimedia features that include an 11.6" screen, stereo sound and webcam.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
4 Software Components
4.1 Citrix
Citrix XenDesktop The solution is based on Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 which provides a complete end-to-end solution
delivering Microsoft Windows virtual desktops or server-based hosted shared sessions to users on a
wide variety of endpoint devices. Virtual desktops are dynamically assembled on demand, providing
users with pristine, yet personalized, desktops each time they log on.
Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete virtual desktop delivery system by integrating several
distributed components with advanced configuration tools that simplify the creation and real-time
management of the virtual desktop infrastructure.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The core XenDesktop components include:
Studio
Studio is the management console that enables you to configure and manage your deployment,
eliminating the need for separate management consoles for managing delivery of applications and
desktops. Studio provides various wizards to guide you through the process of setting up your
environment, creating your workloads to host applications and desktops, and assigning applications
and desktops to users.
Director
Director is a web-based tool that enables IT support teams to monitor an environment, troubleshoot
issues before they become system-critical, and perform support tasks for end users. You can also
view and interact with a user's sessions using Microsoft Remote Assistance.
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 devices including smartphones, tablets,
and PCs. Receiver provides on-demand access to Windows, Web, and Software as a Service (SaaS)
applications.
Delivery Controller (DC)
Installed on servers in the data center, the controller authenticates users, manages the assembly of
users’ virtual desktop environments, and brokers connections between users and their virtual
desktops.
StoreFront
StoreFront authenticates users to sites hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications
that user’s access.
License Server
The Citrix License Server is an essential component at any Citrix-based solution. Every Citrix product
environment must have at least one shared or dedicated license server. License servers are computers that
are either partly or completely dedicated to storing and managing licenses. Citrix products request
licenses from a license server when users attempt to connect.
Machine Creation Services (MCS)
A collection of services that work together to create virtual servers and desktops from a master image on
demand; optimizing storage utilization and providing a pristine virtual machine to users every time they log
on. Machine Creation Services is fully integrated and administrated in Citrix Studio.
Provisioning Services (PVS)
The Provisioning Services infrastructure is based on software-streaming technology. This technology
allows computers to be provisioned and re-provisioned in real-time from a single shared-disk image.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)
The Virtual Desktop Agent is a transparent plugin that is installed on every virtual desktop or XenApp
host (RDSH) and enables the direct connection between the virtual desktop and users’ endpoint
devices.
Machine Creation Services (MCS) Citrix Machine Creation Services is the native provisioning
mechanism within Citrix XenDesktop for virtual desktop image
creation and management. Machine Creation Services uses
the hypervisor APIs to create, start, stop, and delete virtual
desktop images. Desktop images are organized in a Machine
Catalog and within that catalog there are a number of options
available to create and deploy virtual desktops:
Random: Virtual desktops are assigned randomly as users
connect. When they logoff, the desktop is reset to its
original state and made free for another user to login and use. Any changes made by the user are
discarded at log off.
Static: Virtual desktops are assigned to the same user every time with three options for how to handle
changes made to the desktop: Store on local vDisk, Personal vDisk, or discarded on user log off.
All the desktops in a random or static catalog are based off a master desktop template which is selected
during the catalog creation process. MCS then takes snapshots of the master template and layers two
additional virtual disks on top: an Identity vDisk and a Difference vDisk. The Identity vDisk includes all the
specific desktop identity information such as host names and passwords. The Difference vDisk is where all
the writes and changes to the desktop are stored. These Identity and Difference vDisks for each desktop
are stored on the same data store as their related clone.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
While traditionally used for small to medium sized XenDesktop deployments, MCS can bring along with it
some substantial Tier 1 storage cost savings because of the snapshot/identity/difference disk
methodology. The Tier 1 disk space requirements of the identity and difference disks when layered on top
of a master image snapshot, is far less than that of a dedicated desktop architecture.
Citrix Profile Manager Citrix Profile Management is a component of the XenDesktop suite which is used to manage user profiles
and minimize many of the issues associated with traditional Windows roaming profiles in an environment
where users may have their user profile open on multiple devices at the same time. The profile
management toolset has two components: the profile management agent, installed on any device where
the user profiles is managed, and a Group Policy Administrative Template, which is imported to a group
policy.
In order to further optimize, the profile management folders within the user profile is redirected the users’
home drive. The folder redirection is managed via group policy objects within Active Directory. The
following folders are redirected:
Contacts
Downloads
Favorites
Links
My Documents
Searches
Start Menu
Windows
My Music
My Pictures
My Videos
Desktop
Citrix XenApp Citrix XenApp 7.6 includes enhancements in the areas of faster access to virtual apps with higher
connection resiliency, improved graphics rendering, and new app-usage reporting and monitoring tools.
Citrix XenApp delivers Windows apps as secure mobile services. With XenApp, IT can mobilize the business
- increasing user productivity, while reducing costs by centralizing control and security of intellectual
property. XenApp delivers high-performance apps to any PC, Mac, laptop, tablet or smartphone that
enable the delivery of a native experience that is optimized for the type of device, as well as the network.
XenApp is built on a 3rd generation FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA) and is the only hybrid cloud-
A Dell Appliance Architecture
ready platform that separates the management plane from the workload to enable IT to securely deliver
published apps on-premises, and manage workers and mobile workspaces either on-premises or in the
cloud.
Benefits of hosted desktop sessions and applications:
Management of applications (single instance)
Management of simple desktop images (no applications installed)
PVS to stream XenApp servers as well as user desktops
Scalability of XenDesktop compute hosts: CPU and IOPS reduction via application offload
Shared storage scalability: less IOPS = more room to grow
Citrix XenDesktop with XenApp integration can effectively deliver a desktop/application hybrid solution as
well. Specifically where a single or small number of shared VDI desktop images are deployed via
XenDesktop, each with common shared applications installed within the golden image. A user-specific
application set is then deployed and made accessible via the hosted application compute infrastructure,
accessible from within the virtual desktop.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Alternatively, XenApp provides a platform for delivering Windows server-based sessions to users who may
not need a full desktop VM. Hosted desktops increase infrastructure resource utilization while reducing
complexity as all applications and sessions are centrally managed.
4.1.4.1 XenApp Integration into Dell Wyse Datacenter Architecture The XenApp servers can exist as physical or virtualized instances of Windows Server 2012 R2. A minimum
of one (1), up to a maximum of eight (7) virtual servers are installed per physical compute host. Since
XenApp instances are easily added to an existing XenDesktop stack, the only additional components
required are:
One or more Windows Server OS instances running the Citrix VDA added to the XenDesktop site
The total number of required virtual XenApp servers is dependent on application type, quantity and user
load. Deploying XenApp virtually and in a multi-server farm configuration increases overall farm
performance, application load balancing as well as farm redundancy and resiliency.
4.1.4.2 NUMA Architecture Considerations Best practices and testing has showed that aligning XenApp design to the physical Non-Uniform Memory
Access (NUMA) architecture of the server CPUs results in increased and optimal performance. NUMA
alignment ensures that a CPU can access its own directly-connected RAM banks faster than those banks
of the adjacent processor which are accessed via the Quick Path Interconnect (QPI). The same is true of
VMs with large vCPU assignments, best performance will be achieved if your VMs receive their vCPU
allotment from a single physical NUMA node. Ensuring that your virtual XenApp servers do not span
physical NUMA nodes will ensure the greatest possible performance benefit.
The general guidance for XenApp NUMA-alignment on the Dell XC appliance is as follows:
4.1.4.3 A5 NUMA Alignment 8 physical cores per CPU in the A5 platform, 16 logical with Hyperthreading active, gives us a total of 32
consumable cores per appliance and falls in line with a 2x oversubscription rate. The Nutanix CVM will
receive its vCPU allotment from the first physical CPU and so configuring the XenApp VMs as shown
below will ensure that no NUMA spanning occurs which could lower performance.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
4.1.4.4 B5 NUMA Alignment 12 physical cores per CPU in the A5 platform, 24 logical with Hyper-threading active, gives us a total of 48
consumable cores per appliance and falls in line with a 2x oversubscription rate. The Nutanix CVM will
receive its vCPU allotment from the first physical CPU and so configuring the XenApp VMs as shown
below will ensure that no NUMA spanning occurs which could lower performance.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
4.1.4.5 B7 NUMA Alignment 16 physical cores per CPU in the A5 platform, 32 logical with Hyperthreading active, gives us a total of 64
consumable cores per appliance and falls in line with a 2x oversubscription rate. The Nutanix CVM will
receive its vCPU allotment from the first physical CPU and so configuring the XenApp VMs as shown
below will ensure that no NUMA spanning occurs which could lower performance.
Citrix NetScaler Citrix NetScaler is an all-in-one web application delivery controller that makes applications run five times
better, reduces web application ownership costs, optimizes the user experience, and makes sure that
applications are always available by using:
Proven application acceleration such as HTTP compression and caching
High application availability through advanced L4-7 load balancer
Application security with an integrated Application Firewall
Server offloading to significantly reduce costs and consolidate servers
A NetScaler appliance resides between the clients and the servers, so that client requests and server
responses pass through it. In a typical installation, virtual servers (vservers) configured on the NetScaler
provide connection points that clients use to access the applications behind the NetScaler. In this case,
the NetScaler owns public IP addresses that are associated with its vservers, while the real servers are
isolated in a private network. It is also possible to operate the NetScaler in a transparent mode as an L2
A Dell Appliance Architecture
bridge or L3 router, or even to combine aspects of these and other modes. NetScaler can also be used to
host the StoreFront function eliminating complexity from the environment.
Global Server Load Balancing
GSLB is an industry standard function. It is in widespread use to provide automatic distribution of user
requests to an instance of an application hosted in the appropriate data center where multiple processing
facilities exist. The intent is to seamlessly redistribute load on an as required basis, transparent to the user
community. These distributions are used on a localized or worldwide basis. Many companies use GSLB in
its simplest form. They use the technology to automatically redirect traffic to Disaster Recovery (DR) sites
on an exception basis. That is, GSLB is configured to simply route user load to the DR site on a temporary
basis only in the event of a catastrophic failure or only during extended planned data center maintenance.
GSLB is also used to distribute load across data centers on a continuous load balancing basis as part of
normal processing.
XenDesktop HA with NetScaler White Paper: Link
Several of the management components of the XenDesktop stack are made highly-available using
NetScaler to load balance traffic. The following management components require the use of a load
balancer to function in a high availability mode:
StoreFront Servers
Licensing Server
XenDesktop XML Service
XenDesktop Desktop Director
Provisioning Services TFTP Service
A Dell Appliance Architecture
4.2 Hypervisor Platforms
VMware vSphere 6 The vSphere hypervisor also known as ESXi is a bare-metal
hypervisor that installs directly on top of your physical
server and partitions it into multiple virtual machines. Each
virtual machine shares the same physical resources as the
other virtual machines and they can all run at the same
time. Unlike other hypervisors, all management
functionality of vSphere is done through remote
management tools. There is no underlying operating
system, reducing the install footprint to less than 150MB.
VMware vSphere 6 includes three major layers:
Virtualization, Management and Interface. The Virtualization layer includes infrastructure and application
services. The Management layer is central for configuring, provisioning and managing virtualized
environments. The Interface layer includes the vSphere web client.
Throughout the Dell Wyse Datacenter solution, all VMware and Microsoft best practices and prerequisites
for core services are adhered to (NTP, DNS, Active Directory, etc.). The vCenter 6 VM used in the solution
is a single Windows Server 2012 R2 VM or vCenter 6 virtual appliance, residing on a host in the
management Tier. SQL server is a core component of the Windows version of vCenter and is hosted on
another VM also residing in the management Tier. It is recommended that all additional XenDesktop
components be installed in a distributed architecture, one role per server VM.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V ™ is a powerful virtualization technology that enables businesses to
leverage the benefits of virtualization. Hyper-V reduces
costs, increases hardware utilization, optimizes business
infrastructure, and improves server availability. Hyper-V
works with virtualization-aware hardware to tightly control
the resources available to each virtual machine. The latest
generation of Dell servers includes virtualization-aware
processors and network adapters.
From a network management standpoint, virtual machines
are much easier to manage than physical computers. To
this end, Hyper-V includes many management features
designed to make managing virtual machines simple and
familiar, while enabling easy access to powerful VM-
specific management functions. The primary management platform within a Hyper-V based XenDesktop
virtualization environment is Microsoft Systems Center Virtual Machine Manager SP1 (SCVMM).
SCVMM provides centralized and powerful management, monitoring, and self-service provisioning for
virtual machines. SCVMM host groups are a way to apply policies and to check for problems across several
VMs at once. Groups are organized by owner, operating system, or by custom names such as
“Development” or “Production”. The interface also incorporates Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP); double-
click a VM to bring up the console for that VM—live and accessible from the management console.
4.3 NVIDIA GRID vGPU NVIDIA GRID™ vGPU™ brings the full benefit of NVIDIA hardware-accelerated graphics to virtualized
solutions. This technology provides exceptional graphics performance for virtual desktops equivalent to
local PCs when sharing a GPU among multiple users.
GRID vGPU is the industry's most advanced technology for sharing true GPU hardware acceleration
between multiple virtual desktops—without compromising the graphics experience. Application features
and compatibility are exactly the same as they would be at the user's desk.
With GRID vGPU technology, the graphics commands of each virtual machine are passed directly to the
GPU, without translation by the hypervisor. This allows the GPU hardware to be time-sliced to deliver the
ultimate in shared virtualized graphics performance.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
vGPU Profiles
Virtual Graphics Processing Unit, or GRID™ vGPU™, is technology developed by NVIDIA® that enables
hardware sharing of graphics processing for virtual desktops. This solution provides a hybrid shared mode
allowing the GPU to be virtualized while the virtual machines run the native NVIDIA video drivers for better
performance. Thanks to OpenGL support, VMs have access to more graphics applications. When utilizing
vGPU, the graphics commands from virtual machines are passed directly to the GPU without any
hypervisor translation. All this is done without sacrificing server performance and so is truly cutting edge.
The Dell graphics server platform is the award winning PowerEdge R730 which can accommodate two
NVIDIA K1 or K2 graphics cards. The combination of Dell servers, NVIDIA vGPU technology and NVIDIA
GRID cards enable high-end graphics users to experience high fidelity graphics quality and performance,
for their favorite applications at a reasonable cost.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Card vGPU
Profile
Graphics
Memory
Virtual
Display
Heads
Maximum
Resolution
Physical
GPUs
Maximum
vGPUs
Intended
User(s)
Per
GPU
Per
Card
GRID
K2
K280Q 4GB 4 2560x1600
2
1 2 Designer
K260Q 2GB 4 2560x1600 2 4 Designer
K240Q 1GB 2 2560x1600 4 8 Power User
K220Q 512MB 2 2560x1600 8 16 Power User
GRID
K1
K180Q 4GB 4 2560x1600
4
1 4 Entry
Designer
K160Q 2GB 4 2560x1600 2 8 Power User
K140Q 1GB 2 2560x1600 4 16 Power User
K120Q 512MB 2 2560x1600 8 32 Power User
For more information about NVIDIA GRID vGPU, please visit: LINK
A Dell Appliance Architecture
5 Solution Architecture for XenDesktop 7
5.1 Management Role Configuration The Management role recommendations for the base solution are summarized below. Use data disks for
role-specific application files such as data, logs and IIS web files in the Management volume.
vSphere Management Role Requirements
Role vCPU vRAM (GB) NIC OS vDisk
Size (GB) Location
Nutanix CVM 8* 16 2 - C:\ (SATADOM)
DDC + Lic 4 8 1 40 SDS: ds_mgmt
Storefront 2 4 1 40 SDS: ds_mgmt
Primary SQL 4 8 1 40 + 200 SDS: ds_mgmt
vCenter
Appliance
2 8 1 125 SDS: ds_mgmt
Total 20 vCPUs 44GB 6 vNICs 445GB -
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Hyper-V Management Role Requirements
Role vCPU Startup RAM (GB)
Dynamic Memory
NIC OS vDisk
Min|Max Buffer Weight
Size (GB) Location
Nutanix CVM 8* 16 Dynamic Memory
Disabled
High 2 - C:\
(SATADOM)
DDC + Lic 4 8 384MB |
10GB
20% Med 1 40 SDS:
ds_mgmt
Storefront 2 4 384MB |
6GB
20% Med 1 40 SDS:
ds_mgmt
Primary SQL 4 8 384MB |
10GB
20% Med 1 40 + 200 SDS:
ds_mgmt
SCVMM 2 8 384MB |
10GB
20% Med 1 40 + 50 SDS:
ds_mgmt
Total 20
vCPUs
44GB 1.5GB |
36GB
- - 6
vNICs
410GB -
A Dell Appliance Architecture
XenApp on vSphere The recommended number of XenApp VMs and their configurations on vSphere are summarized below
based on applicable hardware platform.
Role HW Config
VMs per host
vCPUs per VM
RAM (GB)
NIC OS vDisk
Size (GB)
Location
RDSH VM
A5 3 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
RDSH VM
B5 5 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
RDSH VM
B7 7 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
XenApp on Hyper-V The recommended number of XenApp VMs and their configurations on Hyper-V are summarized below
based on applicable hardware platform.
Role HW Config
VMs per host
vCPUs per VM
RAM (GB)
NIC OS vDisk
Size (GB)
Location
RDSH VM A5 3 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
RDSH VM B5 5 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
RDSH VM B7 7 8 32 1 80 SDS: ds_rdsh
A Dell Appliance Architecture
SQL Databases The Citrix, Microsoft and VMware databases are hosted by a single dedicated SQL 2012 R2 Server VM in
the Management layer. Use caution during database setup to ensure that SQL data, logs, and TempDB are
properly separated onto their respective volumes. Create all Databases that are required for:
Citrix XenDesktop
vCenter or SCVMM
Initial placement of all databases into a single SQL instance is fine unless performance becomes an issue,
in which case database need to be separated into separate named instances. Enable auto-growth for each
DB.
Best practices defined by Citrix, Microsoft and VMware are to be adhered to, to ensure optimal database
performance.
Align all disks to be used by SQL Server with a 1024K offset and then formatted with a 64K file allocation
unit size (data, logs, and TempDB).
DNS DNS plays a crucial role in the environment not only as the basis for Active Directory but is used to control
access to the various Citrix and Microsoft software components. All hosts, VMs, and consumable software
components need to have a presence in DNS, preferably via a dynamic and AD-integrated namespace.
Microsoft best practices and organizational requirements are to be adhered to.
Pay consideration for eventual scaling, access to components that may live on one or more servers (SQL
databases, Citrix services) during the initial deployment. Use CNAMEs and the round robin DNS
mechanism to provide a front-end “mask” to the back-end server actually hosting the service or data
source.
5.1.6.1 DNS for SQL To access the SQL data sources, either directly or via ODBC, a connection to the server name\ instance
name must be used. To simplify this process, as well as protect for future scaling (HA), instead of
connecting to server names directly, alias these connections in the form of DNS CNAMEs. So instead of
connecting to SQLServer1\<instance name> for every device that needs access to SQL, the preferred
approach is to connect to <CNAME>\<instance name>.
For example, the CNAME “VDISQL” is created to point to SQLServer1. If a failure scenario was to occur and
SQLServer2 would need to start serving data, we would simply change the CNAME in DNS to point to
SQLServer2. No infrastructure SQL client connections would need to be touched.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
5.2 Storage Architecture Overview All Dell XC Web Scale appliances come with two tiers of storage by default, SSD for performance and HDD
for capacity. A single common Software Defined Storage namespace is created across the Nutanix cluster
and presented as either NFS or SMB to the hypervisor of each host. This constitutes a storage pool and
one should be sufficient per cluster. Within this common namespace, logical containers are created to
group VM files as well as control the specific storage-related features that are desired to be enabled such
as deduplication and compression.
Nutanix Containers The following table outlines the recommended containers, their purpose and settings given the use case.
Best practices suggest using as few features as possible, only enable what is absolutely required. For
example, if you are not experiencing disk capacity pressure then there is no need to enable Capacity Tier
Deduplication. Enabling unnecessary services increases the resource demands of the Controller VMs.
Capacity tier deduplication requires that CVMs be configured with 32GB RAM.
Container Purpose Replication Factor
Perf Tier Deduplication
Capacity Tier Deduplication
Compression
Ds_compute Desktop VMs 2 Enabled Disabled Disabled
Ds_mgmt Mgmt Infra VMs 2 Enabled Disabled Disabled
Ds_rdsh RDSH Server VMs
2 Enabled Disabled Disabled
Ds_vgpu vGPU-enabled VMs
2 Enabled Disabled Disabled
5.3 Virtual Networking The network configuration for the Dell XC Web Scale appliances utilizes a 10Gb converged infrastructure
model. All required VLANs will traverse 2 x 10Gb NICs configured in an active/ active team. For larger
scaling it is recommended to separate the infrastructure management VMs from the compute VMs to aid
A Dell Appliance Architecture
in predictable compute host scaling. The following outlines the VLAN requirements for the Compute and
Management hosts in this solution model:
Compute hosts
o Management VLAN: Configured for hypervisor infrastructure traffic – L3 routed via spine layer
o Live Migration VLAN: Configured for Live Migration traffic – L2 switched via leaf layer
o VDI VLAN: Configured for VDI session traffic – L3 routed via spine layer
Management hosts
o Management VLAN: Configured for hypervisor Management traffic – L3 routed via spine layer
o Live Migration VLAN: Configured for Live Migration traffic – L2 switched via leaf layer
o VDI Management VLAN: Configured for VDI infrastructure traffic – L3 routed via spine layer
An iDRAC VLAN is configured for all hardware management traffic – L3 routed via spine layer
vSphere The Management host network configuration consists of a standard vSwitch teamed with 2 x 10Gb
physical adapters assigned. The CVM connects to a private internal vSwitch as well as the standard
external vSwitch. All VMkernel service ports connect to the standard external vSwitch. All VDI infrastructure
VMs connect through the primary port group on the external vSwitch.
The Compute hosts are configured in the same basic manner with the desktop VMs connecting to the
primary port group on the external vSwitch.
10Gb Leaf Switch
VLAN 10
10Gb10Gb
MTU
: 64000
Standard vSwitch(Internal)
Standard vSwitch(teamed)
pNIC 1 pNIC 2
ESXi Host
vMotion
Nutanix Mgmt
MGMT Vmk0
Vmk1
Vmk2
Port Group
1
Dell Networking S4810
Broker Roles
vNICvNIC
SQL CVM
vNIC vNIC
LAG
Spine
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Hyper-V The Hyper-V configuration, while identical in core requirements and hardware, is executed differently due
to how Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 R2 implement networking and virtual switches. As shown in the
diagram below, native Windows Server 2012 R2 NIC Teaming is utilized to load balance and provide
resiliency for network connections. For the compute host in this scenario, a single LBFO NIC team is
configured to connect to a Hyper-V switch for external traffic and one internal Hyper-V switch is used for
the Nutanix CVM. All vNICs associated with the Management OS connect directly to the external Hyper-V
switch.
10Gb Leaf Switch
VLAN 10
10Gb10Gb
MTU
: 64000
Standard vSwitch(Internal)
Standard vSwitch(teamed)
pNIC 1 pNIC 2
ESXi Host
vMotion
Nutanix Mgmt
MGMT Vmk0
Vmk1
Vmk2
Port Group
1
Dell Networking S4810
CVM
vNIC vNIC
LAG
Spine
Desktop VMs
vNIC vNIC vNIC
Broker Roles
10Gb Leaf Switch
20Gb
LBFO Team
pNIC 1 pNIC 2
Hyper-V Host OS
Failover Cluster
Live Migration
MGMT
vNICvNIC
vNIC
vNIC
vNIC
SQL CVM
10Gb10Gb
MTU
: 64000
Hyper-V Internal Switch
Hyper-V External Switch
vNIC vNIC
Dell Networking S4810
LAG
Spine
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The NIC team for the Hyper-V switch is configured as switch independent, dynamic for the load balancing
mode with all adapters set to active. This team is used exclusively by Hyper-V.
The dedicated compute host configuration is shown in the diagram below and configured very similarly to
the management host configuration.
10Gb Leaf Switch
VLA
N 2
0
20Gb
LBFO Team
pNIC 1 pNIC 2
Hyper-V Host OS
Failover Cluster
Live Migration
MGMT
vNIC
vNIC
vNIC
CVM
10Gb10Gb
Hyper-V External Switch
vNIC vNIC
Dell Networking S4810
Desktop VMs
vNIC vNIC vNIC
LAG
Spine
CVM
MT
U:
64
00
0
Hyper-V Internal Switch
A Dell Appliance Architecture
5.4 Scaling Guidance Each component of the solution architecture scales independently according to the desired number of
supported users. Additional appliance nodes can be added at any time to expand the Nutanix SDS pool in a
modular fashion. While there is no scaling limit of the Nutanix architecture itself, practicality might suggest
scaling pods based on the limits of hypervisor clusters (64 nodes for vSphere or Hyper-V). Isolating mgmt
and compute to their own HA clusters provides more flexibility with regard to scaling and functional layer
protection.
Another option is to design a large single contiguous NDFS namespace with multiple hypervisor clusters
within to provide single pane of glass management. For example, portrayed below is a 30,000 professional
user environment segmented by vSphere HA cluster and broker farm. Each farm compute instance is
segmented into an HA cluster with a hot standby node providing N+1, served by a dedicated pair of mgmt
nodes in a separate HA cluster. This provides multiple broker farms with separated HA protection while
maintaining a single NDFS cluster across all nodes.
The components are scaled either horizontally (by adding additional physical and virtual servers to the
server pools) or vertically (by adding virtual resources to the infrastructure)
Eliminate bandwidth and performance bottlenecks as much as possible
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Allow future horizontal and vertical scaling with the objective of reducing the future cost of ownership
of the infrastructure.
Component Metric Horizontal scalability Vertical scalability
Virtual Desktop Host/Compute Servers
VMs per physical host Additional hosts and clusters added as necessary
Additional RAM or CPU compute power
Provisioning Servers
Desktops per instance Additional servers added to the Provisioning Server farm
Additional network and I/O capacity added to the servers
Desktop Delivery Servers
Desktops per instance (dependent on SQL performance as well)
Additional servers added to the XenDesktop Site
Additional virtual machine resources (RAM and CPU)
XenApp Servers Desktops per instance Additional virtual servers added to the XenDesktop Site
Additional physical servers to host virtual XenApp servers.
Storefront Servers
Logons/ minute Additional servers added to the Storefront environment
Additional virtual machine resources (RAM and CPU)
Database Services
Concurrent connections, responsiveness of reads/ writes
Migrate databases to a dedicated SQL server and increase the number of management nodes
Additional RAM and CPU for the management nodes
File Services Concurrent connections, responsiveness of reads/ writes
Split user profiles and home directories between multiple file servers in the cluster. File services can also be migrated to the optional NAS device to provide high availability.
Additional RAM and CPU for the management nodes
5.5 Solution High Availability High availability (HA) is offered to protect each architecture solution layer, individually if desired. Following
the N+1 model, additional ToR switches are added to the Network layer and stacked to provide
redundancy as required, additional compute and management hosts are added to their respective layers,
vSphere or Hyper-V clustering is introduced in both the management and compute layers, SQL is mirrored
A Dell Appliance Architecture
or clustered and NetScaler is leveraged for load balancing. Storage protocol switch stacks and NAS
selection will vary based on chosen solution architecture.
The HA options provide redundancy for all critical components in the stack while improving the
performance and efficiency of the solution as a whole.
Additional switches added to the existing thereby equally spreading each host’s network connections
across multiple switches.
Additional ESXi or Hyper-V hosts added in the compute or mgmt layers to provide N+1 protection.
Applicable Citrix infrastructure server roles are duplicated and spread amongst mgmt host instances
where connections to each are load balanced via the addition of virtual NetScaler appliances.
SQL Server databases also are protected through the addition and configuration of an "AlwaysOn"
Failover Cluster Instance or Availability Group.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
5.6 Dell Wyse Datacenter for XenDesktop Communication Flow
Hyper-V or vSphere Compute Hosts
Windows Master Image
Delivery Controller (MCS)
SSL
File Server
Citrix NetScaler
License Server
StoreFront
Internet/ LAN
Use
r Data (S
MB
)
LD
AP
MCS Machine Catalog
XenApp Instance
XM
L
SQLServer
Active Directory
VDA
Shared Hosted Sessions orRemoteApps
SDS
PVST
CP
/27
00
0
TCP/1433
vCenter/ SCVMM
XM
L HTTPS/
TCP 8100
ICA
/ HD
X
VD
A
LDAP
XenApp PVS Machine
Catalog
VDA
VDA
TF
TP
/ PV
S
VDA
Static or Random Virtual Desktops
VDA
VDA
Windows Master Image
VDA
VDA
Static or Random Virtual Desktops
Hyper-V or vSphere Mgmt Hosts
A Dell Appliance Architecture
6 Solution Performance and Testing
6.1 Load Generation and Monitoring
Login VSI 4 – Login Consultants Login VSI is the de-facto industry standard tool for testing VDI environments and server-based computing
or RDSH environments. It installs a standard collection of desktop application software (e.g. Microsoft
Office, Adobe Acrobat Reader) on each VDI desktop; it then uses launcher systems to connect a specified
number of users to available desktops within the environment. Once the user is connected the workload
is started via a logon script which starts the test script once the user environment is configured by the
login script. Each launcher system can launch connections to a number of ‘target’ machines (i.e. VDI
desktops), with the launchers being managed by a centralized management console, which is used to
configure and manage the Login VSI environment.
VMware vCenter VMware vCenter was used for VMware vSphere-based solutions to gather key data (CPU, Memory and
Network usage) from each of the desktop hosts during each test run. This data was exported to .csv files
for each host and then consolidated to show data from all hosts. While the report does not include
specific performance metrics for the Management host servers, these servers were monitored during
testing and were seen to be performing at an expected performance level.
Microsoft Perfmon Microsoft Perfmon was utilized to collect performance data for tests performed on the Hyper-V platform.
6.2 Performance Analysis Methodology In order to ensure the optimal combination of end-user experience (EUE) and cost-per-user, performance
analysis and characterization (PAAC) on Dell Wyse Datacenter solutions is carried out using a carefully
designed, holistic methodology that monitors both hardware resource utilization parameters and EUE
during load-testing. This methodology is based on the three pillars shown below. Login VSI is currently the
load-testing tool used during PAAC of Dell Wyse Datacenter solutions; Login VSI is the de-facto industry
standard for VDI and server-based computing (SBC) environments and is discussed in more detail below.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Resource Utilization Poor end-user experience is one of the main risk factors when implementing desktop virtualization but the
root cause for poor end-user experience is resource contention – hardware resources at some point in
the solution have been exhausted, thus causing the poor end-user experience. In order to ensure that this
has not happened (and that it is not close to happening), PAAC on Dell Wyse Datacenter solutions
monitors the relevant resource utilization parameters and applies relatively conservative thresholds as
shown in the table below. As discussed above, these thresholds are carefully selected to deliver an optimal
combination of good end-user experience and cost-per-user, while also providing burst capacity for
seasonal / intermittent spikes in usage. These thresholds are used to decide the number of virtual desktops
(density) that are hosted by a specific hardware environment (i.e. combination of server, storage and
networking) that forms the basis for a Dell Wyse Datacenter RA.
Resource Utilization Thresholds
Parameter Pass / Fail Threshold
Physical Host CPU Utilization 85%
Physical Host Memory Utilization 85%
Network Throughput 85%
Storage IO Latency 20ms
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Dell Wyse Datacenter Workloads and Profiles It’s important to understand user workloads and profiles when designing a desktop virtualization solution
in order to understand the density numbers that the solution can support. At Dell, we use five workload /
profile levels, each of which is bound by specific metrics and capabilities. In addition, we use workloads
and profiles that are targeted at graphics-intensive use cases. We present more detailed information in
relation to these workloads and profiles below but first it is useful to define the terms “workload” and
“profile” as they are used in this document.
Profile: This is the configuration of the virtual desktop - number of vCPUs and amount of RAM
configured on the desktop (i.e. available to the user).
Workload: This is the set of applications used by performance analysis and characterization (PAAC) of
Dell Wyse Datacenter solutions e.g. Microsoft Office applications, PDF Reader, Internet Explorer etc.
User Profile vCPUs Physical Memory
Hyper-V Minimum Memory
Hyper-V Max Memory
ESXi Memory Reservation
Memory Configured
OS
Standard 1 2GB 1GB 2GB 1GB 2GB x86
Enhanced 2 3GB 1GB 3GB 1.5GB 3GB x86
Professional 2 4GB 1GB 4GB 2GB 4GB x64
Dell Wyse Datacenter Workloads Load-testing on each of the profiles described in the above table is carried out using an appropriate
workload that is representative of the relevant use case. In the case of the non-graphics workloads, these
workloads are Login VSI workloads and in the case of graphics workloads, these are specially designed
workloads that stress the VDI environment to a level that is appropriate for the relevant use case. This
information is summarized in the table below:
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Profile Name Workload OS Image
Standard Login VSI Light Shared
Enhanced Login VSI Medium Shared
Professional Login VSI Heavy Shared + Profile Virtualization
Graphics eFigures / AutoCAD - SPEC Viewperf Persistent
Further information for each of the workloads is given below. It is noted that for Login VSI testing, the
following login and boot paradigm is used:
For single-server / single-host testing (typically carried out to determine the virtual desktop capacity of
a specific physical server), users are logged in every 30 seconds.
For multi-host / full solution testing, users are logged in over a period of 1-hour, to replicate the normal
login storm in an enterprise environment.
All desktops are pre-booted in advance of logins commencing.
For all testing, all virtual desktops run an industry-standard anti-virus solution (currently McAfee
VirusScan Enterprise) in order to fully replicate a customer environment.
6.2.3.1 Login VSI Light Workload Compared to the Login VSI medium workload described below, the light workload runs fewer applications
(mainly Excel and Internet Explorer with some minimal Word activity) and starts/stops the applications less
frequently. This results in lower CPU, memory and disk IO usage.
6.2.3.2 Login VSI Medium Workload
The Login VSI medium workload is designed to run on 2vCPU’s per desktop VM. This workload emulates a
medium knowledge worker using Office, IE, PDF and Java/FreeMind. The Login VSI medium workload has
the following characteristics
Once a session has been started the workload will repeat (loop) every 48 minutes.
The loop is divided in four segments; each consecutive Login VSI user logon will start a different segment. This ensures that all elements in the workload are equally used throughout the test.
The medium workload opens up to five applications simultaneously.
The keyboard type rate is 160 ms for each character.
Approximately two minutes of idle time is included to simulate real-‐world users.
Each loop opens and uses:
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Outlook, browse messages.
Internet Explorer, browse different webpages and a YouTube style video (480p movie trailer) is opened three times in every loop.
Word, one instance to measure response time, one instance to review and edit a document.
Doro PDF Printer & Acrobat Reader, the Word document is printed and exported to PDF.
Excel, a very large randomized sheet is opened.
PowerPoint, a presentation is reviewed and edited.
FreeMind, a Java based Mind Mapping application.
6.2.3.3 Login VSI Heavy Workload
The heavy workload is based on the medium workload except that the heavy workload:
Begins by opening four instances of Internet Explorer. These instances stay open throughout the
workload loop.
Begins by opening two instances of Adobe Reader. These instances stay open throughout the
workload loop.
There are more PDF printer actions in the workload.
Instead of 480p videos a 720p and a 1080p video are watched.
Increased the time the workload plays a flash game.
The idle time is reduced to two minutes.
6.2.3.4 Workloads Running on Shared Graphics Profile
Graphics hardware vendors (e.g. NVIDIA) typically market a number of graphics cards that are targeted at
different markets. Consequently, it is necessary to provide two shared graphics workloads – one for mid-
range cards and the other for high-end cards. These workloads are described in more detail below. It is
noted that technologies such as the Citrix / NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology (where the NVIDIA drivers
reside on the virtual desktop, giving shared-level density with near pass-through functionality) mean that
in some cases, the higher-end workloads, traditionally used for pass-through GPU PAAC, may be more
appropriate for shared GPU PAAC. Such scenarios will explicitly state the workload used.
6.3 Testing and Validation
Testing Process The purpose of the single server testing is to validate the architectural assumptions made around the
server stack. Each user load is tested against four runs. A pilot run is conducted to validate that the
infrastructure is functioning and valid data is captured. Subsequently three more runs are conducted
allowing for correlation of data. Summary of the test results is listed out in the below mentioned tabular
format.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
At different stages of the testing the testing team will complete some manual “User Experience” Testing
while the environment is under load. This will involve a team member logging into a session during the run
and completing tasks similar to the User Workload description. While this experience is subjective, it will
help provide a better understanding of the end user experience of the desktop sessions, particularly under
high load, and ensure that the data gathered is reliable.
Login VSI has two modes for launching user’s sessions:
Parallel
Sessions are launched from multiple launcher hosts in a round robin fashion; this mode is recommended
by Login Consultants when running tests against multiple host servers. In parallel mode the VSI console is
configured to launch a number of sessions over a specified time period (specified in seconds)
Sequential
Sessions are launched from each launcher host in sequence, sessions are only started from a second host
once all sessions have been launched on the first host and this is repeated for each launcher host.
Sequential launching is recommended by Login Consultants when testing a single desktop host server.
The VSI console is configure to launch a specified number of session at a specified interval specified in
seconds
All test runs which involved the six desktop hosts were conducted using the Login VSI “Parallel Launch”
mode and all sessions were launched over an hour to try and represent the typical 9am logon storm.
Once the last user session has connected, the sessions are left to run for 15 minutes prior to the sessions
being instructed to logout at the end of the current task sequence, this allows every user to complete a
minimum of two task sequences within the run before logging out. The single server test runs were
configured to launch user sessions every 60 seconds, as with the full bundle test runs sessions were left to
run for 15 minutes after the last user connected prior to the sessions being instructed to log out.
6.4 XC630-B5 Test Results for Citrix XenDesktop Validation for this project was completed for Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 and XenApp 7.6 on the following
platforms.
ESXi 5.5 U2 / Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 / XC630
ESXi 5.5 U2 / XenApp brokered by XenDesktop 7.6 / XC630
Platform configurations are shown below and the Login VSI workloads used for load testing on each
environment.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Platform Config CPU RAM RAID
Ctlr HD Config Network
XC630 B5 E5-2690v3
(12Core,
2.6GHz)
512
GB
H730P 1 X 64GB SATADOM
(CVM/ HV)
2x 10Gb,
2 x 1Gb
SFP+/ BT
2 x 400GB, Intel
S3700, SSD‘s 2.5” (T1)
4 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5”
(T2)
1GB networking was used for the deployment of the Dell XC appliances while all 10GB networking was
used for the PAAC testing.
Compute and Management resources were split out with the following configuration across a three node
Nutanix cluster and all test runs were completed with this configuration.
Node 1 – XC630– Dedicated Management (vCenter Appliance, SQL Server, XenDesktop Delivery
Controller, XenDesktop Storefront.)
Node 2 – XC630– Dedicated Compute
Node 3 –XC630 – Dedicated Compute
Please refer to section 5.1 of this document for the configuration of each management virtual machine.
The virtual machines were non-persistent linked clone desktops each configured on Windows 8.1 aligning
with the Login VSI 4.X virtual machine configuration, Office 2010 was used with each Virtual Machine sized
at 32 GB. User Workload configuration of the load generation virtual machines is shown in the table
below.
User Workload vCPUs Memory OS Bit Level HD Size GB
Professional User 2 4GB x64 32
The XenApp environment was configured as shown in the table below for each host according to
platform. The XenApp images were built using Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition and Microsoft
Office 2010 plus the support tools required for Login VSI testing.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Test Results
Validation was performed using CCC standard testing methodology using LoginVSI 4 load generation tool
for VDI benchmarking that simulates production user workloads.
Each test run adhered to PAAC best practices with a 30 second session logon interval, 16 minutes of
steady state after which sessions would begin logging off.
The following table summarizes the test results for the various workloads and configurations:
Hyper
-Visor Provisioning Workload
Density
Per Host
Avg
CPU
%
Avg
Memory
Consumed
GB
Avg
Memory
Active
GB
Avg
IOPS/
User
Avg
Net
Kbps/
User
ESXi XenDesktop
MCS
Heavy 100 99% 236 GB 48 GB 5.2 771
ESXi XenDesktop
MCS
Medium 130 96% 263GB 52GB 4 499
ESXi XenDesktop
MCS
Light 210 94% 355GB 63GB 3.1 368
ESXi XenApp Heavy 145 97% 80GB 22 GB 2.6 325
CPU Utilization* CPU % for ESX Hosts was adjusted to account for the fact that on Intel E5-2690v3 series
processors the ESX host CPU metrics will exceed the rated 100% for the host if Turbo Boost is enabled (by
default). The Adjusted CPU % Usage is based on 100% usage and but is not reflected in the charts. The
figure shown in the table is the Compute host steady state peak CPU Usage. One Nutanix CVM Controller
virtual machine is located on each node and is allocated 10000MHz of CPU reservation.
Role Config VMs per host
vCPUs RAM (GB) NIC Disk Size GB
XenApp VM B5 5 8 32 1 80
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Memory Utilization The figure shown in the table above is the average memory consumed per Compute
host over the recorded test period. Active is the average active memory per Compute host over the
recorded test period.
The IOPS results are calculated from the average Nutanix Cluster Disk IOPS figure over the test period
divided by the number of users.
Network Utilization The figure shown in the table is the average Kbps/User per Compute host over the
recorded test period.
XenDesktop, 420 Pooled VMs, MCS, Light Workload – XC630-B5 The architecture for this test run includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of
the compute hosts was populated with 420 pooled virtual machines and one Nutanix CVM.
The Nutanix CVM’s consumed <20% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test run.
The below graph shows the performance data for 210 user desktops per host on a pair of Compute hosts
with the expected extra percentage provided by the Intel Turbo Boost feature. The CPU reaches a steady
state peak of 96% during the test cycle when approximately 210 users are logged on to each compute
host.
The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere, XenDesktop management virtual machines and a
Nutanix CVM. The mgmt node’s CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts and does not
exceed 20% at any point in the test cycle.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
16
:00
16
:15
16
:30
16
:45
17
:00
17
:15
17
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17
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18
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18
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18
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18
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19
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19
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19
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19
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20
:00
20
:15
CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
Turbo PerformanceIncrease 19%
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Memory consumption was very reasonable with a max of 403GB consumed and only 102GB actually
active at peak. A host configured with 384GB RAM would be more than sufficient given this use case.
Network utilization is generally always very low and in this test reached a peak of 120Mbps on the
compute hosts.
The total cluster disk performance peaked at 2621 IOPS, the majority generated as expected by the
compute hosts. These results are not indicative of the total disk performance potential of the platform.
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
16
:00
16
:15
16
:30
16
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17
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17
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17
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17
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18
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18
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18
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18
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19
:00
19
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19
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19
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20
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20
:15
Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
16
:00
16
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16
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16
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17
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17
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17
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18
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18
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18
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19
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20
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20
:15
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
16
:00
16
:15
16
:30
16
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17
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17
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17
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17
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18
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18
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18
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19
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19
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19
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19
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20
:00
20
:15
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
XenDesktop, 260 Pooled VMs, MCS, Medium Workload – XC630-B5 The architecture for this test run includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of
the compute hosts was populated with 130 pooled virtual machines and one Nutanix CVM.
The Nutanix CVM’s consumed under 20% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test run.
The below graph shows the performance data for 130 user desktops per host on a pair of Compute hosts
with the expected extra percentage provided by the Intel Turbo Boost feature. The CPU reaches a steady
state peak of 96% during the test cycle when approximately 130 users are logged on to each compute
host.
The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere, XenDesktop management virtual machines and a
Nutanix CVM. The mgmt node’s CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts and does not
exceed 20% at any point in the test cycle.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Memory consumption was very reasonable with a max of 335GB consumed and only 84GB actually active
at peak. A host configured with 384GB RAM would be more than sufficient given this use case.
Network utilization is generally always very low and in this test reached a peak of 98Mbps on the compute
hosts.
0
20
40
60
80
100
1208
:55
9:0
5
9:1
5
9:2
5
9:3
5
9:4
5
9:5
5
10
:05
10
:15
10
:25
10
:35
10
:45
10
:55
11
:05
11
:15
11
:25
11
:35
CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
Turbo PerformanceIncrease 19%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
8:5
59
:05
9:1
59
:25
9:3
59
:45
9:5
51
0:0
51
0:1
51
0:2
51
0:3
51
0:4
51
0:5
51
1:0
51
1:1
51
1:2
51
1:3
5
Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
8:5
59
:05
9:1
59
:25
9:3
59
:45
9:5
51
0:0
51
0:1
51
0:2
51
0:3
51
0:4
51
0:5
51
1:0
51
1:1
51
1:2
51
1:3
5
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The total cluster disk performance peaked at 1951 IOPS, the majority generated as expected by the
compute hosts. These results are not indicative of the total disk performance potential of the platform.
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
8:5
5
9:0
5
9:1
5
9:2
5
9:3
5
9:4
5
9:5
5
10
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10
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10
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10
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10
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10
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11
:05
11
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11
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11
:35
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
XenDesktop, 200 Pooled VMs, MCS, Heavy Workload – XC630-B5 The architecture for this test run includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of
the compute hosts was populated with 100 full virtual machines and one Nutanix CVM per host.
The Nutanix CVM’s consumed under 20% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test run for
the compute hosts and <10% for the mgmt host.
This chart does not include the additional 10-20% of CPU available from the Turbo boost feature. Without
the inclusion there is a total of 62380 MHz available for Desktops, with Turbo boost the total available
MHz value would be ~68168 MHz.
The below graph shows the performance data for 100 user sessions per host on a pair of Compute hosts.
The CPU reaches a steady state peak of 99% during the test cycle when approximately 100 users are
logged on to each compute host.
The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere, XenDesktop management virtual machines and a
Nutanix CVM. The mgmt node’s CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts and does not
exceed 15% at any point in the test cycle.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
In regards to memory consumption for the cluster, out of a total of 512 GB available memory per node
there were no constraints for any of the hosts. The Compute Hosts reached a max memory consumption
of 313 GB with active memory usage reaching a max of 90GB. There was no memory ballooning or
swapping.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
18
:35
18
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18
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20
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20
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CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
18
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Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
20
40
60
80
100
18
:35
18
:45
18
:55
19
:05
19
:15
19
:25
19
:35
19
:45
19
:55
20
:05
20
:15
20
:25
20
:35
20
:45
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network bandwidth is not an issue on this solution with a steady state peak of approximately 146,000
Kbps.
The Nutanix Cluster IOPS figures taken from the Nutanix Web Console showed that the cluster reached a
maximum of 1,532 Disk IOPS during the test run with the Management node having the lowest disk IOPS
of the three nodes. The activity spike in the graph after steady state peak shows the user logoffs taking
place at the end of the test cycle. These results are not indicative of the total disk performance potential of
the platform.
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
18
:35
18
:45
18
:55
19
:05
19
:15
19
:25
19
:35
19
:45
19
:55
20
:05
20
:15
20
:25
20
:35
20
:45
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The Login VSI Max user experience score for this test indicates that the VSI Max score not reached so there
should have been little deterioration of user experience during testing.
Notes:
As indicated above, the CPU graphs do not take into account the extra 10+% of CPU resources available
through the 2690v3’s turbo feature.
Subjective user experience showed mouse movement and window response times when clicking within
a running session during steady state were good. Video playback while somewhat slow was still
acceptable.
User login times were consistent up until the final few sessions were launching when a few session took
some extra time to login.
512 GB of memory installed on each node is more than enough for this configuration and should run
equally well with less memory installed.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
XenApp, 290 Sessions, Heavy Workload – XC630-B5 The architecture for this test run includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of
the compute hosts was populated with 5 XenApp virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 R2 and
one Nutanix CVM. Each session host VM was allocated 32GB of RAM and 8vCPU’s.
The Nutanix CVM’s consumed approximately 14% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test
run.
This chart does not include the additional 10-20% of CPU available from the Turbo boost feature. Without
the inclusion there is a total of 62380 MHz available for Desktops, with Turbo boost the total available
MHz value would be ~68168 MHz.
The below graph shows the performance data for 145 user sessions per host on a pair of Compute hosts.
The CPU reaches a steady state peak of 97% during the test cycle when approximately 145 users are
logged on to each compute host.
The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere, XenDesktop management virtual machines and a
Nutanix CVM. The mgmt node’s CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts and does not
exceed 11% at any point in the test cycle.
In regards to memory consumption for the cluster, out of a total of 512 GB available memory per node
there were no constraints for any of the hosts. The Compute Hosts reached a max memory consumption
of 109 GB with active memory usage reaching a max of 50GB. There was no memory ballooning or
swapping.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
:50
14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network bandwidth is not an issue on this solution with a steady state peak of approximately 80Mbps.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
:50
14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
:50
14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Monitoring of a single sample XenApp session host showed that its processor reached a maximum of 87%
during the test run.
The Nutanix Cluster IOPS figures taken from the Nutanix Web Console showed that the cluster reached a
maximum of 1,297 Disk IOPS during the test run with the Management node having the lowest disk IOPS
of the three nodes. These results are not indicative of the total disk performance potential of the platform.
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
:50
14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
12
:36
12
:46
12
:56
13
:06
13
:16
13
:26
13
:36
13
:46
13
:56
14
:06
14
:16
14
:26
14
:36
14
:46
14
:56
15
:06
15
:16
15
:26
15
:36
RDSH Host VM CPU
CPU
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The Login VSI Max user experience score for this test indicates that the VSI Max score not reached so there
should is little evidence of deterioration of user experience during testing.
Notes:
As indicated above, the CPU graphs do not take into account the extra 10% of CPU resources available
through the 2690v3’s turbo feature.
Subjective user experience showed mouse movement and window response times when clicking within
a running session during steady state were good. Video playback quality was good.
User login times were consistent up until the final few sessions were launching when a few session took
some extra time to login.
512 GB of memory was installed on each node in this test to demonstrate the recommended 256-384GB
is more than enough for this configuration.
6.5 XC630-B7 Test Results for Citrix XenDesktop Validation for this project was completed for Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp 7.6 on the following
platforms.
ESXi 5.5 U2 / Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 / XC630
ESXi 5.5 U2 / RDSH brokered by XenDesktop 7.6 / XC630
Platform configurations are shown below and the Login VSI workloads used for load testing on each
environment.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Enterprise Platform
Platform Config
CPU Memory RAID Ctlr
HD Config Network
XC630 B7 E5-2690v3 (12Core, 2.6GHz)
512GB H730P 1 X 64GB SATADOM (CVM/ HV)
2 x 10Gb, 2 x 1Gb SFP+/ BT
2 x 400GB, Intel S3700, SSD‘s 2.5” (T1)
4 x 1TB NL SAS 2.5” (T2)
1GB networking was used for the deployment of the Bensen XC appliances while all 10GB networking was
used for the PAAC testing.
Compute and Management resources were split out with the following configuration across a three node
Nutanix cluster and all test runs were completed with this configuration.
Node 1 – XC630– Dedicated Management (vCenter Appliance, SQL Server, XenDesktop Delivery
Controller, XenDesktop Storefront.)
Node 2 – XC630– Dedicated Compute
Node 3 – XC630 – Dedicated Compute
The virtual machines were non-persistent linked clone desktops each configured on Windows 8.1 aligning
with the Login VSI 4.X virtual machine configuration, Office 2010 was used with each Virtual Machine sized
at 32 GB. User Workload configuration of the load generation virtual machines is shown in the table
below.
User Workload vCPUs Memory OS Bit Level
HD Size GB
Professional User 2 4GB x64 32
The RDSH environment was configured as shown in the table below for each host according to platform.
The RDSH images were built using Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition and Microsoft Office 2010
plus the support tools required for Login VSI testing.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Test Results Validation was performed using CCC standard testing methodology using LoginVSI 4 load generation tool
for VDI benchmarking that simulates production user workloads.
Each test run adhered to PAAC best practices with a 30 second session logon interval, 16 minutes of
steady state after which sessions would begin logging off.
The following table summarizes the test results for the various workloads and configurations.
Hyper-visor
Provisioning Workload Density Per Host
Avg CPU %
Avg Memory Consumed GB
Avg Memory Active GB
Avg IOPS/User
Avg Net Kbps/User
ESXi XenDesktop MCS
Professional
100 99% 236 GB 48 GB 5.2 771 Kbps
ESXi XenDesktop MCS RDSH
Professional
145 97% 80GB 22 GB 2.6 325 Kbps
CPU Utilization* CPU % for ESX Hosts was adjusted to account for the fact that on Intel E5-2690v3 series
processors the ESX host CPU metrics will exceed the rated 100% for the host if Turbo Boost is enabled (by
default). The Adjusted CPU % Usage is based on 100% usage and but is not reflected in the charts. The
figure shown in the table is the Compute host steady state peak CPU Usage. One Nutanix CVM Controller
virtual machine is located on each node and is allocated 10000MHz of CPU reservation.
Memory Utilization. The figure shown in the table above is the average memory consumed per Compute
host over the recorded test period. Active is the average active memory per Compute host over the
recorded test period.
The IOPS results are calculated from the average Nutanix Cluster Disk IOPS figure over the test period
divided by the number of users.
Role Config VMs
per
host vCPU’s RAM (GB) NIC
Disk
Size GB
RDSH VM B7 5 8 32 1 80
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network Utilization The figure shown in the table is the average Kbps/User per Compute host over the
recorded test period.
Summary of Tests Run
The ‘Number of Users’ column indicates the total number of user desktop test sessions run across two
Compute hosts.
Platform Configuration
Number of Users
Desktop Type
Login VSI Workload
B7 High 200 Linked Clone
Heavy
B7 High 290 RDSH Heavy
Results summary
Bensen B7 Configuration, ESXi/XenDesktop MCS, 200 User Test, Heavy
Workload
The architecture for this solution includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of the compute hosts was populated with 100 full virtual machines and one Nutanix CVM per host.
The Nutanix CVM’s took up approximately 14% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test run.
This chart does not include the additional 10% of CPU available from the Turbo boost feature. Without the inclusion there is a total of 62380 MHz available for Desktops, with Turbo boost the total available MHz value is 68168 MHz.
The below graph shows the performance data for 100 user sessions per host on a pair of Compute hosts. The CPU reaches a steady state peak of 99% during the test cycle when approximately 100 users are logged on to each compute host. The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere and XenDesktop management virtual machines and a Nutanix CVM virtual machine. Its CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts in the cluster. The CPU utilization for the management host does not exceed 15% at any point in the test cycle.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
In regards to memory consumption for the cluster, out of a total of 512 GB available memory per node there were no constraints for any of the hosts. The Compute Hosts reached a max memory consumption of 313 GB with active memory usage reaching a max of 90GB. There was no memory ballooning or swapping.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
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19
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19
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20
:05
20
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20
:25
20
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20
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CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
18
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18
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18
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19
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19
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19
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19
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19
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20
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20
:15
20
:25
20
:35
20
:45
Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network bandwidth is not an issue on this solution with a steady state peak of approximately 146,000 Kbps.
The Nutanix Cluster IOPS figures taken from the Nutanix Web Console showed that the cluster reached a maximum of 1,532 Disk IOPS during the test run with the Management node having the lowest disk IOPS of the three nodes. The activity spike in the graph after steady state peak shows the user log off’ s taking place at the end of the test cycle.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
18
:35
18
:45
18
:55
19
:05
19
:15
19
:25
19
:35
19
:45
19
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20
:05
20
:15
20
:25
20
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20
:45
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
18
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18
:45
18
:55
19
:05
19
:15
19
:25
19
:35
19
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19
:55
20
:05
20
:15
20
:25
20
:35
20
:45
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The Login VSI Max user experience score for this test indicates that the VSI Max score not reached so there
should have been little deterioration of user experience during testing.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Notes:
As indicated above, the CPU graphs do not take into account the extra 10% of CPU resources available
through the 2690v3’s turbo feature.
Subjective user experience showed mouse movement and window response times when clicking
within a running session during steady state were good. Video playback while somewhat slow was still
acceptable.
User login times were consistent up until the final few sessions were launching when a few session
took some extra time to login.
512 GB of memory installed on each node is more than enough for this configuration and should run
equally well with less memory installed.
XenApp, 290 Sessions, User Test, Heavy Workload
The architecture for this solution includes a dedicated management host and two compute hosts. Each of the compute hosts was populated with 5 RDS session host virtual machines running Windows Server 2012 R2 and one Nutanix CVM per host. Each session host vm was allocated 32GB of RAM and 8vCPU’s.
The Nutanix CVM’s took up approximately 4% of the compute hosts CPU Usage at the start of the test run.
This chart does not include the additional 10% of CPU available from the Turbo boost feature. Without the inclusion there is a total of 62380 MHz available for Desktops, with Turbo boost the total available MHz value is 68168 MHz.
The below graph shows the performance data for 145 user sessions per host on a pair of Compute hosts. The CPU reaches a steady state peak of 97% during the test cycle when approximately 145 users are logged on to each compute host.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The Management host in the cluster runs the vSphere and XenDesktop management virtual machines and a Nutanix CVM virtual machine. Its CPU utilization is significantly lower than the compute hosts in the cluster. The CPU utilization for the management host does not exceed 11% at any point in the test cycle.
In regards to memory consumption for the cluster, out of a total of 512 GB available memory per node there were no constraints for any of the hosts. The Compute Hosts reached a max memory consumption of 109 GB with active memory usage reaching a max of 50GB. There was no memory ballooning or swapping.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
:50
14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
CPU Utilization
Management
Compute A
Compute B
CPU Threshold 85%
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
12
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14
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14
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15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Consumed Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Network bandwidth is not an issue on this solution with a steady state peak of approximately 79,000 Kbps.
0
10
20
30
40
50
601
2:4
0
12
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13
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13
:10
13
:20
13
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13
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13
:50
14
:00
14
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14
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14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Active Memory
Management
Compute A
Compute B
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Monitoring of a single, sample RDSH session host showed that its processor reached a maximum of 87%
during the test run.
The Nutanix Cluster IOPS figures taken from the Nutanix Web Console showed that the cluster reached a maximum of 1,297 Disk IOPS during the test run with the Management node having the lowest disk IOPS of the three nodes.
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
12
:40
12
:50
13
:00
13
:10
13
:20
13
:30
13
:40
13
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14
:00
14
:10
14
:20
14
:30
14
:40
14
:50
15
:00
15
:10
15
:20
15
:30
Network Kbps
Management
Compute A
Compute B
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
12
:36
12
:46
12
:56
13
:06
13
:16
13
:26
13
:36
13
:46
13
:56
14
:06
14
:16
14
:26
14
:36
14
:46
14
:56
15
:06
15
:16
15
:26
15
:36
RDSH Host VM CPU
CPU
A Dell Appliance Architecture
The Login VSI Max user experience score for this test indicates that the VSI Max score not reached so there
should have been little deterioration of user experience during testing.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Notes:
As indicated above, the CPU graphs do not take into account the extra 10% of CPU resources available
through the 2690v3’s turbo feature.
Subjective user experience showed mouse movement and window response times when clicking
within a running session during steady state were good. Video playback quality was good.
User login times were consistent up until the final few sessions were launching when a few session
took some extra time to login.
512 GB of memory installed on each node is more than enough for this configuration and should run
equally well with less memory installed.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Nutanix Technical Marketing team for the detail presented in section 2.2 of this document.
A Dell Appliance Architecture
About the Authors
Peter Fine is the Sr. Principal Solutions Architect for enterprise VDI solutions at Dell. Peter has extensive
experience and expertise on the broader Microsoft, Citrix and VMware solutions software stacks as well as
in enterprise virtualization, storage, networking and enterprise data center design.
Andrew Breedy is a Solution Engineer working in the Dell-Wyse Datacenter engineering group. Andrew
has extensive experience in server hardware and on Microsoft and VMWare virtualization solutions as well
as a background in engineering test processes and performance analysis and characterization.
Kristina Bako is a Sr. Systems Engineer and has been with Dell for just over two years and is part of the Dell
Wyse Datacenter (DWD) Solution Engineering Group at Dell. Before joining Dell she has worked over 10
years as an Applications Engineer in Video Technology related areas. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in
Audio/Video Engineering from the University of Salford and a Master’s degree in Telecommunications
from Dublin City University.
Rick Biedler is the Solutions Development Manager for Datacenter appliances at Dell, managing the
development and delivery of Enterprise class Desktop virtualization solutions based on Dell datacenter
components and core virtualization platforms.
Manish Chacko is the Sr. Technical Marketing Advisor for Citrix-based solutions at Dell. Before writing
about technology, Manish has spent time designing, implementing and supporting technology- in IT,
Systems Engineering & Network Performance & Monitoring. Manish has been a long-time Dell customer &
Advocate before becoming a Dell employee.
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