deploying vdi solutions today - lessons learned and best practices

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Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

Realizing the benefits of VDI

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Agenda

What you need to know before we begin What is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) The business case for VDI The challenges of delivering desktop services How can VDI address those challenges

Deploying VDI What EMC has learned from VDI deployments Considerations for a VDI project Judging a successful VDI deployment

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What is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)?

VDI centralizes the creation, deployment, management and support of desktop services into the data center

– A single physical server can host a large number of virtualized desktop images

– The desktop image’s ‘disk’ are hosted on enterprise class NAS or SAN storage

– A ‘broker’ in its most basic form is used to evenly load balance client access across the data center infrastructure supporting desktop services

– Connection protocols such as RDP and PCoIP are used to access the desktop image over the network

– The desktop image can be accessed from traditional desktops and laptops as well as thin clients and mobile devices

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The business case for VDI – addressing physical desktop limitations

The average operational cost of a traditional desktop is around $2000– VDI can reduce this cost by reducing the costs of support, administration and break-fix

Provisioning and supporting desktop services is complex and costly– VDI can reduce this complexity and the staff allocation to support desktop services

Data protection & compliance presents new challenges for desktop use– By centralising and controlling desktop images in the data centre, sensitive corporate

data can be monitored and protected

Refreshing desktops to align with new operating systems is costly– VDI builds a compelling model around extending the life of existing end-point systems

Green concerns are highlighting the environmental cost of desktops– VDI allows for the deployment of inexpensive, energy efficient thin clients

Agile and responsive IT means delivering projects to tighter deadlines– Refreshing existing desktop images, deploying a range of bespoke images is simplified

and accelerated by a VDI infrastrucutre

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Key to Addressing Physical Desktop Challenges

Increase standardization• Hardware independent standard images

Streamline management• Centralized desktop hardware management

Increase flexibility• Quickly provision new desktops and applications

to users

Centralize Computing Resources• Move underutilized computing resources back

from the edge of your network

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Device-Centric Computing is the Problem

OS

Apps

User

IT

Settings

Apps

Data

OS

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User-Centric Computing is the Solution:Freedom for users, efficiency and control for IT

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What is User-Centric Computing?

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What EMC has learned from VDI deployments to date

VDI is not a shrink wrapped solution – There is no one size fits all solution

Each company’s user environment is different– Reference Architectures and generic performance figures can only ever be a guide

The workload of a desktop user may vary, even across one organisation

– Most organisations contain a range of different user types

Each organisation’s desktop services environment will be unique– There could be multiple combinations of desktop images, applications and user data

Understanding the types of applications and user data created inside a company and how that information needs to be delivered to the user and protected is critical

Successful VDI deployments have started small with a user profiling exercise and then progressed through a POC to full implementation

10© Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

A VDI conversation is more than storage

• To deploy VDI successfully a business must understand

The type of desktop users – light or heavy

The data type users create & store – i.e. database entry or unstructured data

How those users access that data and if it must be persistent

The type and number of applications that exist within the business

• Cost savings are the most attractive element of VDI for many customers

• Most businesses do not understand the performance required for their desktop images or how large those images need to be

• A failure to balance cost with delivering a good user experience will doom a VDI deployment


Successful VDI deployments follow on from a consultative approach

Help the organisation :

Define what the business hopes to gain from VDI– Cost savings alone may not build a compelling TCO case

Identify the correct group of desktop users for virtualization– Most businesses have different user groups - not all users are not currently a good fit

Profile those users to determine how they use their desktops– Determine concurrency of access, log on times, how much data is created

Identify the types of applications and user data created– Environments with many applications pose administrative and efficiency challenges

Understand the storage capacity and performance required up front– Failure to provide the correct configuration from the start could stall or halt a project

Help the customer focus on all the infrastructure elements required– VDI performance could require a significant number of servers as well as storage


Above all else – be realistic about the scope and applicability of VDI

Help the organisation :

Understand where VDI technology and best practices are relevant today and what the solutions avaialble today can and can’t do

Decide which classes of user would make a good fit for VDI today, 6 months from now and going forward

Understand that VDI is a disruptive technology and often it is existing IT process that is the bottleneck to delivering VDI back to the business

Gain awareness that the perceived cost savings will come in a range of different areas over time and that some of those savings are ‘soft savings such as time saved to deploy and administer desktop images

There remain some unresolved elements such as desktop licensing and the impact on the data centre infrastructure from centralising desktop access

Realise that once in the data centre VDI rapidly becomes a Tier 1 application in terms of performance and availability requirements


How to judge a successful VDI deployment

Fewer calls to the helpdesk

Quicker and simpler application and operating system upgrades

Extends the life of existing PC hardware

Fewer desk-side visits

Less time spent on user adds/moves/changes

Less time spent on application packaging

Less effort required to manage the flow of sensitive or secure information


In addressing physical desktop limitations, VDI can create new challenges

Increase standardization• Hardware independent standard images

Streamline management• Centralized desktop hardware management

Increase flexibility• Quickly provision new desktops and applications

to users

• Realizing improved TCO• Cost of licensing

• Cost of hardware

• Cost of storage (Tier 6 $/GB)

• Performance at scale• Server, network and storage

scalability

• Increased Responsiveness• Simplify and accelerate deployment

and support tasks

• Meet Stringent Desktop SLAs• Availability (Tier 1 availability)

• Business Continuance

• DR

Centralize Computing Resources• Move underutilized computing resources back

from the edge of your network

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Enterprise Flash & Extended Cache

2 - Provision

OS

Array Integrated Snaps / Native Tools=

=

=

1 - Plan

3 - Price

Dynamic Storage Tiering

Multiprotocol & multi-tier support

User data Apps

Pointer Based

70% less

Thin Dedup/Comp Tier

80% less

App Virt

>95% less

Desktop / Application delivery Plan / Connection broker selection

=

4 - Perform

Security integration / VM aware backup / SRM=5 - Protect

$38/vm

Structuring an holistic approach to VDI


Image composition – the solution to scale, save, and deliver the universal client with VDI

Effective scaling and delivery of the user experience in different client forms requires the separation of a desktop into its component parts

These components are streamed together to assemble a unique client experience

Broker & Composition

HostingCluster

User Workspace


Successful techniques for realizing a low TCO

Backup Solution for VMware

Protect Every Layer– vCenter– View Manager– View Composer– AD– Gold Images– User Data– ThinApp packages

Dedup Everything– Source Based– Image level backup/File

level restore– Cross Domain– Rapid Recovery

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First – what about capacity?

1000 users, 10GB per desktop = 10TB – right?

Wrong…

Operating System– View Composer = savings capacity requirements for OS storage

60:1 savings (non-persistent) 2:1 - 5:1 savings (persistent)

Applications– Thin App = 50:1 savings for app storage

Assuming only 50% of apps can be virtualized

Storage– Dedupe/Compress + Archive = savings on user data storage

4:1 savings (being conservative)

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10:1 capacity reduction means all 1000 users can run on 1TB of storage – right?

Wrong…

1TB of storage fits on one spindle

How many hard drives are in 1000 desktops/laptops?

How do we solve THAT problem?

Is the problem solved?

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The Challenge

Architecting a View Environment to size for BOTH capacity and performance at scale when leveraging Linked Clone or Snapshot Technology

The Analysis

1000 x 10GB boot images = 1TB2TB – >80% capacity savings

8-10 iops per user ≈ 10,000 iops

The Result

at scale, data reduction technologies + EFD saves you $$$

How do you leverage EFD most efficiently?

Drive Type Sustained IOPS # of drives

7.2k SATA 80 125

10k FC 130 76

15k FC 180 56

EFD 2000 5

The Case for Enterprise Flash Drives

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FAST Cache +FAST Tiering

Appserver

Controller

DRAM Cache

FLASH

FLASH

1 of 10 I/Os from disk

With FAST Cache

Appserver

Controller

DRAM Cache

FLASH


Lower Cost + User Experience

DRAM Cache


Without FAST

Appserver

Controller

4.5Xbetter

Benefit at scale

View:10x better

View:4x better

View 4.5 + FAST = Lower Cost + Better Experience

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FASTcache Benefits: Antivirus Scan

This test measures the impact of running antivirus scan simultaneously on 150 desktops

Observations and Conclusions• Time to scan a desktops decreased from 67 to 15 minutes with FAST Cache

• Peak Host Response time decreased from 382 ms to 11.86 ms• Disk utilization never above 10% - FAST Cache effectively handles 100% of I/O once warmed

•Estimated number of drives required to match FAST Cache performance: 83

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FASTcache Benefits: Patch Updates

This test measures the impact of patching 150 Windows XP desktopsNine security updates applied in series and systems rebooted

Observations and Conclusions•Time to patch all the desktops decreased from 43 to 22 minutes

•Peak Guest Disk Response time decreased from 113ms to 43ms•Estimated number of drives to equal FAST Cache performance: 60

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“Oldey timey”

268 x 300GB 15K FC Disks

“New coolness”*

10 x 300GB FC

10x400GB EFD

20 x 1TB SATA

11% More Disk IOPS

53,000 vs 48,000 Aggregate IOPS

85% Fewer Disk Drives

40 EFD+FC+SATA vs 268 FC

90% Less Power

.8 kVA vs 8 kVA

22% Lower Storage Costs

+ Reduce Maintenance & SW costs

* Key Ingredients in new coolness:•VMware: View 4.next, Composer

•EMC: FAST Cache, FAST, Dedupe & Compress

Net: 4000 user deployment example

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Oh BTW – there’s a lot more to this than storage…

Securing the desktop– RSA SecureBook for VMware View

Backup/Recovery of the Desktop– Killer “End-User Self Restore”

Solution with Avamar

Creating “Desktop SKU” – an “all in” value proposition on Vblock

VDI Design/Implementation and Business Justification Services

Windows 7 Migration Services


Key Take Aways

VDI TCO reduction generally comes from reduction of administration/support/desktop outages, rather than up-front capital expenditure savings

Many changes must be made to the desktop, often including application packaging and deployment methodology to achieve an efficient VDI deployment

Leveraging new technologies such as deduplication, flash and thin provisioning can change the TCO dynamics of deploying VDI and allow a virtual desktop solution to stack up

VDI offers great benefits for the right use case with the right cost model and within an organization able to exploit the technology to its fullest