how pure storage complements citrix xendesktop · the test process involved creating and launching...

White Paper

How Pure Storage Complements Citrix XenDesktopDelivering a superior VDI experience

Citrix Ready VDI Capacity Program Phase IIIn a performance test, the Pure Storage FlashArray//m storage system supported a realistic Citrix XenDesktop Provisioning Services workload in a simulated 1,500-user VDI environment.

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White Paper How Pure Storage Complements Citrix XenDesktop

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While virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) has become more common in recent years, the performance issues and high-cost challenges frequently associated with traditional disk-based or hybrid storage have inhibited its broad adoption. Slow end-user performance and long log-in times have negatively impacted end-user productivity and satisfaction with legacy VDI deployments. Fortunately, all-flash storage systems resolve these issues, delivering a superior end-user VDI performance at lower costs than disk-based storage systems.

This white paper summarizes a performance test of the Pure Storage FlashArray//m storage system, which supported a realistic Citrix XenDesktop Provisioning Services workload in a simulated 1,500-user VDI environment. This paper also discusses a range of benefits offered by the all-flash Pure Storage FlashArray, including data reduction, scalability, mission-critical resiliency, and simplified management.

Ultimately, Pure Storage FlashArray is shown to pair perfectly with Citrix XenDesktop in delivering a superior VDI experience.

Business Challenge SummaryNot so long ago the word “desktop” referred to only one thing: a physical place to work; often massive, heavily constructed, and semi-immovable. As the industry has advanced, the traditional description of a desktop is no longer all encompassing. Now the term is likely to refer to a user’s desktop — still restrictive, requiring physical access via a single machine. But now virtual desktops can be available to workers anyplace, anytime, and via multiple devices.

Not surprisingly, virtual desktops have grown steadily in popularity. Accordingly, as a more companies have freed their workers from the figurative shackles of traditional desktops, virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) have become more common.

The promise of VDI is clear. Virtualizing and centralizing desktops offers a more secure, more manageable and less costly end-user computing model. Consequently, the increasing availability of scalable server architecture has made virtual desktops more than just technically feasible.


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Present Need for SolutionNevertheless, in spite of the massive potential that VDI offers in transforming the modern workplace, adoption has been slow. The most significant barriers to increased adoption of VDI technology have been the following:

• High Costs: VDI deployments are frequently initiated with the primary goal of reducing both equipment costs and management costs. But the anticipated ROI of VDI deployments frequently fail to materialize. Infrastructure costs such as shared server, networking and storage resources often multiply into a total investment that outstrips the sum costs of dedicated desktops and laptops.

• Disappointed Users: A key promise of VDI architecture is speed of service for each individual user. However, in many VDI installations speed of service is found to be a false promise. In partic-ular, VDI deployments that are reliant upon spinning disk storage systems tend to deliver unreliable performance, slowed response times and inconsistent availability. The predictable results are mounting user frustration levels and a loss of organizational productivity.

• Management Complexities: VDI projects are deployed with a goal of maximizing end-user pro-ductivity. But the deployment of a VDI project often turns out to be a double-edged sword. The VDI can indeed slash traditional impediments to worker productivity, but that often happens at the expense of IT staff productivity.

In particular, systems that rely upon the shared storage of traditional disk-based systems frequently intensify demands upon IT staff. That is a byproduct of the complicated system of I/O distribution across disk spindles and controllers, often found to be a necessity in counterbalancing the performance constraints of traditional storage. The inherent difficulties of managing such a system places significant additional burdens upon the backs of IT staff.

Top Features to Consider in a VDI Storage SolutionExercising careful consideration in the selection of a VDI storage solution can eliminate the barriers to VDI adoption noted above. It is the key to fully realizing the promise and potential of a VDI installation.

In particular, the following five features are conducive to maximizing the potential of a VDI:

1. Data Reduction Capability: VDI data is an excellent target for data reduction technologies. Data reduction techniques such as deduplication and compression can slash the amount of storage required, along with the power and space required for storage infrastructure.

2. High Performance with Consistent Low Latency: Very low latency storage capabilities are required to enable the full potential of VDI designs. Without sub-millisecond latency performance, systems will get bogged down. Users will encounter inconsistent performance or even disconnections when multiple desktops attempt to log in or boot simultaneously.

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3. Mission-Critical Resilience: Once installed, VDI is typically considered mission-critical for most organizations. If users cannot get online, business is disrupted and dollars are lost. Productivity and revenue generating activities decline, and customer dissatisfaction soars.

4. Non-Disruptive Operations: VDI systems must be available at all times — even during potential downtimes such as during maintenance, upgrades, and natural disasters. Storage systems that are unable to perform consistently in spite of such disruptions are not up to the task of properly supporting a VDI installation.

5. Controlled TCO: Total cost of ownership can be quite high with traditional storage systems. Within a 10-year cycle, a traditional storage system is likely to require three to four forklift upgrades, complete with the associated inherent costs and risks and the resultant data migrations. Companies need to find a storage solution that controls — or even eliminates — these costs.

Introducing the Citrix Ready VDI Capacity Program for Storage PartnersCitrix Ready launched this program with many existing storage partners. The goal is to address the storage needs of customers who already have implemented or are considering implementing Citrix XenDesktop. VDI presents multiple types of data — each with its own unique requirements — to the storage infrastructure tier. Storage in turn can cope with these requirements using various hardware- and software-based approaches, some of which can be combined into hybrid solutions. As the number of storage options for VDI has steadily increased over the last several years, confusion has arisen for some customers who are still unsure as to which approach is right for them.

To help address this confusion, Citrix started this program — Citrix Ready VDI Capacity Program for Storage Partners Phase II — with storage partners representing several different VDI workloads with their storage solutions. To participate in the program, the partner was required to set up a test environment with the necessary compute resources needed to generate a 1,500, 3,000, or 5,000 user XenDesktop workloads.

As opposed to a traditional “benchmark,” whereby different achievement scores are possible, this “VDI Capacity” program is a simulation of “a day in the life” of a XenDesktop farm supporting a certain number of users. If a partner’s chosen storage solution can successfully support “a day’s” run to the defined user capacity while sustaining required performance metrics, the partner passes and the validation test is concluded.

Soaring CostsIt is a common problem:

It is a common problem: Maintenance and support costs typically begin to soar in storage systems that have been in service for three to four years.

Maintenance tasks such as implementing forklift upgrades, repurchasing hardware, and migrating data are risky, costly operations. But with most vendors, unfortunately, they are also necessary.

Not with Pure Storage. Pure has implemented a revolutionary Evergreen business model known as Forever Flash.

Under Forever Flash maintenance pricing remains flat — i.e. no cost spikes as the system ages. Controller upgrades are included in maintenance every three years, so storage systems remain cutting-edge current with no interruption in service.

Forever Flash breaks the spiraling cycle of what many customers consider to be maintenance extortion.


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Citrix Ready Partner Candidate Test MethodologyThe VDI Capacity Program is focused on provisioning the appropriate amount of storage capacity with a cost-effective design, while also assuring adequate VDI performance. A simple, binary pass/fail methodology is employed.

Pure Storage FlashArray all-flash storage solution proved successful in supporting the required storage capacity for 1,500 users, while meeting or exceeding all required performance metrics. The tested system, in fact, exceeded performance metrics enough to support scaling well beyond the test capacity of 1,500 users.

Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) is the industry-standard tool for VDI performance and capacity testing. This tool was used to generate VDI workloads and to measure performance. The test process involved creating and launching 1,500 Citrix XenDesktop instances, and executing a Login VSI workload that simulated 1,500 knowledge workers running Windows 8.1.

The specific hardware used in the test was as follows:

• Servers: Cisco UCS B200 M4 (16 in total) • Processors: 2 x Xeon E5-2670 at 2.3 GHz (12 cores per CPU)• Memory: 24 x 16 gigabytes at 2,133 MHz (384GB per server)• Network Adapters: VIC 1340 (16 in total)• Storage Array Controller: Flash Array//m20 10 TB RAW (two controllers per array)

The binary result of pass or fail was determined by whether the tested storage system successfully handled the storage demands placed upon it without reaching a latency limit labeled “VSI Max.”

Overview of Pure Storage Pure Storage was founded with a simple philosophy in mind: 100 percent flash storage could and should be made affordable so that the vast majority of enterprise applications can take advantage of the numerous benefits that flash memory affords. Pure Storage FlashArray was designed from the ground up to offer the unique characteristics of flash memory with an emphasis on simplicity, scalability, and performance.

Pure Storage has been extremely proud of the recognition it has received. Pure has been recognized as an all-flash leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Solid State Arrays two years in a row. Pure has also received a certified Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 79 by Satmetrix, making it the number one recommended technology vendor, based on the Satmetrix 2015 NPS Global B2B Benchmarks. While easily trouncing the high-tech vendor average NPS of 16, Pure’s score has even surpassed some of the most popular consumer brands on the planet, including the iPhone (NPS score 63) and Samsung (NPS score 54).

NPS 79 16Pure

StorageHigh-tech

vendoraverage


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Pure Storage FlashArray Innovative OfferingsFlashArray offers a number of innovative features that include:

• All-Flash Storage: FlashArray’s all-flash storage provides consistent low-latency perfor-mance. Average latency is less than one millisecond.

• Industry-Leading VDI Data Reduction: FlashArray’s typical data reduction rate of at 10:1 or greater keeps costs lower than with traditional disks, hybrid storage, or even competitive all-flash alternatives.

• Mission-Critical Resilience: The average uptime for FlashArray storage systems is greater than 99.999 percent, ensuring data is always available, always performing, and always pro-tected — with no performance loss.

• Non-Disruptive Operations: FlashArray provides consistent, reliable performance during maintenance operations, capacity upgrades, and hardware/software upgrades. The result is a total per-customer downtime of less than five minutes per year.

• Easy Management and Scalability: FlashArray employs a set-and-forget system designed to simplify management for VDI administrators. Scalability is designed for ease and flexibility of capacity enhancements; simply start small and add capacity as needed.

• 100% Encryption of Data at Rest: Rest assured your data is secure with always on, zero management, AES-256 encryption with no performance penalty and no additional cost.

A particularly notable offering of FlashArray is the Evergreen™ Storage ownership model. Evergreen™ Storage revolutionizes the way customers purchase and refresh storage infrastructure. Customers no longer need to concern themselves with forklift upgrades, ever-increasing maintenance costs, and risky data migrations every three or four years. Evergreen™ Storage eliminates the need for those costly and disruptive operations. Instead, upgrades can be made in place as needed to enhance capacity, density, performance or features. Additionally, all upgrades can be performed without any downtime or performance impacts — for a decade or more.

Pure Storage FlashArray has been validated by Citrix as a Citrix Ready product, listed under the name Pure Storage FlashArray//m.

“Before I joined Pure … I had no

storage experience whatsoever;

my job was to manage and

administer the VDI. But within a

week of starting at Pure, not only

was I racking my own array, but I

was also able to autonomously

manage the storage for my VDI

projects. That’s a pretty big deal

— enabling VDI administrators to

manage their own storage.”

Kyle GrossmillerVDI Solutions Architect Pure Storage


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Pure Storage FlashArray//m20 builds on prior industry-leading innovations and adds the following:

• Mini Size: Reduce power, space, and complexity by 90 percent. 3u base chassis, 15-120+ tera-bytes of usable storage.

• Mighty Performance: Up to 300,000 32K IOPS, up to nine gigabytes of bandwidth, less than one millisecond average latency.

• Meaningful Simplicity: Appliance-like deployment with worry-free operations. Plug-and-go deployment in minutes, not days.

• Modular Scale: Scale //m inside and outside of the chassis for generations. Expandable to half a petabyte of usable storage via expansion shelves. Upgrade controllers and drives — without downtime.

Pure Storage’s data reduction technologies are particularly effective in Citrix XenDesktop environments, and were instrumental in the selection of FlashArray as a Citrix Ready product. FlashArray’s simplicity is designed to remove the layers of complexity that are so common in traditional arrays: LUN, storage virtualization, RAID, and caching management.


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Overview of the VDI Capacity Program Test Results and DataThe purpose of this test was to verify that Pure Storage FlashArray complied with all interoperability requirements of the VDI Capacity Program.

Table 1: Results Summary

Time taken to Launch 1,500 VMs 61 per minute / 24 minutes total

Login VSI Max and Average users response time test VSI Base: 755 VSI Max average: 1099

Total IOPS in Storage Solution Peak: 27,600

Storage Cost / Infrastructure cost per user $49 per user (for 1,500 users)

Time taken to launch VMS

How Pure Storage Complements Citrix XenDesktop

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Login VSImax and Average users response time test


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Storage I/O Control Aggregate IOPs

Read IOPs per Host (Top 10)


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The test was initiated with a realistic load generator of Login VSI simulated Knowledge Workers performing common computing tasks. The highest category of Login VSI Baseline Score was achieved in every single test that was performed. VSI Max was not reached in any of the simulations.

Throughout the testing process, FlashArray delivered up to 100,000 32K IOPS and maintained latency of less than one millisecond — a vivid demonstration of FlashArray’s consistent sub-millisecond latency and ability to deliver the best all-flash VDI end-user experience at all times. In total, more than 2,500 desktops (32 gigabyte disk size each) were deployed. Only about a terabyte of physical storage was consumed on the FlashArray, a testament to the system’s high-performance inline data reduction capabilities (deduplication and compression).

The power footprint for the tested FlashArray//m20 was a mere eight amps (110V), a fraction of what would be required by any mechanical disk storage array. This test configuration consumed three rack units (3 RU) of data center space.

Write IOPs per Host (Top 10)


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The test results support the conclusion that a single FlashArray//m20 can realistically support 2,500 MCS or PVS desktops. Adding additional server and infrastructure components could scale the architecture to a capacity capable of supporting tens of thousands of desktops. In fact, the testing served to highlight the efficiency and effectiveness of FlashArray’s modular scaling approach: start small and scale to greater capacity as needed.

Scalability testing was conducted using Cisco Unified Computing Systems (UCS) with cluster sizes of one, four, eight, 16, and 20 hosts. The tested environment’s capacity for handling the recommended number of concurrent VDI desktops was tracked using a VSI Baseline Performance Score and a VSI Max chart. Testing was intended to demonstrate the availability of ample headroom for supporting additional scaling, and to confirm that common administrative tasks could be consistently performed without user disruption.

Scalability testing monitored key performance indicators including:

• CPU utilization

• Overall memory utilization

• Latency

• Bandwidth used

• Storage space used

• Data reduction

Scalability testing confirmed Pure’s recommended sizing guidelines for expanding a VDI environment to any desired size. In relation to scalability, independent testing has also been conducted by Pure Storage to determine FlashArray’s ability to handle massive workloads despite system anomalies.

It is also worth noting that FlashArray’s simplified management requirements were quite evident during the course of testing. A dramatic time reduction was observed for completing common VDI administrator operations such as cloning persistent desktops, (re)booting desktops, and other typical day-to-day virtual desktop operations. FlashArray’s simplified management requirements result in real-world operational savings by increasing efficiencies and reducing demands upon VDI administrators on a daily basis.

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Test Results Prove a Perfect SymbiosisCitrix XenDesktop delivers full Windows VDI capabilities in addition to virtual apps, meeting the demands of any use case. XenDesktop enables users to access their apps, desktops and data without the limitations of a traditional solution. On the unified FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA) platform, XenDesktop is the only solution that is FIPS-compliant and Common Criteria certified to meet the highest security standards of regulated industries. End users will enjoy the simple virtual desktop interface, while IT will appreciate the superior performance of HDX technology, even when deployed over challenging, high-latency networks.

As demonstrated with the Login VSI test results, Pure Storage FlashArray clearly exceeds the benchmark set for the Citrix VDI Capacity Program. The test also confirmed that all-flash shared storage provides extremely high performance and capacity savings when deployed with XenDesktop VMs.

It should be noted, however, that Login VSI only tests a small subset of the factors that are key to a successful VDI deployment. Two primary influential factors are end-user experience and administrative/management complexity. Any VDI solution that improves end-user experience while reducing operational overhead will result in a superior deployment, and will bolster enhanced user and administrator acceptance. A byproduct of the Citrix VDI Capacity Program benchmark test was a clear demonstration of FlashArray’s simplified management requirements.

Ancillary factors such as cost and environmental impact are also key considerations when evaluating VDI performance, and are not measured in these tests. FlashArray offers industry-leading improvements in these key areas by lowering both initial and operational costs, and slashing power requirements, rack space and cooling requirements in comparison to traditional storage systems. Ultimately, Pure Storage FlashArray provides both performance and simplicity, driving a superior VDI deployment outcome.

Put simply, the Pure Storage all-flash system can demonstrably and significantly improve the ROI of VDI deployment. As demonstrated by the Citrix VDI Capacity Program benchmark test, FlashArray serves as a perfect symbiotic partner for Citrix XenDesktop.

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Copyright © 2016 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix Ready are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. and other countries. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

About Citrix ReadyCitrix Ready identifies recommended solutions that are trusted to enhance the Citrix Deliver y Center infrastructure. All products featured in Citrix Ready have completed verification testing, thereby providing confidence in joint solution compatibility. Leveraging its industry leading alliances and partner eco-system, Citrix Ready showcases select trusted solutions designed to meet a variety of business needs. Through the online catalog and Citrix Ready branding program, you can easily find and build a trusted infrastructure. Citrix Ready not only demonstrates current mutual product compatibility, but through continued industry relationships also ensures future interoperability. Learn more at www.citrixready.citrix.com.

For more information about Citrix XenDesktop, visit: https://www.citrix.com/products/xendesktop/overview.html.

For more information about the Citrix Ready Program, visit: https://www.citrix.com/partner-programs/citrix-ready.html

About Pure StoragePure Storage (NYSE:PSTG) accelerates possible, transforming businesses in ways previously unimagined. The company’s disruptive, software-driven storage technology combined with a customer-friendly business model drives business and IT transformation for customers through dramatic increases in performance and efficiency at lower costs. Pure Storage FlashArray//m is simpler, faster and more elegant than any other technology in the datacenter. FlashArray //m is ideal for the move toward big data and for performance-intensive workloads such as cloud computing, database systems, desktop virtualization, real-time analytics and server virtualization. With Pure’s industry leading certified NPS score of 79, Pure customers are some of the happiest in the world, and include large and mid-size organizations across a range of industries: cloud-based software and service providers, consumer web, education, energy, financial services, governments, healthcare, manufacturing, media, retail and telecommunications. With Pure Storage, companies push the boundaries of what’s possible to become faster, smarter and more innovative.

For more information about Pure Storage FlashArray, call 800-379-7873 or visit: www.Purestorage.com.

To learn more about flash storage for VDI, contact Citrix and Pure Storage, or visit: https://citrixready.citrix.com/pure-storage/pure-storage-flasharray-m.html

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