DESIGN GUIDE EMC VSPEX END-USER COMPUTING VMware Horizon View 6.0 and VMware vsphere for up to 500 Virtual Desktops Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection EMC VSPEX Abstract This describes how to design an EMC VSPEX End-User Computing solution for VMware Horizon View for up to 500 virtual desktops. EMC VNXe3200 and VMware vsphere provide the storage and virtualization platforms. October 2014
Copyright 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. Published October 2014 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. EMC 2, EMC, and the EMC logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing VMware Horizon View 5.3 Enabled by EMC VNXe3200 and EMC Data Protection Part Number H12925.1 2 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Contents Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 9 Purpose of this guide... 10 Business value... 10 Scope... 11 Audience... 11 Terminology... 12 Chapter 2 Before You Start 13 Deployment workflow... 14 Essential reading... 14 VSPEX Solution Overview... 14 VSPEX Implementation Guide... 14 VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide... 14 EMC Data Protection for VSPEX guide... 15 RSA SecurID for VSPEX guide... 15 Chapter 3 Solution Overview 17 Overview... 18 VSPEX Proven Infrastructures... 18 Solution architecture... 19 High-level architecture... 19 Logical architecture... 21 Key components... 24 Desktop virtualization broker... 25 VMware Horizon View 6.0... 25 VMware Horizon View Composer 6.0... 25 VMware Horizon View Persona Management... 26 VMware Horizon View Storage Accelerator... 26 VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View... 27 Virtualization layer... 27 VMware vsphere... 27 VMware vcenter Server... 28 VMware vsphere High Availability... 28 VMware vshield Endpoint... 28 Compute layer... 28 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 3
Contents Network layer... 28 Storage layer... 29 EMC VNXe3200... 29 Virtualization management... 31 EMC VNXe Snapshots... 32 EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning... 32 VNXe file shares... 32 ROBO... 32 Data protection layer... 33 Security layer... 34 VMware Horizon Workspace solution... 34 Chapter 4 Sizing the Solution 35 Overview... 36 Reference workload... 36 VSPEX storage building blocks... 37 Building block approach... 37 Validated building block for 100 virtual desktops... 37 Expanding existing VSPEX end-user computing environments... 37 VSPEX end-user computing validated maximums... 38 VNXe3200... 38 Choosing the right reference architecture... 41 Introduction to the Customer Sizing Worksheet... 41 Using the Customer Sizing Worksheet... 41 Selecting a reference architecture... 43 Fine tuning hardware resources... 44 Summary... 45 Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices 47 Overview... 48 Server design considerations... 48 Server best practices... 49 VNXe shared file systems hardware... 50 vsphere memory virtualization... 51 Memory configuration guidelines... 52 Network design considerations... 54 Validated network hardware... 55 Network configuration guidelines... 55 Storage design considerations... 59 Overview... 59 4 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Contents Validated storage hardware and configuration... 59 vsphere storage virtualization... 60 VNXe Virtual provisioning... 61 High availability and failover... 62 Virtualization layer... 62 Compute layer... 63 Network layer... 63 Storage layer... 64 Validation test profile... 64 Profile characteristics... 64 Antivirus and antimalware platform profile... 66 Antivirus platform characteristics... 66 vshield architecture... 66 VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View platform profile... 67 Horizon View platform characteristics... 67 vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View architecture... 67 VSPEX for VMware Horizon Workspace solution... 68 Key Horizon Workspace components... 68 VSPEX for Horizon Workspace architecture... 69 Chapter 6 Reference Documentation 71 EMC documentation... 72 Other documentation... 72 Appendix A Customer Sizing Worksheet 75 Customer Sizing Worksheet for end-user computing... 76 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 5
Contents Figures Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures... 19 Figure 2. Architecture of the validated solution... 20 Figure 3. Logical architecture for both block and file storage... 21 Figure 4. VNXe3200 with multicore optimization... 30 Figure 5. Storage layout building block for 100 virtual desktops... 37 Figure 6. Core storage layout for 500 virtual desktops using VNXe3200... 39 Figure 7. Optional storage layout for 500 virtual desktops using VNXe3200... 40 Figure 8. Compute layer flexibility... 48 Figure 9. Hypervisor memory consumption... 51 Figure 10. Virtual machine memory settings... 53 Figure 11. Highly available network design example... 56 Figure 12. Required networks for block storage... 57 Figure 13. Required networks for file storage... 58 Figure 14. VMware virtual disk types... 61 Figure 15. Thin LUN space utilization... 62 Figure 16. High availability at the virtualization layer... 62 Figure 17. Redundant power supplies... 63 Figure 18. Network layer high availability... 63 Figure 19. VNXe series high availability... 64 Figure 20. Horizon Workspace architecture layout... 68 Figure 21. VSPEX for Horizon Workspace solution: logical architecture... 69 Figure 22. Printable customer sizing worksheet... 77 6 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Tables Contents Table 1. Terminology... 12 Table 2. Deployment workflow... 14 Table 3. Solution architecture configuration... 22 Table 4. Solution components... 24 Table 5. VSPEX EUC: Design process... 36 Table 6. Reference virtual desktop characteristics... 36 Table 7. Number of disks required for 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 virtual desktops... 38 Table 8. Customer Sizing Worksheet example... 41 Table 9. Reference virtual desktop resources... 43 Table 10. Server resource component totals... 45 Table 11. Server hardware... 50 Table 12. Minimum switching capacity for block and file... 55 Table 13. Storage hardware... 59 Table 14. Storage configuration... 60 Table 15. Validated environment profile... 64 Table 16. Antivirus platform characteristics... 66 Table 17. Horizon View platform characteristics... 67 Table 18. Minimum hardware resources for Horizon Workspace... 70 Table 19. Customer Sizing Worksheet... 76 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 7
Contents 8 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction This chapter presents the following topics: Purpose of this guide... 10 Business value... 10 Scope... 11 Audience... 11 Terminology... 12 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 9
Chapter 1: Introduction Purpose of this guide Business value The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing architecture provides the customer with a modern system capable of hosting a large number of virtual desktops at a consistent performance level. This VSPEX End-User Computing solution for VMware Horizon View 6.0 runs on a VMware vsphere virtualization layer backed by the highly available EMC VNXe3200 TM, which provides the storage. It is designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vsphere Proven Infrastructure. The compute and network components, which are defined by the VSPEX partners, are designed to be redundant and sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of a large virtual machine environment. EMC Avamar Data Protection solutions provide data protection for VMware Horizon View data and RSA SecurID provides optional secure user authentication functionality. This VSPEX End-User Computing solution is validated for up to 500 virtual desktops. These validated configurations are based on a reference desktop workload and form the basis for creating cost-effective, custom solutions for individual customers. A larger 2000 virtual desktops environment that is based on the EMC VNX5600 TM is described in EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 and VMware vsphere for up to 2000 Virtual Desktops. An end-user computing (EUC) or virtual desktop infrastructure is a complex system offering. This describes how to design an EUC solution for VMware Horizon View according to best practices and how to size the solution to fit the customer's needs by using the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool or the Customer Sizing Worksheet. Business applications are moving into a consolidated compute, network, and storage environment. This VSPEX End-User Computing solution with VMware reduces the complexity of configuring every component of a traditional deployment model. The solution reduces the complexity of integration management while maintaining application design and implementation options. The solution also provides unified administration, while enabling adequate control and monitoring of process separation. The business benefits of the VSPEX End-User Computing solution for VMware Horizon View include: An end-to-end virtualization solution to utilize the capabilities of the unified infrastructure components Efficient virtualization of up to 500 virtual desktops for varied customer use cases Reliable, flexible, and scalable reference architectures 10 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 1: Introduction Scope This describes how to plan a simple, effective, and flexible EMC VSPEX End-User computing solution for VMware Horizon View 6.0. The same principles and guidelines apply to all EMC VNXe models that are validated as part of the EMC VSPEX program. This guide illustrates how to size Horizon View on the VSPEX infrastructure, allocate resources following best practices, and use all the benefits that VSPEX offers. EMC Data Protection solutions for VMware Horizon View are described in a separate document, EMC Backup and Recovery for VSPEX for End User Computing with VMware Horizon View Design and Implementation Guide. The optional RSA SecurID secure user authentication solution for VMware Horizon View is also described in a separate document, Securing EMC VSPEX End-User Computing with RSA SecurID: VMware Horizon View 5.2 and VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 2,000 Virtual Desktops. Audience This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel and qualified EMC VSPEX Partners. This guide assumes that VSPEX partners who intend to deploy this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for VMware Horizon View have the necessary training and background to install and configure an EUC solution based on Horizon View with vsphere as the hypervisor, VNXe3200 storage systems, and associated infrastructure. Readers should also be familiar with the infrastructure and database security policies of the customer installation. This guide provides external references where applicable. EMC recommends that partners implementing this solution be familiar with these documents. Essential reading and Chapter 6: Reference Documentation provide details. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 11
Chapter 1: Introduction Terminology Table 1 lists the terminology used in this guide. Table 1. Terminology Term Reference architecture Reference workload Storage processor (SP) End-User Computing (EUC) Definition A validated architecture that supports this VSPEX EUC solution for up to 500 virtual desktops. For VSPEX EUC solutions, the reference workload is defined as a single virtual desktop the reference virtual desktop with the workload characteristics indicated in Table 6. By comparing the customer s actual usage to this reference workload, you can determine which reference architecture to choose as the basis for the customer s VSPEX deployment. Refer to Reference workload for details. The storage processor is the compute component of the storage array. SPs are used to handle all aspects of data moving into, out of, and between arrays. Decouples the desktop from the physical machine. In an EUC environment, the desktop operating system (OS) and applications reside inside a virtual machine running on a host computer, with data residing on shared storage. Users access their virtual desktop from any computer or mobile device over a private network or Internet connection. 12 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 2: Before You Start Chapter 2 Before You Start This chapter presents the following topics: Deployment workflow... 14 Essential reading... 14 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 13
Chapter 2: Before You Start Deployment workflow To design and implement your EUC solution, refer to the process flow in Table 2 1. Table 2. Deployment workflow Step Action 1 Use the Customer Sizing Worksheet to collect customer requirements. Refer to Appendix A of this. 2 Use the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX reference architecture for your EUC solution, based on the customer requirements collected in Step 1. For more information about the Sizing Tool, refer to the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool portal. Note: If the Sizing Tool is not available, you can also manually size the application using the guidelines in Chapter 4. 3 Use this to determine the final design for your VSPEX solution. Note: Ensure that all resource requirements are considered and not just the requirements for EUC. 4 Select and order the right VSPEX reference architecture and Proven Infrastructure. Refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading for guidance on selecting a Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure. 5 Deploy and test your VSPEX solution. Refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading for guidance. Essential reading EMC recommends that you read the following documents, available from the VSPEX space on the EMC Community Network or from the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure pages on EMC.com. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative. VSPEX Solution Overview VSPEX Implementation Guide VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide Refer to the following VSPEX Solution Overview document: EMC VSPEX End User Computing Solutions with VMware vsphere and VMware View Refer to the following VSPEX Implementation Guide: EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 and VMware vsphere for up to 500 Virtual Desktops 1 If your solution includes data protection components, refer to the EMC Backup and Recovery for VSPEX for End-User Computing with VMware View Design and Implementation Guide for data protection sizing and implementation guidelines. 14 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 2: Before You Start Refer to the following VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide: EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vsphere 5.5 for up to 125 Virtual Machines EMC Data Protection for VSPEX guide Refer to the following EMC Data Protection for VSPEX guide: EMC Backup and Recovery for VSPEX for End-User Computing with VMware View Design and Implementation Guide RSA SecurID for VSPEX guide Refer to the following RSA SecurID guide: Securing EMC VSPEX End-User Computing with RSA SecurID: VMware Horizon View 5.2 and VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 2,000 Virtual Desktops Design Guide EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 15
Chapter 2: Before You Start 16 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Chapter 3 Solution Overview This chapter presents the following topics: Overview... 18 VSPEX Proven Infrastructures... 18 Solution architecture... 19 Key components... 24 Desktop virtualization broker... 25 Virtualization layer... 27 Compute layer... 28 Network layer... 28 Storage layer... 29 Data protection layer... 33 Security layer... 34 VMware Horizon Workspace solution... 34 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 17
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Overview This chapter provides an overview of the VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View on VMware vsphere solution and the key technologies used in the solution. The solution provides the desktop virtualization, server, network, storage, and data protection resources to support reference architectures at 500 virtual desktops. Although the solution is designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud solution, the reference architectures do not include configuration details for the underlying Proven Infrastructure. The VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading provides information for configuring the required infrastructure components. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures EMC has joined forces with the industry-leading providers of IT infrastructure to create a complete virtualization solution that accelerates the deployment of the private cloud and VMware Horizon View virtual desktops. VSPEX enables customers to accelerate their IT transformation with faster deployment, greater simplicity and choice, higher efficiency, and lower risk, as compared to the challenges and complexity of building an IT infrastructure themselves. VSPEX validation by EMC ensures predictable performance and enables customers to select technology that uses their existing or newly acquired IT infrastructure while eliminating planning, sizing, and configuration burdens. VSPEX provides a virtual infrastructure for customers who want the simplicity characteristic of truly converged infrastructures, with more choice in individual stack components. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, as shown in Figure 1, are modular, virtualized infrastructures validated by EMC and delivered by EMC VSPEX partners. They include virtualization, server, network, storage, and data protection layers. Partners can choose the virtualization, server, and network technologies that best fit a customer s environment, while the highly available EMC VNXe series of storage systems and EMC Data Protection technologies provide the storage and data protection layers. 18 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures Solution architecture High-level architecture The EMC VSPEX end-user computing solution for VMware Horizon View provides a complete system architecture capable of supporting up to 500 virtual desktops and validates the infrastructure at four points of scale up to 500 virtual desktops. The solution supports deploying storage using either block or file protocols. This solution can provide primary storage to the compute layer using Fibre Channel, iscsi, or NFS as needed while providing user home directories via CIFS. Figure 2 shows the high-level architecture of the validated solution. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 19
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Figure 2. Architecture of the validated solution This solution uses EMC VNXe and VMware vsphere to provide the storage and virtualization platforms for a VMware Horizon View environment of Microsoft Windows 8.1 virtual desktops that are provisioned by VMware Horizon View Composer. For this solution, we 2 deployed the VNXe3200 to support up to 500 virtual desktops. The solution is designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud solution for VMware vsphere, backed by the highly available EMC VNXe series, which provides the storage. The infrastructure services for the solution, as shown in Figure 3, can be provided by existing infrastructure at the customer site, by the VSPEX Private Cloud, or by deploying them as dedicated resources as part of the solution. Planning and designing the storage infrastructure for a Horizon View environment is critical because the shared storage must be able to absorb large bursts of I/O that occur during a day. These bursts can lead to periods of erratic and unpredictable virtual desktop performance. Users can adapt to slow performance, but unpredictable performance frustrates users and reduces efficiency. To provide predictable performance for EUC solutions, the storage system must be able to handle the peak I/O load from the clients while keeping response time to a 2 In this guide, "we" refers to the EMC Solutions engineering team that validated the solution. 20 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview minimum. However, deploying many disks to handle brief periods of extreme I/O pressure is expensive to implement. This solution uses EMC FAST Cache to reduce the number of disks required. EMC Data Protection solutions enable user data protection and end-user recoverability. This Horizon View solution uses EMC Avamar and its desktop client to achieve this. Logical architecture The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View solution includes two storage-type variants: block storage and file storage. Figure 3 shows the logical architecture of the solution for both variants. Figure 3. Logical architecture for both block and file storage The block variant uses two networks: one storage network for carrying virtual desktop and virtual server OS data and one 10 Gb Ethernet (GbE) network for carrying all other traffic. The storage network uses 8 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) or 10 GbE with iscsi protocol. The file variant uses a 10 GbE IP network for all traffic. Note: The solution also supports 1 GbE if the bandwidth requirements are met. Table 3 summarizes the configuration of the various components of the solution architecture. The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 21
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Key components section provides detailed overviews of the key technologies. Table 3. Solution architecture configuration Component VMware Horizon View 6.0 Connection Server VMware Horizon View Composer 6.0 Virtual desktops VMware vsphere 5.5 VMware vcenter Server 5.5 Microsoft SQL Server Active Directory server DHCP server DNS server EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for VMware vsphere Web Ckuent IP/storage networks Solution configuration We used two VMware Horizon View Connection Servers to provide redundant virtual desktop delivery, authenticate users, manage the assembly of the users' virtual desktop environments, and broker connections between users and their virtual desktops. VMware Horizon View Composer works with the View Connection Server and the VMware vcenter Server to deploy linked-clone based virtual desktops. For this solution, View Composer was installed directly on the vcenter Server. We used VMware Horizon View Composer to provision virtual desktops running Windows 8.1. This solution uses VMware vsphere to provide a common virtualization layer to host the server environment. We configured high availability in the virtualization layer with vsphere features such as VMware High Availability (HA) clusters and VMware vmotion. In the solution, all vsphere hosts and their virtual machines are managed through vcenter Server. VMware vcenter Server, the View Connection Servers, and View Composer each require a database service to store configuration and monitoring details. We used Microsoft SQL Server 2012 running on Windows 2012 R2 Server for this purpose. Active Directory services are required for the various solution components to function properly. We used the Microsoft Active Directory Service running on a Windows Server 2012 R2 server for this purpose. The DHCP server centrally manages the IP address scheme for the virtual desktops. This service is hosted on the same virtual machine as the domain controller and DNS server. The Microsoft DHCP Service running on a Windows 2012 R2 server is used for this purpose. DNS services are required for the various solution components to perform name resolution. The Microsoft DNS Service running on a Windows 2012 R2 server is used for this purpose. The solution uses EMC VSI for VMware vsphere Web Client to provide storage management for the EMC arrays directly from the client. All network traffic is carried by a standard Ethernet network with redundant cabling and switching. User and management traffic is carried over a shared network, while NFS storage traffic is carried over a private, non-routable subnet. 22 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Component IP network Fibre Channel (FC) network EMC VNXe array EMC Avamar Solution configuration The Ethernet network infrastructure provides IP connectivity between virtual desktops, vsphere clusters, and VNXe storage. For the File variant, the IP infrastructure enables vsphere servers to access NFS datastores on the VNXe and desktop streaming from PVS servers with high bandwidth and low latency. It also enables desktop users to redirect their user profiles and home directories to the centrally maintained CIFS shares on the VNXe. For the FC variant, storage traffic between all vsphere hosts and the VNXe storage system is carried over an FC network. All other traffic is carried over the IP network. A VNX array provides storage by presenting NFS/FC datastores to vsphere hosts for up to 500 virtual desktops. Avamar software provides the platform for protecting virtual machines. The protection strategy uses persistent virtual desktops and both image protection and end-user recoveries. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 23
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Key components This section provides an overview of the key technologies used in this solution, as outlined in Table 4. Table 4. Solution components Component Desktop virtualization broker Virtualization layer Compute layer Network layer Storage layer Data protection Security layer VMware Horizon Workspace Description Manages the provisioning, allocation, maintenance, and eventual removal of the virtual desktop images that are provided to users of the system. This software is critical to enable on-demand creation of desktop images, enable maintenance to the image without affecting user productivity, and prevent the environment from growing in an unconstrained way. The desktop broker in this solution is VMware Horizon View 6.0. Allows the physical implementation of resources to be decoupled from the applications that use them so that the application view of the available resources is no longer directly tied to the hardware. This enables many key features in the EUC concept. This solution uses VMware vsphere for the virtualization layer. Provides memory and processing resources for the virtualization layer software and for the applications running in the infrastructure. The VSPEX program defines the minimum amount of compute layer resources required but allows the customer to implement the requirements using any server hardware that meets these requirements. Connects the users of the environment to the resources they need and connects the storage layer to the compute layer. The VSPEX program defines the minimum number of network ports required for the solution and provides general guidance on network architecture, but allows the customer to implement the requirements using any network hardware that meets these requirements. A critical resource for the implementation of the EUC environment, the storage layer must be able to absorb large bursts of activity as they occur without unduly affecting the user experience. This solution uses EMC VNXe series arrays with EMC FAST Cache to efficiently handle this workload. An optional solution component that provides data protection if data in the primary system is deleted, damaged, or otherwise unusable. This solution uses EMC Avamar for data protection. An optional solution component that provides consumers with additional options to control access to the environment and ensure that only authorized users are permitted to use the system. This solution uses RSA SecurID to provide secure user authentication. Provides optional support for VMware Horizon Workspace deployments. 24 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Desktop virtualization broker Desktop virtualization encapsulates and hosts desktop services on centralized computing resources at remote data centers. This enables end users to connect to their virtual desktops from different types of devices across a network connection. Devices can include desktops, laptops, thin clients, zero clients, smartphones, and tablets. In this solution, we used VMware Horizon View to provision, manage, broker, and monitor the desktop virtualization environment. VMware Horizon View 6.0 VMware Horizon View is a leading desktop virtualization solution that delivers desktop services from the cloud to end users. VMware Horizon View 5.3 integrates effectively with vsphere to provide the following: Performance optimization and tiered storage support View Composer optimizes storage utilization and performance by reducing the footprint of virtual desktops. It also supports the use of different tiers of storage to maximize performance and reduce cost. Thin provisioning support Horizon View 6.0 enables efficient allocation of storage resources when virtual desktops are provisioned. This results in better use of the storage infrastructure and reduced capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX). The Horizon View 6.0 release introduces the following enhancements for improving the user experience: Ability to stream applications to View Clients using Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Session Hosts (RDSH) and the PCoIP protocol. Support for multi-site View environments using the new Cloud Pod Architecture. Support for up to 800 View HTML Access clients per Connection Server. VMware Horizon View 6.0 Release Notes provides more details. VMware Horizon comes as a bundled solution that includes VMware Horizon View, VMware vsphere Desktop, VMware vcenter Desktop, VMware Horizon Workspace, VMware ThinApp, VMware vcenter Operations Manager for VMware Horizon View, and VMware Mirage. For solution validation, we deployed the bundled solution, which includes vsphere Desktop, View Manager, View Composer, View Persona Management, vshield Endpoint, VMware ThinApp, and the VMware Horizon View Client. The VMware Horizon website provides more information about the different license types, and which features of the Horizon family of products are included with each. VMware Horizon View Composer 6.0 VMware Horizon View Composer 6.0 works directly with vcenter Server to deploy, customize, and maintain the state of the virtual desktops when using linked-clones. Desktops provisioned as linked-clones share a common base image within a desktop pool and have a minimal storage footprint. A large number of desktops share the base image and typically access the image with sufficient frequency to justify the use EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 25
Chapter 3: Solution Overview of EMC FAST Cache, which promotes frequently accessed data to flash drives. FAST Cache provides optimal I/O response time with fewer physical disks. View Composer 6.0 also enables the following capabilities: Tiered storage support to enable the use of dedicated storage resources for the placement of both the read-only replica and linked-clone disk images An optional stand-alone View Composer server to minimize the impact of virtual desktop provisioning and maintenance operations on vcenter Server This solution uses View Composer 6.0 to deploy dedicated virtual desktops running Windows 8.1 as linked-clones. VMware Horizon View Persona Management VMware Horizon View Persona Management preserves user profiles and dynamically synchronizes them with a remote profile repository. View Persona Management does not require the configuration of Windows roaming profiles, eliminating the need to use Active Directory to manage Horizon View user profiles. View Persona Management provides the following benefits over traditional Windows roaming profiles: Horizon View dynamically downloads a remote user profile when the user logs in to a Horizon View desktop only when the user needs it. During login, Horizon View downloads only the files that Windows requires, such as user registry files. It then copies other files to the local desktop when the user or an application opens them from the local profile folder. Horizon View copies recent changes in the local profile to the remote repository at a configurable interval. During logout, Horizon View copies only the files that the user updated since the last replication to the remote repository. You can configure View Persona Management to store user profiles in a secure, centralized repository. VMware Horizon View Storage Accelerator VMware Horizon View Storage Accelerator reduces the storage load associated with virtual desktops by caching the common blocks of desktop images into local vsphere host memory. For this, Storage Accelerator uses Content Based Read Cache (CBRC), which is implemented inside the vsphere hypervisor. When enabled for the Horizon View virtual desktop pools, the host hypervisor scans the storage disk blocks to generate digests of the block contents. When these blocks are read into the hypervisor, they are cached in the host-based CBRC. Subsequent reads of blocks with the same digest are directly served from the in-memory cache. This significantly improves the performance of the virtual desktops, especially during boot storms, user login storms, or antivirus scanning storms, when a large number of blocks with identical content are read. Note: CBRC is optional and was not used for this solution. 26 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View provides end-to-end visibility into the health, performance, and efficiency of EUC environments. It enables desktop administrators to proactively ensure the best end-user experience, avert incidents, and eliminate bottlenecks. Designed for VMware Horizon View, this optimized version of vcenter Operations Manager improves IT productivity and lowers the cost of owning and operating EUC environments. Virtualization layer Key features include the following: Patented self-learning analytics that adapt to your environment and continuously analyze thousands of metrics for server, storage, network, and end-user performance Comprehensive dashboards that simplify monitoring of health and performance, identify bottlenecks, and improve the infrastructure efficiency of your entire Horizon View environment Dynamic thresholds and smart alerts that notify administrators early in the process and provide more specific information about impending performance issues Automated root-cause analysis, session lookup, and event correlation for faster troubleshooting of end-user problems Integrated approach to performance, capacity, and configuration management that supports holistic management of EUC operations Design and optimizations specifically for VMware Horizon View Availability as a virtual appliance for faster time to value The virtualization layer is a key component of any server virtualization or private cloud solution. It decouples the application resource requirements from the underlying physical resources that serve them. This enables greater flexibility in the application layer by eliminating hardware downtime for maintenance, and allows the system to physically change without affecting the hosted applications. In a server virtualization or private cloud use case, it enables multiple independent virtual machines to share the same physical hardware, rather than being directly implemented on dedicated hardware. VMware vsphere VMware vsphere is the leading virtualization platform in the industry. It provides flexibility and cost savings by enabling the consolidation of large, inefficient server farms into nimble, reliable infrastructures. The core VMware vsphere components are the VMware vsphere hypervisor and VMware vcenter Server for system management. This solution uses VMware vsphere Desktop Edition, which is intended for customers who want to purchase vsphere licenses for desktop virtualization only. vsphere Desktop provides the full range of features and functionalities of the vsphere Enterprise Plus edition, enabling customers to achieve scalability, high availability, and optimal performance for all desktop workloads. vsphere Desktop also comes with unlimited vram entitlement. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 27
Chapter 3: Solution Overview VMware vcenter Server VMware vcenter Server is a centralized platform for managing vsphere environments and provides administrators with a single interface for all aspects of monitoring, managing, and maintaining the virtual infrastructure. The server can be accessed from multiple devices. vcenter is also responsible for managing advanced features such as vsphere High Availability (HA), vsphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), vsphere vmotion, and vsphere Update Manager. VMware vsphere High Availability VMware vsphere High Availability (HA) provides uniform, cost-effective failover protection against hardware and OS outages as follows: If the virtual machine OS has an error, the virtual machine can be automatically restarted on the same hardware. If the physical hardware has a failure, the impacted virtual machines can be automatically restarted on other servers in the cluster. With vsphere HA, you can configure policies to determine which machines to restart automatically and under what conditions to perform these operations. VMware vshield Endpoint VMware vshield Endpoint offloads virtual desktop antivirus and antimalware scanning operations to a dedicated secure virtual appliance that is delivered by VMware partners. Offloading scanning operations improves desktop consolidation ratios and performance by eliminating antivirus storms, streamlining antivirus and antimalware deployment, and monitoring and satisfying compliance and audit requirements through detailed logging of antivirus and antimalware activities. Compute layer VSPEX defines the minimum amount of compute layer resources required, but allows the customer to implement the requirements by using any server hardware that meets these requirements. Chapter 5 provides details. Network layer VSPEX defines the minimum number of required network ports and provides general guidance on network architecture, but enables the customer to implement the solution with any network hardware that meets the requirements. Chapter 5 provides details. 28 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Storage layer The storage layer is a key component of any cloud infrastructure solution that serves data generated by applications and operating systems in a data center storage processing system. This VSPEX solution uses EMC VNXe3200 storage arrays to provide virtualization at the storage layer. This increases storage efficiency and management flexibility, and reduces total cost of ownership. EMC VNXe3200 Features and enhancements EMC VNXe3200 is the most affordable flash-optimized unified storage platform. It delivers innovation and enterprise capabilities for file and block storage in a single, scalable, and easy-to-use solution. Ideal for mixed workloads in physical or virtual environments, VNXe3200 combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency, management, and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today s virtualized application environments. VNXe3200 includes many features and enhancements designed and built on the success of the midrange EMC VNX family. These features and enhancements include the following: Greater efficiency with a flash-optimized hybrid array More capacity with multicore optimization with EMC Multicore Cache, Multicore RAID, and Multicore FAST Cache (MCx ) Easier administration and deployment with VNXe Base Software components including Monitoring and Reporting, Unified Snapshots, and so on VMware and Microsoft ecosystem integration Unified multiprotocol support for FC, iscsi, NFS, and CIFS VSPEX is built with VNXe to deliver even greater efficiency, performance, and scale than ever before. Flash-optimized hybrid array VNXe3200 is a flash-optimized hybrid array that provides automated tiering to deliver the best performance to your critical data, while intelligently moving less frequently accessed data to lower-cost disks. In this hybrid approach, a small percentage of flash drives in the overall system can provide a high percentage of the overall IOPS. VNXe3200 takes full advantage of the low latency of flash to deliver cost-saving optimization and high performance scalability. EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering Suite (FAST ) Cache and FAST VP tiers both block and file data across heterogeneous drives, and boosts the most active data to the flash drives, reducing costs and increasing performance. Data generally is accessed most frequently at the time it is created, so new data is stored on flash drives for the best performance. As the data ages and becomes less active over time, FAST VP can tier the data from high-performance to high-capacity drives automatically, based on customer-defined policies. This functionality has been enhanced with four times better granularity and with new FAST VP solid-state disks EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 29
Chapter 3: Solution Overview (SSDs) based on enterprise multilevel cell (emlc) technology to lower the cost per gigabyte. FAST Cache dynamically absorbs unpredicted spikes in system workloads. FAST Cache can provide immediate performance enhancement by promoting suddenly active data to from slower high-capacity drives to speedier flash drives. All VSPEX use cases benefit from the increased efficiency. VSPEX Proven Infrastructures deliver private cloud, EUC, and virtualized application solutions. With VNXe3200, customers can realize an even greater return on their investment. VNX Intel MCx code path optimization The advent of flash technology has been a catalyst in totally changing the requirements of midrange storage systems. EMC redesigned the midrange storage platform to efficiently optimize multicore CPUs to provide the most efficient storage system at the lowest cost in the market. MCx distributes all VNXe data services across all cores, as shown in Figure 4, and can dramatically improve the file performance for transactional applications like databases or virtual machines over network-attached storage (NAS). VNXe includes the first use of the Intel Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) in an EMC storage array. NTB enables direct high-speed connectivity between storage processors through a PCI Express (PCIe) interface. This eliminates external PCIe switches, saves power and space, and reduces latency and cost. Figure 4. VNXe3200 with multicore optimization VNXe Base Software The enhanced VNXe Base Software extends the EMC Unisphere easy-to-use interface to include VNX Monitoring and Reporting for validating performance and anticipating capacity requirements. The suite also includes Unisphere Central for centrally managing thousands of VNX and VNXe systems. 30 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Virtualization ecosystem management Chapter 3: Solution Overview VMware vsphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness VMware vsphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness (VASA) is a VMware-defined API that displays storage information through vcenter. Integration between VASA technology and VNX makes storage management in a virtualized environment a seamless experience. VMware vsphere Storage APIs for Array Integration VMware vsphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) offloads VMware storagerelated functions from the server to the storage system, enabling more efficient use of server and network resources for increased performance and consolidation. EMC Storage Analytics for VNXe EMC Storage Analytics (ESA) for VNXe delivers a storage-only version of VMware vcenter Operations Manager with a built-in VNXe connector that provides detailed analytics, relationships, and unique icons for EMC arrays and components. EMC Storage Integrator EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is targeted towards the Windows and application administrator. ESI is easy to use, delivers end-to end monitoring, and is hypervisor agnostic. Administrators can provision in both virtual and physical environments for a Windows platform and troubleshoot by viewing the topology of an application from the underlying hypervisor to the storage. Virtualization management EMC Virtual Storage Integrator EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) is a no-charge plug-in for VMware vcenter that is available to all VMware users with EMC storage. VSPEX customers can use VSI to simplify management of virtualized storage. VMware administrators can gain visibility into their VNXe storage by using the familiar vcenter Web Client interface. With VSI, IT administrators can do more work in less time. VSI offers unmatched access control that enables you to efficiently manage and delegate storage tasks with confidence. With VSI, you can perform daily management tasks with up to 90 percent fewer clicks and up to 10 times higher productivity. We used the following VSI features during validation testing of this solution: Storage Viewer Extends the functionality of the vsphere Web Client to facilitate the discovery and identification of VNXe storage devices that are allocated to VMware vsphere hosts and virtual machines. Storage Viewer presents the underlying storage details to the virtual data center administrator, merging the data of several different storage mapping tools into a few seamless vsphere Web Client views. Unified Storage Management Simplifies storage administration of the EMC VNXe storage. It enables VMware administrators to seamlessly provision new Network File System (NFS) and Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) datastores and raw device mapping (RDM) volumes within the vsphere Web Client. It also enables desktop cloning using VNXe NAS technology with integration to Horizon View. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 31
Chapter 3: Solution Overview The EMC VSI for VMware vsphere Web Client product guides on EMC Online Support provide more information. VMware Storage APIs for Array Integration VMware vsphere Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) offload VMware storagerelated functions from the server to the storage system, that enable more efficient use of server and network resources for increased performance and consolidation. VMware Storage APIs for Storage Awareness VMware vsphere Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) is a VMware-defined API that displays storage information through vcenter. Integration between VASA technology and VNXe makes storage management in a virtualized environment a seamless experience. EMC VNXe Snapshots EMC VNXe Snapshots is a software feature that creates point-in-time data copies. You can use VNXe Snapshots for data backups, software development and testing, repurposing, data validation, and local rapid restores. VNXe Snapshots supports 256 writeable snapshots per LUN pool. VNXe Snapshots uses redirect on write (ROW) technology. ROW redirects new writes destined for the primary LUN to a new location in the storage pool. VNXe Snapshots support consistency groups. You can combine several pool LUNs into a consistency group and snap them concurrently. When a snapshot of a consistency group is initiated, all writes to the member LUNs are held until the snapshots are created. Typically, consistency groups are used for LUNs that belong to the same application. EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning enables organizations to reduce storage costs by increasing capacity utilization, simplifying storage management, and reducing application downtime. Virtual Provisioning also helps companies to reduce power and cooling requirements and reduce capital expenditures. Virtual Provisioning provides pool-based storage provisioning by implementing LUN pools that can be either thin or thick. Thin LUNs provide on-demand storage that maximizes the utilization of your storage by allocating storage only as needed. Thick LUNs provide high performance and predictable performance for your applications. Both types of LUNs benefit from the ease-of-use features of pool-based provisioning. Pools and LUN pools are the building blocks for advanced data services such as FAST VPand VNXe Snapshots. VNXe file shares In many environments, a common location is important to have for storing files accessed by many users. CIFS or NFS file shares, available from a file server, provide this ability. VNXe storage arrays can provide this service along with centralized management, client integration, advanced security options, and efficiency improvement features. ROBO 32 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Data protection layer Chapter 3: Solution Overview Organizations with remote office and branch offices (ROBO) often prefer to locate data and applications close to the users for better performance and lower latency. In these environments, IT departments need to balance the benefits of local support with the need to maintain central control. Local systems and storage should be easy for local personnel to administer, but also support remote management and flexible aggregation tools that minimize the demands on local resources. With VSPEX, you can accelerate the deployment of applications at remote offices and branch offices. Customers can also use Unisphere Remote to consolidate monitoring, system alerts, and reporting of hundreds of locations while maintaining operational simplicity and unified storage functionality for local managers. Backup and recovery provides data protection by backing up data files or volumes to defined schedules and restoring data from the backup if recovery is needed after a disaster. EMC Avamar delivers the protection confidence needed to accelerate deployment of VSPEX end-user computing solutions. Avamar empowers administrators to centrally backup and manage policies and enduser computing infrastructure components, while allowing end users to efficiently recover their own files from a simple and intuitive web-based interface. By moving only new, unique sub-file data segments, Avamar delivers fast daily full backups, with up to 90 percent reduction in backup times, while reducing the required daily network bandwidth by up to 99 percent. All Avamar recoveries are single-step for simplicity. With Avamar, you can choose to back up virtual desktops using either image-level or guest-based operations. Avamar runs the deduplication engine at the virtual machine disk (VMDK) level for image backup and at the file-level for guest-based backups. Image-level protection enables backup clients to make a copy of all the virtual disks and configuration files associated with the particular virtual desktop in the event of hardware failure, corruption, or accidental deletion. Avamar significantly reduces the backup and recovery time of the virtual desktop by using change block tracking (CBT) on both backup and recovery. Guest-based protection runs like traditional backup solutions. Use guest-based backup on any virtual machine running an OS for which an Avamar backup client is available. It enables fine-grained control over the content and inclusion and exclusion patterns. Use it to prevent data loss due to user errors, such as accidental file deletion. Installing the desktop/laptop agent on the system to be protected enables end-user, self-service data recovery. The EMC Backup and Recovery for VSPEX for End User Computing with VMware Horizon View Design and Implementation Guide provides more information. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 33
Chapter 3: Solution Overview Security layer RSA SecurID two-factor authentication can provide enhanced security for the VSPEX end-user computing environment by requiring the user to authenticate with two pieces of information, collectively called a passphrase. SecurID functionality is managed through RSA Authentication Manager, which also controls administrative functions such as token assignment to users, user management, and high availability. The Securing EMC VSPEX End-User Computing with RSA SecurID: VMware Horizon View 5.2 and VMware vsphere 5.1 for up to 2,000 Virtual Desktops provides details for planning the security layer. VMware Horizon Workspace solution VMware Horizon Workspace combines access to applications and View desktops into a single, aggregated workspace, and provides the flexibility for employees to access the workspace on any device, no matter where they are based. Horizon Workspace reduces the complexity of administration by enabling IT to centrally deliver, manage, and secure these assets across devices. With some added infrastructure, the VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View solution supports Horizon Workspace deployments. 34 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Chapter 4 Sizing the Solution This chapter presents the following topics: Overview... 36 Reference workload... 36 VSPEX storage building blocks... 37 VSPEX end-user computing validated maximums... 38 Choosing the right reference architecture... 41 Summary... 45 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 35
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Overview This chapter describes how to design a VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View solution and how to size it to fit the customer s needs. It introduces the concepts of a reference workload, building blocks, and validated EUC maximums, and describes how to use these to design your solution. Table 5 outlines the highlevel steps you need to complete when sizing the solution. Table 5. VSPEX EUC: Design process Step Action 1 Use the Customer Sizing Worksheet in Appendix A to collect the customer requirements for the EUC environment. 2 Use the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX reference architecture for your EUC solution, based on the customer requirements collected in Step 1. Note: If the Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size the EUC solution using the guidelines in this chapter. Reference workload VSPEX defines a reference workload to represent a unit of measure for quantifying the resources in the solution reference architectures. By comparing the customer s actual usage to this reference workload, you can extrapolate which reference architecture to use as the basis for the customer s VSPEX deployment. For VSPEX EUC solutions, the reference workload is defined as a single virtual desktop the reference virtual desktop with the workload characteristics indicated in Table 6. The equivalent number of reference virtual desktops for a particular resource requirement is determined by translating the resource requirement to the number of reference virtual desktops needed to meet that requirement. Table 6. Reference virtual desktop characteristics Characteristic Virtual desktop OS Value Microsoft Windows 8.1 Enterprise Edition (32-bit) SP1 Virtual processors per virtual desktop* 1 RAM per virtual desktop Average IOPS per virtual desktop at steady state 2 GB 10 * The available storage capacity is calculated based on drives used in this solution. You can create more space by adding drives or using larger capacity drives of the same class. 36 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution This desktop definition is based on user data that resides on shared storage. The I/O profile is defined by using a test framework that runs all desktops concurrently with a steady load generated by the constant use of office-based applications such as browsers and office productivity software. VSPEX storage building blocks Building block approach Sizing the storage system to meet virtual server IOPS is a complicated process. When an I/O reaches the storage array, several components, such as SPs, back-end dynamic random access memory (DRAM) cache, FAST Cache, FAST VP (if used), and disks, serve that I/O. Customers must consider various factors when planning and scaling their storage system to balance capacity, performance, and cost for their applications. VSPEX uses a building block approach to reduce complexity. A building block is a set of disk spindles that can support a specific number of virtual desktops in the VSPEX architecture. Each building block combines several disk spindles to create a storage pool that supports the needs of the EUC environment. Two SSD drives for FAST Cache are configured for storage pools, which enhance metadata operations and performance. The storage layout building blocks for the solution are in addition to the storage required by the VSPEX private cloud that supports the solution s infrastructure services. For more information about the VSPEX private cloud storage pool, refer to the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading. Validated building block for 100 virtual desktops One building block is currently verified on the VNXe series and provides a flexible solution for VSPEX sizing: This building block can contains up to 100 virtual desktops with 5 SAS drives in a FAST Cache-enabled storage pool, as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. Storage layout building block for 100 virtual desktops This is the smallest building block that is qualified for the VSPEX EUC architecture. Expanding existing VSPEX end-user computing environments The EMC VSPEX End-User Computing solution supports a flexible implementation model where it is easy to expand your environment as the needs of the business change. You can combine the building block configurations presented in the solution to form larger implementations. For example, the 500-desktop configuration can be realized by starting with that configuration, or by starting with the 100-desktop configuration and expanding it to 200, 300, or 400-desktops when needed. With 5 SAS drives in a EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 37
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution FAST Cache-enabled storage pool, the solution can support 100-desktops. By expanding the existing storage pool to 10 SAS drives, data is automatically rebalanced to all disks, and 200 desktops can eventually be supported. Each time the storage pool is expanded with an extra 5 SAS drives, the solution can support another 100-desktops. Therefore, the 500-desktop configuration can be implemented all at once or gradually by expanding the storage resources as you need them. Table 7 lists the disks required to support the reference architectures described in this, excluding hot spare needs. Table 7. Number of disks required for 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 virtual desktops Virtual desktops Flash drives (FAST Cache) SAS drives 100 2 5 200 2 10 300 2 15 400 2 20 500 2 25 VSPEX end-user computing validated maximums We validated the VSPEX EUC configurations on VNXe3200 platforms. Each platform has different capabilities for processors, memory, and disks. For each array, EMC recommends a maximum VSPEX EUC configuration. EMC supports smaller implementations using the building block method described in VSPEX storage building blocks. The validated disk layouts were created to provide support for a specified number of virtual desktops at a defined performance level. You can modify a validated storage layout by adding drives for greater capacity and performance and adding features, such as FAST Cache for desktops and FAST VP for improved user data performance. However, decreasing the number of recommended drives or stepping down an array type can result in lower IOPS per desktop and a less satisfactory user experience because of higher response times. VNXe3200 Core storage layout Figure 6 illustrates the layout of the disks that are required to store 500 desktop virtual machines. This layout does not include space for user profile data. VNXe shared file systems provides more information. 38 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Figure 6. Core storage layout for 500 virtual desktops using VNXe3200 Core storage layout overview The solution uses the following core configuration: Four 600 GB SAS disks are used for the VNXe OE. One 600 GB SAS disk and one 200 GB flash drive are used for hot spares. Twenty-five 600 GB SAS disks in a RAID 5 group (Storage Pool 0) are used to store virtual desktops. FAST Cache is enabled for the entire pool. For file storage, five datastores of 368 GB and two datastores of 50 GB each are provisioned from the pool to present to the vsphere servers as eight NFS datastores. For block storage, five LUNs of 368 GB each and two LUNs of 50 GB each are provisioned from the pool to present to the vsphere servers as eight VMFS datastores. Note: Two 50 GB datastores are used to save replica disks. Two 200 GB flash drives are used for EMC VNXe FAST Cache. There are no LUNs that users can configure on these drives. Optional user data storage layout In solution validation testing, we allocated storage space for user data on the VNXe array as shown in Figure 7. This storage is in addition to the core storage shown in Figure 6. If storage for user data exists elsewhere in the production environment, this additional storage is not required. Note: Disks shaded gray are part of the core storage layout and are required. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 39
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Figure 7. Optional storage layout for 500 virtual desktops using VNXe3200 Optional storage layout overview The solution uses the following optional configuration: Five 600 GB SAS disks in a RAID 5 group (Storage Pool 2) are used to store infrastructure virtual machines. A 1 TB LUN or NFS file system is provisioned from the pool to present to the vsphere servers as a VMFS or NFS datastore. Ten 600 GB SAS disks in a RAID 5 group (Storage Pool 1) are used to store user data and profiles. Two CIFS file systems are created from the pool. One 600 GB SAS disk is used for a hot spare. If multiple drive types are implemented in the same pool, FAST VP should be enabled to automatically tier data to balance differences in performance and capacity. VNXe shared file systems Virtual desktops use two shared file systems one for the VMware Horizon View Persona Management repositories and one to redirect user storage that resides in home directories. In general, redirecting user data out of the base image to VNXe for File enables centralized administration, data protection, and makes the desktops more stateless. Each file system is exported to the environment through a CIFS share. Each Persona Management repository share and home directory share serves 500 users. 40 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Choosing the right reference architecture Introduction to the Customer Sizing Worksheet Using the Customer Sizing Worksheet To choose the appropriate reference architecture for a customer environment, determine the resource requirements of the environment and then translate these requirements to an equivalent number of reference virtual desktops that have the characteristics defined in Table 6. This section describes how to use the Customer Sizing Worksheet to simplify the sizing calculations and additional factors you should take into consideration when deciding which architecture to deploy. The Customer Sizing Worksheet helps you to assess the customer environment and calculate the sizing requirements of the environment. Table 8 shows a completed worksheet for an example customer environment. Appendix A provides a blank Customer Sizing Worksheet that you can print out and use to help size the solution for a customer. Table 8. Customer Sizing Worksheet example User type vcpus Memory IOPS Heavy users Moderate users Typical users Resource requirements Equivalent reference virtual desktops Resource requirements Equivalent reference virtual desktops Resource requirements Equivalent reference virtual desktops Equivalent reference virtual desktops No. of users Total reference desktops 2 8 GB 12 --- --- --- 2 4 2 4 25 100 2 4 GB 8 --- --- --- 2 2 1 2 50 100 1 2 GB 8 --- --- --- 1 1 1 1 200 200 Total 400 To complete the Customer Sizing Worksheet, follow these steps: 1. Identify the user types planned for migration into the VSPEX EUC environment and the number of users of each type. 2. For each user type, determine the compute resource requirements in terms of vcpus, memory (GB), storage performance (IOPS), and storage capacity. 3. For each resource type and user type, determine the equivalent reference virtual desktops requirements that is, the number of reference virtual desktops required to meet the specified resource requirements. 4. Determine the total number of reference desktops needed from the resource pool for the customer environment. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 41
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution Determining the resource requirements Consider the following when determining resource requirements: CPU The reference virtual desktop outlined in Table 6 assumes that most desktop applications are optimized for a single CPU. If one type of user requires a desktop with multiple virtual CPUs, modify the proposed virtual desktop count to account for the additional resources. For example, if you virtualize 100 desktops, but 20 users require two CPUs instead of one, your pool must provide 120 virtual desktops of capability. Memory Memory plays a key role in ensuring application functionality and performance. Each group of desktops will have different targets for the available memory that is considered acceptable. Like the CPU calculation, if a group of users requires additional memory resources, simply adjust the number of planned desktops to accommodate the additional resource requirements. For example, if there are 200 desktops to be virtualized, but each one needs 4 GB of memory instead of the 2 GB that the reference virtual desktop provides, plan for 400 reference virtual desktops. IOPS The storage performance requirements for desktops are usually the least understood aspect of performance. The reference virtual desktop uses a workload generated by an industry-recognized tool to run a wide variety of office productivity applications that should be representative of the majority of virtual desktop implementations. Storage capacity The storage capacity requirement for a desktop can vary widely depending on the types of applications in use and specific customer policies. The virtual desktops in this solution rely on additional shared storage for user profile data and user documents. This requirement is an optional component that can be met by the addition of specific storage hardware defined in the solution. It can also be met by using existing file shares in the environment. 42 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Determining the equivalent reference virtual desktops Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution With all of the resources defined, determine the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops by using the relationships listed in Table 9. Round all values up to the closest whole number. Table 9. Reference virtual desktop resources Resource Value for reference virtual desktop Relationship between requirements and equivalent reference virtual desktops CPU 1 Equivalent reference virtual desktops = Resource requirements Memory 2 Equivalent reference virtual desktops = Resource requirements/2 IOPS 10 Equivalent reference virtual desktops = Resource requirements/10 For example, the heavy user type in Table 8 requires 2 virtual CPUs, 12 IOPS, and 8 GB of memory for each desktop. This translates to 2 reference virtual desktops of CPU, 4 reference virtual desktops of memory, and 2 reference virtual desktops of IOPS. The number of reference virtual desktops required for each user type then equals the maximum required for an individual resource. For example, the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops for the heavy user type in Table 8 is four, as this number will meet the all resource requirements for IOPS, vcpu, and memory. To calculate the total number of reference desktops for a user type, multiply the number of equivalent reference virtual desktops for that user type by the number of users. Determining the total reference virtual desktops After the worksheet is completed for each user type that the user wants to migrate into the virtual infrastructure, compute the total number of reference virtual desktops required in the resource pool by calculating the sum of the total reference virtual desktops for all user types. In the example in Table 8, the total is 400 virtual desktops. Selecting a reference architecture The VSPEX EUC reference architectures define discrete resource pool sizes that is, a pool containing 500 reference virtual desktops. The total reference virtual desktops value from the completed worksheet indicates which reference architecture would be adequate for the customer requirements. In the example in Table 8, the customer requires 400 virtual desktops of capability from the pool. Therefore, the 400 virtual desktop resource pool provides sufficient resources for current needs and room for growth. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 43
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution However, in addition to the validated desktop numbers considere other factors to when deciding which reference architecture to deploy. For example: Concurrency The reference workload used to validate this solution assumes that all desktop users will be active at all times. We tested the 400-desktop reference architecture with 400 desktops, all generating workload in parallel, all booted at the same time, and so on. If the customer expects to have 800 users, but only 50 percent of them will be logged on at any given time due to time zone differences or alternate shifts, the 400 active users out of the total 800 users can be supported by the 400-desktop architecture. Heavier desktop workloads The reference workload is considered a typical office worker load. However, some users might have a more active profile. If a company has 400 users and, due to custom corporate applications, each user generates 15 IOPS as compared to the 10 IOPS used in the reference workload, the customer will need 6,000 IOPS (400 users * 15 IOPS per desktop). In this example, the 500-desktop configuration would be underpowered because it has been rated to 5,000 IOPS (500 desktops x 10 IOPS per desktop). This customer should consider moving up to the 1,000- desktop solution. Fine tuning hardware resources In most cases, the Customer Sizing Worksheet suggests a reference architecture adequate for the customer s needs. In other cases, you might want to further customize the hardware resources. A complete description of system architecture is beyond the scope of this document. Storage resources In some applications, there is a need to separate some storage workloads from other workloads. The storage layouts for the reference architectures put all of the virtual desktops in a single resource pool. To achieve workload separation, deploy additional disk drives for each group that needs workload isolation and add them to a dedicated pool. It is not appropriate to reduce the size of the main storage resource pool to support isolation or to reduce the capability of the pool without additional guidance beyond this. We designed the storage layouts for the solution to balance many different factors, including high availability, performance, and data protection. Changing the components of the pool can have significant and difficult-to-predict impacts on other areas of the system. 44 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Server resources Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution For the server resources in the solution, it is possible to customize the hardware resources more effectively. To do this, first total the resource requirements for the server components as shown in Table 10. Table 10. Server resource component totals User types Heavy users Moderate users Typical users Resource requirements Resource requirements Resource requirements vcpus Memory (GB) Number of users Total CPU resources Total memory resources 2 8 100 200 800 2 4 100 200 400 1 2 300 300 600 Total 700 1,800 The example in Table 10 requires 700 virtual vcpus and 1,800 GB of memory. As the reference architectures assume five desktops per physical processor core and no memory over-provisioning, this translates to 140 physical processor cores and 1,800 GB of memory. In contrast, the 1,000 virtual desktop resource pool used in the solution calls for 2,000 GB of memory and at least 125 physical processor cores. This means that the solution can be effectively implemented with fewer server resources. Note: Keep high availability requirements in mind when customizing the resource pool hardware. Summary The requirements stated in the solution are what EMC considers the minimum set of resources to handle the workloads based on the stated definition of a reference virtual desktop. In any customer implementation, the load of a system varies over time as users interact with the system. If the customer virtual desktops differ significantly from the reference definition and vary in the same resource group, you may need to add more of that resource to the system. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 45
Chapter 4: Sizing the Solution 46 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Chapter 5 Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices This chapter presents the following topics: Overview... 48 Server design considerations... 48 Network design considerations... 54 Storage design considerations... 59 High availability and failover... 62 Validation test profile... 64 Antivirus and antimalware platform profile... 66 VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View platform profile... 67 VSPEX for VMware Horizon Workspace solution... 68 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 47
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Overview This chapter describes best practices and considerations for designing the VSPEX EUC solution. For more information on deployment best practices of various components of the solution, refer to the vendor-specific documentation. Server design considerations VSPEX solutions are designed to run on a wide variety of server platforms. VSPEX defines the minimum CPU and memory resources required, but not a specific server type or configuration. The customer can use any server platform and configuration that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements. For example, Figure 8 shows how a customer could implement the same server requirements by using either white-box servers or high-end servers. Both implementations achieve the required number of processor cores and amount of RAM but the number and type of servers differ. Figure 8. Compute layer flexibility 48 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices The choice of a server platform is not only based on the technical requirements of the environment, but also on the supportability of the platform, existing relationships with the server provider, advanced performance and management features, and many other factors. For example: From a virtualization perspective, if a system s workload is well understood, features such as memory ballooning and transparent page sharing can reduce the aggregate memory requirement. If the virtual machine pool does not have a high level of peak or concurrent usage, you can reduce the number of vcpus. Conversely, if the applications being deployed are highly computational, you might need to increase the number of CPUs and amount of memory. At a minimum, the server infrastructure must meet the following requirements: Sufficient CPU cores and memory to support the required number and types of virtual machines Sufficient network connections to enable redundant connectivity to the system switches Sufficient excess capacity to enable the environment to withstand a server failure and failover Server best practices For this solution, EMC recommends that you consider the following best practices for the server layer: Use identical server units Use identical or compatible servers. VSPEX implements hypervisor level high-availability technologies that may require similar instruction sets on the underlying physical hardware. By implementing VSPEX on identical server units, you can minimize compatibility problems in this area. Use recent processor technologies For new deployments, use recent revisions of common processor technologies, which will perform as well as, or better than, the systems used to validate the solution. Implement high availability to accommodate single server failures Implement the high-availability features available in the virtualization layer to ensure that the compute layer has sufficient resources to accommodate at least single server failures. This also allows you to implement minimal-downtime upgrades. High availability and failover provides further details. Note: When implementing hypervisor layer high availability, the largest virtual machine you can create is constrained by the smallest physical server in the environment. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 49
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Monitor resource use and adapt as needed In any running system, monitor the use of resources and adapt as needed. For example, the reference virtual desktop and required hardware resources in this solution assume that there are no more than five virtual CPUs for each physical processor core (5:1 ratio). In most cases, this provides an appropriate level of resources for the hosted virtual desktops. However, this ratio may not be appropriate in other cases. EMC recommends monitoring CPU utilization at the hypervisor layer to determine if more resources are required and then adding as needed. VNXe shared file systems hardware Table 11 identifies the server hardware and the configurations validated in this solution. Table 11. Server hardware Servers for virtual desktops Configuration CPU 1 vcpu per desktop (5 desktops per core) 100 cores across all servers for 500 virtual desktops Memory 2 GB RAM per virtual machine 1 TB RAM across all servers for 500 virtual desktops 2 GB RAM reservation per vsphere host Network 6 x 1 GbE NICs per server for 500 virtual desktops Notes: The 5:1 vcpu to physical core ratio applies to the reference workload defined in this. When deploying VMware vshield Endpoint or EMC Avamar, add CPU and RAM as needed for components that are CPU or RAM intensive. Refer to the relevant product documentation for information on vshield Endpoint and Avamar resource requirements. However many servers you deploy to meet the minimum requirements in Table 11, the infrastructure requires one additional server to support VMware vsphere High Availability (HA). 50 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices vsphere memory virtualization VMware vsphere has several advanced features that help optimize performance and overall use of resources. This section describes the key features for memory management and considerations for using them with your VSPEX solution. Figure 9 illustrates how a single hypervisor consumes memory from a pool of resources. vsphere memory management features such as memory overcommitment, transparent page sharing, and memory ballooning can reduce total memory usage and increase consolidation ratios in the hypervisor. Figure 9. Hypervisor memory consumption Memory virtualization techniques enable the vsphere hypervisor to abstract physical host resources, such as memory, to provide resource isolation across multiple virtual machines, while avoiding resource exhaustion. In cases where advanced processors (such as Intel processors with EPT support) are deployed, memory abstraction takes place within the CPU. Otherwise, it occurs within the hypervisor itself using a feature known as shadow page tables. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 51
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices vsphere provides the following memory management techniques: Over commited memory Over commited memory occurs when more memory is allocated to virtual machines than is physically present in a VMware vsphere host. Using sophisticated techniques such as ballooning and transparent page sharing, vsphere is able to handle memory over-commitment without any performance degradation. However, if more memory is being actively used than is present on the server, vsphere might resort to swapping portions of a virtual machine's memory. Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) vsphere uses a NUMA load-balancer to assign a home node to a virtual machine. Memory access is local and provides the best performance possible because memory for the virtual machine is allocated from the home node. Applications that do not directly support NUMA also benefit from this feature. Transparent page sharing Virtual machines running similar operating systems and applications typically have identical sets of memory content. Page sharing allows the hypervisor to reclaim the redundant copies and return them to the host s free memory pool for reuse. Memory compression vsphere uses memory compression to store pages that would otherwise be swapped out to disk through host swapping, in a compression cache located in the main memory. Memory ballooning This relieves host resource exhaustion by allocating free pages from the virtual machine to the host for reuse, with little to no impact on the application s performance. Hypervisor swapping This causes the host to force arbitrary virtual machine pages out to disk. The VMware white paper Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware vsphere 5.0 provides further information. Memory configuration guidelines Proper sizing and configuration of the solution requires care when configuring server memory. This section provides guidelines for allocating memory to virtual machines and takes into account vsphere overhead and the virtual machine memory settings. vsphere memory overhead The memory space overhead associated with virtualizing memory resources has two components: The system overhead for the VMkernel Additional overhead for each virtual machine The overhead for the VMkernel is fixed, whereas the amount of additional memory for each virtual machine depends on the number of virtual CPUs and the amount of memory configured for the guest OS. 52 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Virtual machine memory settings Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Figure 10 shows the memory settings parameters in a virtual machine, including: Configured memory Physical memory allocated to the virtual machine at the time of creation Reserved memory Memory that is guaranteed to the virtual machine Touched memory Memory that is active or in use by the virtual machine Swappable Memory that can be deallocated from the virtual machine if the host is under memory pressure from other virtual machines using ballooning, compression, or swapping Figure 10. Virtual machine memory settings EMC recommends that you follow these best practices for virtual machine memory settings: Do not disable the default memory reclamation techniques. These lightweight processes provide flexibility with minimal impact to workloads. Intelligently size memory allocation for virtual machines. Over allocation of memory wastes resources, while under allocation causes performance impacts that can affect other virtual machines sharing resources. Over-committing can lead to resource exhaustion if the hypervisor cannot procure memory resources. In severe cases, when hypervisor swapping occurs, virtual machine performance will likely be adversely affected. Having performance baselines of your virtual machine workloads assists in this process. Allocating memory to virtual machines Server capacity is required for the following two purposes in the solution: To support the required infrastructure services, such as authentication/authorization, DNS, and database services For further details on the hosting requirements for these infrastructure services, refer to the VSPEX Private Cloud Proven Infrastructure Guide listed in Essential reading. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 53
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices To support the virtualized desktop infrastructure In this solution, each virtual desktop is assigned two GB of memory, as defined in Table 6. The solution was validated with statically assigned memory and no over-commitment of memory resources. If memory over-commit is used in a real-world environment, regularly monitor the system memory usage and associated page file I/O activity to ensure that a memory shortfall does not cause unexpected results. Network design considerations VSPEX solutions define minimum network requirements and provide general guidance on network architecture, yet enables customers to choose any network hardware that meets the requirements. If additional bandwidth is needed, it is important to add capability at both the storage array and the hypervisor host to meet the requirements. The options for network connectivity on the server depend on the type of server. VNXe storage arrays have a number of included network ports and have the option to add ports using EMC UltraFlex I/O modules. For reference purposes in the validated environment, EMC assumes that each virtual desktop generates 10 I/Os per second with an average size of 4 KB. This means that each virtual desktop is generating at least 40 KB/s of traffic on the storage network. For an environment rated for 500 virtual desktops, this means a minimum of approximately 20 MB/sec, which is well within the bounds of modern networks. However, this does not consider other operations. For example, additional bandwidth is needed for the following: User network traffic Virtual desktop migration Administrative and management operations The requirements for each of these operations depend on how the environment is used. It is not practical to provide specific numbers in this context. However, the networks described for the reference architectures in this solution should be sufficient to handle average workloads for these operations. Regardless of the network traffic requirements, always have at least two physical network connections that are shared by a logical network to that ensure a single link failure does not affect the availability of the system. The network should be designed so that the aggregate bandwidth, in the event of a failure, is sufficient to accommodate the full workload. At a minimum, the network infrastructure must meet the following requirements: Redundant network links for the hosts, switches, and storage Support for link aggregation Traffic isolation based on industry best practices 54 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Validated network hardware Table 12 identifies the hardware resources for the network infrastructure validated in this solution. Table 12. Minimum switching capacity for block and file Storage type Block File Configuration iscsi 2 physical LAN switches 2 x 10GbE ports per VMWare vsphere Server 1 GbE port per SP for management. FC 2 physical LAN switches, 2 physical SAN switches 2 x 1 FC ports per VMWare vsphere Server 1 GbE port per SP for management 2 physical switches 4 x 10 GbE ports per VMware vsphere server 1 GbE port per SP for management 2 x 10 GbE ports per SP for data Notes: The solution may use 1 Gb network infrastructure, provided that the underlying requirements around bandwidth and redundancy are fulfilled. This configuration assumes that the VSPEX implementation is using rack mounted servers; for implementations based on blade servers, ensure that similar bandwidth and high availability capabilities are available. Network configuration guidelines This section provides guidelines for setting up a redundant, highly available network configuration. The guidelines take into account network redundancy, link aggregation, traffic isolation, and jumbo frames. The configuration examples are for IP-based networks, but similar best practices and design principles apply for the FC storage network option. Network redundancy The infrastructure network requires redundant network links for each vsphere host, the storage array, the switch interconnect ports, and the switch uplink ports. This configuration provides both redundancy and additional network bandwidth. This configuration is also required regardless of whether the network infrastructure for the solution already exists or is deployed with other solution components. Figure 11 and Figure 12 provide examples of highly available network topology. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 55
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Figure 11. Highly available network design example Link aggregation EMC VNXe arrays provide network high availability or redundancy by using link aggregation. Link aggregation enables multiple active Ethernet connections to appear as a single link with a single MAC address, and potentially multiple IP addresses 3. In this solution, we configured the Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) on the VNXe array to combine multiple Ethernet ports into a single virtual device. If a link is lost in the Ethernet port, the link fails over to another port. We distributed all network traffic across the active links. 3 A link aggregation resembles an Ethernet channel but uses the LACP IEEE 802.3ad standard. This standard supports link aggregations with two or more ports. All ports in the aggregation must have the same speed and be full duplex. 56 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Traffic isolation Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices This solution uses virtual local area networks (VLANs) to segregate network traffic of various types to improve throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security. VLANs segregate network traffic to enable traffic of different types to move over isolated networks to move over isolated networks. In some cases, physical isolation may be required for regulatory or policy compliance reasons. In many cases, logical isolation by using VLANs is sufficient. This solution calls for a minimum of three VLANs: Client access Storage (for iscsi and NFS) Management Figure 12 shows the VLANs and the network connectivity requirements for a blockbased VNXe array. Figure 12. Required networks for block storage EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 57
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Figure 13 shows the network connectivity requirements for a file-based VNXe array using 10 GbE network connections. Create a similar topology when using 1 GbE network connections. Figure 13. Required networks for file storage The client access network is for users of the system, or clients, to communicate with the infrastructure. The storage network is used for communication between the compute layer and the storage layer. The management network provides administrators with dedicated access to the management connections on the storage array, network switches, and hosts. Some best practices call for additional network isolation for cluster traffic, virtualization layer communication, and other features. These additional networks can be implemented but are not required. Jumbo frames This solution requires MTU set at 9,000 (jumbo frames) for efficient storage and migration traffic. 58 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Storage design considerations Overview The solution includes layouts for the disks used in validation testing. Each layout balances the available storage capacity with the performance capability of the drives. There are several layers to consider when designing the storage layouts. Specifically, the array has a collection of disks that are assigned to a storage pool. From that pool, you can provision datastores to the VMware vsphere Cluster. Each layer has a specific configuration that is defined for the solution and documented in the EMC VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View 6.0 and VMware vsphere for up to 500 Virtual Desktops Implementation Guide. It is generally acceptable to replace drive types with a type that has more capacity with the same performance characteristic or with types that have higher performance characteristics and the same capacity. It is also acceptable to change the placement of drives in the drive shelves to comply with updated or new drive shelf arrangements. Where there is a need to deviate from the proposed number and type of drives or the specified pool and datastore layouts, ensure that the target layout delivers the same or greater resources to the system. Validated storage hardware and configuration vsphere supports more than one method of using storage when hosting virtual machines. We tested the configurations described in Table 13 and Table 14 by using NFS or FC. The storage layouts adhere to all current best practices. Customers or architects with the necessary training and background can make modifications based on their understanding of the system s usage and load, if required. Table 13. Storage hardware Purpose VNXe shared storage for virtual desktops Optional for user data Optional for infrastructure storage and vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View Hot spare Configuration Common: 1 GbE interface per SP for management 2 x 10 GbE FC ports per SP (block variant only) For 500 virtual desktops: 25 x 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks 2 x 200 GB, 2.5-inch flash drives For 500 virtual desktops: 10 x 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks For 500 virtual desktops: 5 x 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks For 500 virtual desktops: 2 x 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks 1 x 200 GB, 2.5-inch flash drives EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 59
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Note: EMC recommends configuring at least one hot spare for every 30 drives of a specified type. The recommendations in Table 14 do not include hot spares. Table 14. Storage configuration Purpose Configuration Number of drives Drive type VNXe shared storage for virtual desktops VNXe LUNs for virtual desktops VNXe datastores for virtual desktops VNXe optional storage for user data 500 virtual desktops 25 500 GB SAS Configuration Number of LUNs LUN size (GB) 500 virtual desktops 1 50 5 360 Configuration Number of datastores Datastore size (GB) 500 virtual desktops 1 50 5 360 Configuration Number of datastores Drive type 500 virtual desktops 10 500 GB SAS Configuration Number of CIFS shares CIFS share size (TB) VNXe CIFS share for user data 500 virtual desktops 2 1 vsphere storage virtualization This section provides guidelines for setting up the storage layer of the solution to provide high availability and the expected level of performance. VMware vsphere provides host-level storage virtualization. It virtualizes the physical storage and presents the virtualized storage to the virtual machine. A virtual machine stores its OS and all other files related to the virtual machine activities in a virtual disk. The virtual disk can be one file or multiple files. VMware uses a virtual SCSI controller to present the virtual disk to the guest OS running inside the virtual machine. The virtual disk resides in either a VMware vstorage VMFS datastore or an NFS datastore. An additional option, raw device mapping (RDM), allows the virtual infrastructure to connect a physical device directly to a virtual machine. Figure 14 shows the various VMware virtual disk types as follows: NFS VMware supports using NFS file systems from an external NAS storage system or device as a virtual machine datastore. VMFS A cluster file system that provides storage virtualization optimized for virtual machines. VMFS can be deployed over any SCSI-based local or network storage. RDM This uses a FC or iscsi protocol and allows a virtual machine direct access to a volume on the physical storage. 60 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Figure 14. VMware virtual disk types VNXe Virtual provisioning VNXe Virtual Provisioning enables you to expand the capacity of a storage pool from the Unisphere GUI after disks are physically attached to the system. After the pool is expanded, VNXe rebalances allocated data elements across all member drives to use the new drives. The rebalance function starts automatically and runs in the background after an expand action. VNXe Virtual Provisioning LUN pools also support a variety of additional features, such as online LUN expansion and the user capacity threshold setting. For more information on these features, refer to the EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning Applied Technology White Paper. LUN expansion Use pool LUN expansion to increase the capacity of existing LUNs. It allows for provisioning larger capacity as business needs grow. VNXe enables you to expand LUN pools without disrupting user access. You can expand a LUN pool with a few simple clicks and the expanded capacity is immediately available. However, you cannot expand a LUN pool if it is part of a data protection or LUN migration operation. For example, you cannot expand snapshot LUNs or migrating LUNs. Thresholds and alerts When using a file system or storage pools based on thin pools, it is essential to monitor storage utilization to ensure storage is available for provisioning when needed to avoid capacity shortages. Use Unisphere to configure proactive alerts for thin pool use and set the % Full threshold parameter, so that the system generates an alert when a file system or storage pool is close to being oversubscribed. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 61
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Figure 15 illustrates why provisioning with thin pools requires monitoring. Figure 15. Thin LUN space utilization Monitor the following values for thin pool usage: Total capacity The total physical capacity available to all LUNs in the pool Total allocation The total physical capacity currently assigned to all LUN pools Subscribed capacity The total host-reported capacity supported by the pool Over-subscribed capacity The amount of user capacity configured for LUNs that exceeds the physical capacity in the pool The total allocation must never exceed the total capacity, but if it approaches that point, add storage to the pools proactively before reaching a hard limit. High availability and failover This VSPEX solution provides a highly available virtualized server, network, and storage infrastructure. When implemented in accordance with this guide, it provides the ability to survive single-unit failures with minimal impact to business operations. This section describes the high availability features of the solution. Virtualization layer EMC recommends configuring high availability in the virtualization layer and automatically allowing the hypervisor to restart virtual machines that fail. Figure 16 illustrates the hypervisor layer responding to a failure in the compute layer. Figure 16. High availability at the virtualization layer By implementing high availability at the virtualization layer, the infrastructure attempts to keep as many services running as possible, even in the event of a hardware failure. 62 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Compute layer While the choice of servers to implement in the compute layer is flexible, it is best to use the enterprise class servers designed for data centers. This type of server has redundant power supplies, as shown in Figure 17. Connect these to separate Power Distribution Units (PDUs) in accordance with your server vendor s best practices. Figure 17. Redundant power supplies We recommend that you configure the compute layer with enough resources to ensure that the total number of available resources meets the needs of the environment, even with a server failure. Figure 16 demonstrates this recommendation. Network layer The advanced networking features of the VNXe series provide protection against network connection failures at the array. Each vsphere host has multiple connections to user and storage Ethernet networks to guard against link failures, as shown in Figure 18 and Figure 19. Spread these connections across multiple Ethernet switches to guard against component failure in the network. Figure 18. Network layer high availability Having no single points of failure in the network layer ensures that the compute layer can access storage and communicate with users even if a component fails. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 63
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Storage layer The VNXe series is designed for five 9s availability by using redundant components throughout the array as shown in Figure 19. All of the array components are capable of continued operation in case of hardware failure. The RAID disk configuration on the array provides protection against data loss due to individual disk failures, and you can dynamically allocate the available hot spare drives to replace a failing disk. Figure 19. VNXe series high availability EMC storage arrays are designed to be highly available by default. Use the installation guides to ensure no single unit failures resulting in data loss or unavailability. Validation test profile Profile characteristics Table 15 shows the desktop definition and storage configuration parameters that we validated with the environment profile. Table 15. Validated environment profile Profile characteristic Virtual desktop OS CPU per virtual desktop Value Windows 8.1 Enterprise (32-bit) 1 vcpu Number of virtual desktops per CPU core 5 RAM per virtual desktop Desktop provisioning method 2 GB Linked-clones 64 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Profile characteristic Average IOPS per virtual desktop at steady state Average peak IOPS per virtual desktop during boot storm Number of datastores to store virtual desktops Value 10 IOPS 14 IOPS (file storage) 23 IOPS (block storage) 1 for 100 virtual desktops 2 for 200 virtual desktops 3 for 300 virtual desktops 4 for 400 virtual desktops 5 for 500 virtual desktops Number of virtual desktops per datastore 100 Disk and RAID type for datastores Disk and RAID type for CIFS shares to host user profiles and home directories (optional) RAID 5, 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks RAID 5, 600 GB, 10 k rpm, 2.5-inch SAS disks EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 65
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Antivirus and antimalware platform profile Antivirus platform characteristics Table 16 shows how we sized the solution based on the VMware vshield Endpoint platform requirements. Table 16. Antivirus platform characteristics Platform component VMware vshield Manager appliance Technical information Manages the vshield Endpoint service installed on each vsphere host 1 vcpu, 3 GB RAM, and 8 GB hard disk space VMware vshield Endpoint service VMware Tools vshield Endpoint component Installed on each desktop vsphere host. The service uses up to 512 MB of RAM on the vsphere host. A component of the VMware tools suite that enables integration with the vsphere host vshield Endpoint service. The vshield Endpoint component of VMware tools is installed as an optional component of the VMware tools software package and should be installed on the master virtual desktop image. vshield Endpoint thirdparty security plug-in A third-party plug-in and associated components are required to complete the vshield Endpoint solution. Requirements vary based on individual vendor specifications. Refer to vendor documentation for specific details. vshield architecture The individual components of the VMware vshield Endpoint platform and the vshield partner security plug-ins each have specific CPU, RAM, and disk space requirements. The resource requirements vary based on factors, such as the number of events being logged, log retention needs, the number of desktops being monitored, and the number of desktops on each vsphere host. 66 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View platform profile Horizon View platform characteristics Table 17 shows how we sized the solution stack based on the VMware vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View platform requirements. Table 17. Horizon View platform characteristics Platform component vcenter Operations Manager vapp Technical information The vapp consists of a UI virtual appliance and an Analytics virtual appliance. For 500 virtual desktops: UI appliance requirements 2 vcpus, 7 GB RAM, 50 GB hard disk space Analytics appliance requirements 2 vcpus, 9 GB RAM, 400 GB hard disk space, and 750 IOPS. vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View architecture The individual components of vcenter Operations Manager for Horizon View have specific CPU, RAM, and disk space requirements. The resource requirements vary based on the number of desktops being monitored. The numbers provided in Table 17 assume that 500 desktops will be monitored. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 67
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices VSPEX for VMware Horizon Workspace solution With some added infrastructure, the VSPEX End-User Computing for VMware Horizon View solution supports Horizon Workspace deployments. It requires Active Directory and Domain Name Resolution (DNS). Key Horizon Workspace components Horizon Workspace is distributed as an Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) file, which can be deployed through vcenter. The OVA file contains the virtual appliance shown in the basic Horizon Workspace architecture in Figure 20. Figure 20. Horizon Workspace architecture layout 68 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices The Horizon Workspace appliance performs the following tasks: Enables single user-facing domain access to Horizon Workspace. As the central aggregation point for all user connections, the Gateway routes requests to the appropriate destination and proxies requests on behalf of user connections. Provides the web-based Horizon Workspace administrator user interface, which controls the application catalog, user entitlements, workspace groups, and reporting service. Provides the web-based Horizon Workspace administrator user interface, which controls the application catalog, user entitlements, workspace groups, and reporting service. Provides central control of network, gateway, vcenter, and SMTP settings. VSPEX for Horizon Workspace architecture Figure 21 shows the logical architecture of the VSPEX for Horizon Workspace solution. Figure 21. VSPEX for Horizon Workspace solution: logical architecture The customer is free to select any server and networking hardware that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements, while the recommended storage delivers a highly available architecture for a Horizon Workspace deployment. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 69
Chapter 5: Solution Design Considerations and Best Practices Server requirements Table 18 details the minimum supported hardware requirements for each virtual appliance in the Horizon Workspace vapp. Table 18. Minimum hardware resources for Horizon Workspace vapp vcpu Memory (GB) Disk space (GB) Workspace-va 2 6 36 Note: For high availability during failure scenarios, it might be necessary to restart virtual machines on different hardware; those physical servers will need to have resources available. Follow the specific recommendations in Server design considerations to enable this functionality. Networking requirements The networking components can be implemented by using 1 Gb or 10 Gb IP networks, provided that bandwidth and redundancy are sufficient to meet the minimum requirements of the solution. 70 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 6: Reference Documentation Chapter 6 Reference Documentation This chapter presents the following topics: EMC documentation... 72 Other documentation... 72 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 71
Chapter 6: Reference Documentation EMC documentation Other documentation The following documents, available on the EMC Online Support or EMC.com websites provide additional and relevant information. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative. EMC VNXe3200 Unified Installation Guide EMC VSI for VMware vsphere Web Client Product Guide VNXe Block Configuration Worksheet VNXe Installation Assistant for File/Unified Worksheet VNXe FAST Cache: A Detailed Review White Paper Using EMC VNXe Storage with VMware vsphere TechBook Deploying Microsoft Windows 8 Virtual Desktops with VMware View Applied Best Practices White Paper EMC PowerPath/VE for VMware vsphere Installation and Administration Guide EMC PowerPath Viewer Installation and Administration Guide EMC VNXe Unified Best Practices for Performance Applied Best Practices Guide EMC VNXe Virtual Provisioning Applied Technology White Paper Using VNXe SnapSure The following documents, available on the VMware website, provide additional and relevant information: Deployment and Configuration Guide: vcenter Operations Manager 5.8 VMware vsphere Installation and Setup Guide VMware vsphere Networking VMware vsphere Resource Management VMware vsphere Storage Guide VMware vsphere Virtual Machine Administration VMware vsphere Virtual Machine Management VMware vcenter Server and Host Management Installing and Administering VMware vsphere Update Manager Preparing the Update Manager Database Preparing vcenter Server Databases Understanding Memory Resource Management in VMware vsphere 5.0 View Getting Started 72 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Chapter 6: Reference Documentation View Architecture Planning View Installation Scenarios for Setting Up SSL Certificates for View Setting Up Desktop and Application Pools in View Administering View Cloud Pod Architecture View User Profile Migration View Security View User Profile Migration VMware Horizon View 6.0 Release Notes VMware Horizon View Optimization Guide for Windows 7 and Windows 8 Installing and Configuring VMware Workspace Portal Migrating VMware Workspace Portal VMware Workspace Portal Administrator s Guide Setting Up Resources in VMware Workspace Portal VMware Workspace Portal End User Guide VMware vcenter Operations Manager Administration Guide VMware vcenter Operations Manager for View Installation Guide VMware vcenter Operations Manager Installation Guide Deployment and Configuration Guide: vcenter Operations Manager VMware vshield Administration Guide VMware vshield Quick Start Guide EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 73
Chapter 6: Reference Documentation 74 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Appendix A: Customer Sizing Worksheet Appendix A Customer Sizing Worksheet This appendix presents the following topic: Customer Sizing Worksheet for end-user computing... 76 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 75
Chapter 6: Reference Documentation Customer Sizing Worksheet for end-user computing Before selecting a reference architecture on which to base a customer solution, use the Customer Sizing Worksheet to gather information about customers business requirements and to calculate required resources. Table 19 shows a blank worksheet. A stand-alone copy of the worksheet is attached to this in Microsoft Office Word format to easily print. Table 19. Customer Sizing Worksheet User Type vcpus Memory (GB) IOPS Equivalent reference virtual desktops No. of users Total reference desktops Resource requirements --- --- --- Equivalent reference virtual desktops Resource requirements --- --- --- Equivalent reference virtual desktops Resource requirements --- --- --- Equivalent reference virtual desktops Resource requirements --- --- --- Equivalent reference virtual desktops Total 76 EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0
Appendix A: Customer Sizing Worksheet To view and print the worksheet: 1. In Adobe Reader, open the Attachments panel as follows: Select View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Attachments or Click the Attachments icon as shown in Figure 22. Figure 22. Printable customer sizing worksheet 2. Under Attachments, double-click the attached file to open and print the worksheet. EMC VSPEX End-User Computing: VMware Horizon View 6.0 77