VMware View Design Guidelines Russel Wilkinson, Enterprise Desktop Solutions Specialist, VMware 1
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Overview Steps to follow: Getting from concept to reality Design process: Optimized for efficiency Best Practices for VMware View Designs 3
From Concept to Reality 4
Phases of a Troubled View Deployment No baseline for comparison Define Design Deploy Manage Lessons Learned shifted to Support Organization as issues, not opportunities 5
Guess the Outcome Read 30% of Admin Guide Deploy Manage 6
Major Phases of View Deployment Compare Define Assess Measure Baseline Prototype Pilot Test Confirm Design Deploy Manage Lessons Learned 7
Design Process Storage Design View Pod and Block Design View Pool Design 8
View Block and Pod Architecture 9
View Block and Pod Architecture 10
View Block and Pod Architecture 11
Pool Design: Desktop OS Considerations Time invested in pool design pays dividends many times more than any other aspect of View design work. Apps Are my apps supported by a specific OS? User Familiarity Will I need to train users on a new OS? VM Density Will the OS demand more resources? Licensing Do I have a VLK or MAK? 12
Pool Design: View VM Memory Considerations VM Swap size and storage VM Swap size = VM RAM Local vs. shared datastore VM Density TPS Optimization Disk consumption Windows pagefile Size of delta disk IOPS Memory for Apps Balance between paging and VM Swap file size Disposable disks (Daytona) 13
Pool Design: Pool Type Considerations Common Pool Types: Persistent/non-persistent Linked clone/non-linked clone User installed apps Will users need to install apps? Persona management is a key enabler for floating pools User initiated machine changes Are users modifying registry keys or environment variables? Available disk space Is disk space inexpensive or plentiful? 14
VI Design: View Block vcenter and Clusters vcenter Servers One VC per 1,000 (VI3.5), 2,000 (VI4.x) desktops vcenter and Cluster Design Cluster Hosts Max Eight ESX hosts per cluster serving linked clones Leave room for failover and maintenance Cluster Settings Keep max pool size to 320/875 for DRS enabled clusters 80 (100 ESX 4.1) VMs per host for HA 15
View Manager Design: View Pod Redundancy Max 5 Connection Servers to ADAM Group (5+2 in Daytona) Ingress Security server: Many SS to One CS VPN: Only option for external access using PCoIP Access Mode Tunneled Mode: Fewer max sessions per CS Direct Mode: Direct network access to VMs 16
VI Design: ESX Server Considerations RAM Density and cost Balance CPU and memory needs Higher density DIMMs increase price Blades have emerged as ideal platform for hosting virtual desktops pnics Storage ~1GB b/w for 150 VMs VMs/pNIC/ VLANs 1 Port group per VLAN ID 1GBE vs. 10GBE 10GBE cost dropping Storage network (NFS/iSCSI) NFS Best performance with jumbo frames Type/protocol Size and Quantity Performance iscsi vendors optimizing performance Local disk good storage location for vswp files 17
Storage Design: Sizing Considerations Linked Clone Pool datastore size= Replica VM VMDK size + (Desktop VM Memory Provisioned * 2) + (Parent VM VMDK * 25%) 10GB (Same as Parent VM) VM Swap and Windows PF Growth for delta files + Log File storage size Conservative ~100 MB * Number of VMs per Datastore + Datastore free space allocation 18 Conservative Max per LUN: 64 128 15% overhead
Storage Performance Considerations The tricky part about VDI storage is the peak load, NOT the steady state Storms Boot storms, AV storms, software installation storms, login storms, logout storms Validate operational SOPs during pilot, or risk the consequences! Pool Deployment Size of Parent VM disks x number of replicas CX4: ~5 minutes to deploy one replica for pool, 10GB Parent VMDK Storage Controller Failover Time 2-8 IOPS/VM Avg 25-100 IOPS/VM Peak Time required to complete Storage Controller switch Peaks can be 15 to 100 times the load of average! 19
A look ahead to Daytona: Design Considerations Profile Management RTO configuration is View Manager scope, not per pool ThinApp Package Repository Store MSI and EXE packages in one highly available CIFS share DFS is still a great choice with multiple replicas and fast storage Disposable Disks Initial release: Disposable disks on same volume as delta disk Correct disk alignment will be in the shipping product Including user data disks and disposable disks 20
Best Practices Best Practices 21
General View Best Practices Optimize View Desktop guest OS for VDI Opt-in components model, not a build and remove model Install and enable only the services and components needed Nlite and Vlite serve as good examples of possibilities www.nliteos.com, www.vlite.net Avoid over-provisioning memory and vcpus Size Windows page file between 50-100% of memory Profile the storage IOPS and tell the storage architect This critical step is often overlooked! Size the Parent VM System Disk appropriately Replica creation time greatly affected by Parent VM disks 22
General View Best Practices Validate size of User Data Disk Provisioning too little disk for UDD can be detrimental Outlook.OST will likely end up on UDD in Outlook cached mode (and UDDs are difficult to resize) Validate the cost and performance tradeoffs of Cached Outlook mode for VDI Adjust browser cache size to lowest useful setting Exclude Java Message Bus folder from AV scanner C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Server\MessageBus Avoid running concurrent AV scans Full systems scans cause major performance impacts Stagger full systems scans (when full system scans are a corporate standard) 23
Operational Best Practices Operations Common Sense Don t reboot all VMs during operational hours Perform Refresh and Recompose operations on a schedule, during off-peak times Track or limit user initiated changes, or plan on increasing cluster capacity over time User Application Virtualization to save on application licensing costs Don t include licensed apps in the base image whenever possible Use an image build tool (i.e., MDT) Structured build process and predefined modules drives consistency, fewer untracked changes Keep master image metadata outside of View/VI Create and enforce strong naming conventions for Parent VMs and snapshots 24
Operational Best Practices DHCP Adjust default lease time (MS DHCP) from 8 days to 1 hour Release DHCP script for floating pools that refresh on logoff VLAN Usage Avoid overloading VLANs used for View desktops to avoid running out of IP addresses This situation is difficult to troubleshoot vcenter Management Do not allow a vcenter VM to manage the ESX host it s running on 25
Recommendations User Data and Persona Management Use folder redirection for My Documents Easier to use existing file archival system, maintain multiple file versions Start evaluating the capabilities of RTO Virtual Profiles Turn off Outlook Cached Mode VMs on same high speed network don t benefit as much from cached mode Save on disk space and conserve storage IOPS Never P2V a physical machine for a View master image It would be more efficient to build a VM from scratch 26
27 Questions