This document discusses optimizing an EMC Symmetrix storage array to support virtual desktops in a private cloud environment. It outlines testing that was done using the Vblock Series 700 model MX configuration with Symmetrix VMAX storage, VMware vSphere, and Cisco UCS servers. The testing showed the storage array could support up to 1536 virtual desktops while maintaining balanced utilization across the front end, back end, and disks. It provides best practices for configuring the various components to optimally support virtual desktops at scale.

1. OPTIMIZING SYMMETRIX STORAGE
TO SUPPORT VIRTUAL DESKTOPS
IN THE PRIVATE CLOUD
Narasimha Krishnakumar
Viet Tran
Banit Agrawal
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

2. Objectives
At the end of this session, you will be able to
• Understand the value of deploying virtual desktops on a
transactional, scalable storage array, EMC VMAX
• Understand the various capabilities of the EMC Symmetrix
storage platform and its role in virtual desktop
deployments
• Understand how VAAI and FAST VP can be leveraged to
run virtual desktops in the private cloud
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 2

3. Agenda
• Trends In Enterprise Environments
• Solution Overview
– Template for Scaling VDI Deployments
• VMware View Planner Overview
• Solution Validation
• Recommendations
• Summary
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 3

4. Trends In Enterprise Environments
• Enterprises are transitioning to the private cloud
– Transition from managing physical resources to virtual resources
• Physical desktop/laptop environment in large scale enterprises are
being virtualized with virtual desktop infrastructures
– Consolidation of multiple data center resources into a single data
center with fewer resources
• Servers, storage, and networking are being consolidated into a
centralized data center
• Vblock Series 700 model MX is the building block for a private cloud
environment
– Pre-qualified, tested configuration with EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage,
VMware vSphere and Cisco UCS servers optimized for virtual desktop
environments
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5. Solution Overview
• System components
– Vblock Series 700 model MX
• Symmetrix VMAX storage array
 One engine, fixed number of ports, disks, cache partition ,etc.
• Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)
 1 or more UCS chassis with 8 blades (B200 M2) each
• VMware vSphere 4.1
 ESX cluster running on UCS chassis
• Cisco Nexus 6100 series fabric interconnect
 10Gb/s Ethernet connectivity
– Cisco MDS fabric switches
• 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel connectivity from UCS to VMAX
– Virtual desktop infrastructure with VMware View 4.5
• View Planner used to generate workloads
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6. Solution Overview
VMAX
Storage Array
Vblock 700 Series
model MX
MDS9500 MDS9500
SAN A SAN B
LAN
Border Links Management
1/2/4G FC 10/100/1000 links
10GE
Nexus 6100 series
UCS Cluster links
Fabric Interconnect Vblock 700 Series
model MX
Cisco UCS Fabric
Extender in Back
Vblock 700 Series
UCS Blade Chassis
model MX
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7. Template For Scaling VDI
• Building block for VDI deployments can host up to 768 desktops
– UCS chassis with 8 B200 M2 blades
– 4 VMAX front end ports
• 4 Front end ports are sufficient to scale to 1536 desktops
– 25 % dedicated VMAX cache partition
– 48 back end disks mapped to a virtual provisioning pool
– 12 VMFS datastores hosting 64 desktops each
• VDI environments can be scaled in increments of 768 desktops
by adding building blocks
– 768 desktops to 1536 desktops by adding 1 UCS chassis, 25% more
cache & 48 disks
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8. Template For Scaling VDI (cont.)
• Other components for Implementing the Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure
– VMware View 4.5 – Connection broker
– EMC PowerPath/VE for optimal multipathing performance
– Infrastructure cluster for hosting vCenter server, Active Directory server,
View event database, etc.
• Two physical servers outside the UCS chassis and outside the
Vblock Series 700 model MX
– View Planner – Workload generator
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 8

9. VMware View Planner
Office
2007
Other
Apps
• VMware View Planner is a next generation VDI workload
generator and sizing tool that enables many use cases
– Platform characterization (CPU, memory, storage)
– Evaluate user experience
– Understand scaling issues and identify bottlenecks
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 9

10. View Planner - Features
• Simple to deploy: It’s all packaged inside a virtual appliance
– Client and Server side code
– Database
– Documentation
– Harness web application
– Web server
• Designed to work with vSphere 4.x
– Integrated with the View 4.5 release
– Integrated with AD
• Supports WinXP, Win 7 32-bit and 64-bit
• Includes support for admin operations
– Clone and customize
– Power On/Off
– Log On/Off
• Custom Apps Tech Preview
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11. View Planner – Architecture
Web
Interface
Harness
View
Planner vCenter /
Appliance
View
nt
me De Manage
ge sk
na to
Virtual Client VMs Ma p
ient M Virtual Desktops
Cl an
ag
em
en
t
Remote Display
Physical Servers Protocol Physical Servers
Storage
Storage
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12. View Planner – Run Flow Chart
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13. View Planner - QoS Metric
• Two latency groups (A and B) are currently defined, containing operations
with similar characteristics
T-95
Group A 95th
percentile
• QoS is met when Group A 95th percentile value lie below the respective
threshold
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14. View Planner – Use Cases and How to Get Access?
• View Planner has many use cases
– Workload generator
– Platform characterization (CPU, memory, storage)
– User Experience evaluation (end-user latency)
– Find consolidations (how many users can we support)
– Understand scaling issues and identify bottlenecks
• Available from VMware Professional Services Organization (PSO)
• Deliverables
– View Planner appliance (OVF file)
– View Planner user guide (PDF)
– Other documents on reporting and running custom applications
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 14

15. Testing Methodology
• Generate workloads of a knowledge worker using View
Planner
– Knowledge worker applications such as MS Word, MS Excel, IE,
MS Outlook, used as basis for workload
– Define number of iterations (8), think time (20 seconds), etc.
• Collect and analyze results
– CPU utilization on the ESX hosts
– Application response times
– Storage array front end and back end characteristics
• Front end utilization, front end IOPS, back end iops, disk utilization
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 15

16. ESX CPU Utilization
CPU Utilization for 768 Users CPU Utilization for 1536 Users
CPU Performance CPU Pe rform ance
120 120
100 100
Percent
80 80
ercent
60 60
P
40 40
20 20
0 0
12:05:00 AM 2:55:00 AM 5:45:00 AM 8:35:00 AM 11:25:00 AM 2:15:00 PM 5:05:00 AM 8:05:00 AM 11:05:00 AM 2:05:00 PM 5:05:00 PM 8:05:00 PM
Time Time
Usage Usage
• CPU utilization is similar for both 768 and 1536 users
– Additional chassis for 768 users insures that CPU utilization is the
same
– 96 virtual desktops per blade drives CPU utilization close to 100% as
each blade is fully utilized
• Metrics represent the limits of the ESX server
• Load on the ESX server should be scaled down based on user’s specific
needs
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 16

17. ESX Memory Utilization
Memory Usage for 768 Users Memory Usage for 1536 Users
• Memory utilization is similar for both 768 and 1536 users
– Each blade is configured for 96 GB memory
• Oversubscription ratio of 2-to-1 due to 96 desktops with 2 GB RAM running on
each blade
• High memory utilization at steady state
– Knowledge worker workload is memory intensive as all desktops are
performing concurrent operations that are similar in nature
– High (100%) concurrency of workloads
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18. Symmetrix VMAX Front End – 768 users
12% CPU Util
Front End Utilization for 768 Users
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19. Symmetrix VMAX Front End – 1536 users
16% CPU Util
Front End Utilization for 1536 Users
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20. Symmetrix VMAX Back End – 768 users
20% -30%
back end util
50% -60%
disk util
VMAX Back End Performance for 768 users
- Balanced Symmetrix VMAX system - Optimal front end, back end & disk
utilization
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 20

21. Symmetrix VMAX Back End – 1536 users
50% -60%
back end util
50% -60%
disk util
Smart
VMAX Back End Performance for 1536 users Trusted
Powerful
- Balanced Symmetrix VMAX system - Linear scaling of front end,
back end & disk utilization
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22. Application Response Times
Application response time for 768 users
15% > Response
Application response time for 1536 users Time
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23. Symmetrix VMAX Performance
• VMAX front end IOPS and front end CPU utilization scale
linearly with increase in number of virtual desktops
– Steady state IOPS and CPU utilization show that the VMAX system is
only partially utilized
– Front end utilization increases by 33% with doubling of desktops
• Steady state IOPS increase 100% with doubling of desktops
• VMAX back end IOPS and disk utilization directly correlate to
the activity on the virtual desktops
– 66% increase in back end utilization as desktops are scaled from 768
to 1536
– Disk utilization remains the same - Number of disks increased from 48
to 96 to support more desktops
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 23

24. Effects of FAST VP on the Virtual Desktop
Environment
• Transition from a single tier storage environment to a FAST VP
environment can offer benefits
– Maintain application response times while reducing TCO
– FAST VP policy insures data is moved to the right tier at the right
time
• Policies can be configured based on SLA requirements
– FAST VP in the VDI environment
• Instead of 48 450GB 15K RPM Disks
– 4 X 200GB Flash Drives
– 4 X 450GB 15K RPM FC Drives
– 16 X 1TB 7.2K RPM SATA Drives
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 24

25. FAST VP Application Response Times
• User experience is similar to a non FAST VP environment
• TCO of a virtual desktop solution is expected to be lower with FAST
VP
– While maintaining similar application response times
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 25

26. VMAX Best Practices
• VMAX configuration for supporting 768 virtual desktops
– 4 front end ports spread across different directors and
processors
– Virtual pool with 48 back end disks and 1 disk group
• 12 thin devices per virtual pool
• 1 thin device = 1 VMFS datastore
 Thin device (TDEV) Size – 960 GB 4-way meta device
– Dedicated cache partition – 25% of total cache (9.6 GB)
• Linear scaling is recommended for a virtual desktop
environments of 1536 desktops and beyond
– Addition of ports, cache, disks and engine will enable
linear scaling with ease
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 26

27. Cisco UCS Best Practices
• Best practices for deploying UCS chassis
– Fully-populated chassis with B200 M2 blades
• B200 M2 blades offer optimal balance of memory and CPU
 96 GB maximum memory with 2 6-core CPUs
 Ratio of CPU core to memory is well-balanced with B200 M2 blades
– Scale desktop environments by adding another fully-
populated chassis
• All chassis in the system should contain blades with the same
Memory/CPU configuration
– Configure a separate network for virtual desktops
– Follow EMC best practices for fabric configuration
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 27

28. VMware ESX Server Best Practices
• vSphere recommendations
– Dynamic Resource Scheduling (DRS) should be enabled
• Ensure that all desktops are distributed equally amongst the ESX
servers in the cluster
– VAAI settings with vSphere 4.1 are enabled by default and
should not be turned off
– Virtual desktops can use either PCOIP or RDP protocol
– Allocate no more than 64 desktops per data store
– HIMP parameter should be set to 0 (HaltingIdleMsecPenalty )
• Set HaltingIdleMsecPenalty to 0 for improved CPU utilization
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 28

29. Summary
• Vblock Series 700 model MX is the ideal platform for
deploying an enterprise virtual desktop environment
– Individual components serve as building blocks that enable
scaling desktops with ease
– Fully populated Vblock Series 700 Model MX can scale up to
6144 desktops
– Cisco UCS B200 M2 blades offer the best of breed Memory and
CPU configuration
– VMware View and vSphere – Trusted enterprise Virtualization
solutions
– Symmetrix VMAX is the ideal platform for managing and
deploying enterprise virtual infrastructures
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 29

30. Questions
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 30

31. Related Sessions at EMC World
Session Type Title
Super Session Building the Virtual Data Center of the Future
Accelerating Your Journey to the Private Cloud with Elastic VMware
Environments on Symmetrix
Highly Available Data Centers for VMware vSphere Environments using
VPLEX
Lecture Managing Storage Within Your Virtual Data Centers using Virtual Storage
Integrator
Microsoft Windows Hyper-V Deployment and Solutions with EMC Symmetrix
VBLOCK Solution for VMWare View – Best Practices
Birds-of-a-
Symmetrix Roundtable
Feather
Building the Virtual Data Center with Symmetrix VMAX: Powerful, Trusted,
Solutions Smart
Pavilion
Building the Virtual Data Center with VPLEX: Distributed, Dynamic, Smart
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 31

32. Related Technical Documentation
Whitepapers
Increase Scalability for Virtual Desktops with EMC Symmetrix FAST VP and
VMware VAAI—An Architectural Overview
EMC Infrastructure for Virtual Desktops—Enabled by EMC Symmetrix VMAX
Virtual Provisioning, VMware vSphere 4, VMware View 4, and VMware View
Composer—A Detailed Review
Scalability Study for Deploying VMware View on Cisco UCS and EMC V-Max
Systems
TechBooks
xxx
TechBook: Using EMC Symmetrix Storage in VMware Infrastructure and vSphere
Environments
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 32

33. © Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 33

34. THANK YOU
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 34

35. Test Setup
• 1 UCS chassis with 8 B200 M2 blades to host all the
desktops
• 1 Infrastructure cluster with 2 servers
– 1 VM hosting Symmetrix Solutions Enabler, SMC and SPA
– 1 VM hosting vCenter Server
– 1 VM running View Connection server for managing all the
desktops in the environment
– 1 VM running view administrator
– 2 VM’s running Active Directory and Domain Services
• Desktop VMs use RDP as the connection protocol
© Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. 35