Awesome end-user experience is what Desktop Virtualization is all about!
Hello Everyone! Back again to talk to you about our latest Cisco Validated Design for the Desktop Virtualization (DV) space from Citrix Synergy 2013 in Anaheim, CA. This one is particularly interesting because of the variety of Cisco, Citrix and EMC technologies deployed.
As you know, over the past several years DV has grown at a stunning rate. Our studies in the past have focused on 100% hosted virtual desktop solutions. In the real world that our Customers live in, there is a mix of hosted shared desktops (Citrix XenApp) and hosted virtual desktops (Citrix XenDesktop.)
So, we set out to show that the combined power of Cisco UCS, Citrix Desktop Virtualization products, and an EMC VNX7500 multi-protocol storage system with Fast Cache could provide screaming fast performance under a large scale, real-world mixed workload. After all, awesome end user experience is what we have to deliver!
We recognize that a fair percentage of the hosted virtual desktops deployed today are persistent desktops, each with a dedicated virtual disk and each assigned to a specific user. While this type of deployment provides the end user with maximum flexibility and control, it is a very, very expensive proposition.
Citrix introduced Personal vDisk with XenDesktop 5.6 so that Customers can reduce desktop virtualization costs by using a shared base desktop image for all users in a particular group and giving only those users who need the ability to install non-standard applications space to do so. This technique saves significant CapEx (shared storage space) and ongoing OpEx (administration and backup) costs. For that reason, we included Citrix Personal vDisk in the solution.
We have laid out a prescriptive guide on how to deploy a large scale, mixed use case DV solution that includes:
The solution was built and tested at the Citrix Santa Clara, CA Solutions Lab in partnership with Cisco and EMC.
We demonstrated outstanding end user experience with all three workloads running simultaneously at scale.
And because in the real world we don't ask users to stand in line at the beginning of the day or after lunch to log in and start their applications, we required as a success criteria that all 4000 users be logged in and using their applications within 30 minutes.
Here's a look at our Login VSI performance chart, from zero to 4000 mixed workload users in 30 minutes:
You can rely on Cisco Validated Designs to provide you with detailed guidance on how to build an identical DV delivery system in your company!
As always, the keys to a successful deployment of a large scale HVD environment start with:
Cisco UCS together with Citrix technologies, EMC VNX storage, and VMware vSphere provide the key foundation for a high performance, highly available HVD environment:
Here is a look at the hardware used in the solution:
Heading over to catch some of the great sessions at Synergy 2013. Look forward to hearing from you about your real-world desktop virtualization workloads!
For more information download the Cisco Validated Design at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/UCS_CVDs/citrix_emc_ucs_XDXAscale.pdf
And for more information on Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solutions, go to:
http://cisco.com/go/dcdesignzone
Solution Brief:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns224/ns955/ns1099/solution_overview_c22-728248.pdf