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Release 1.0 for Dell PowerEdge Blade Servers, Force10 Switches, and Compellent Storage Center

Dell vStart 1000 for VDI– Citrix

XenDesktop 5.6 Blade Reference

Architecture

Dell Virtualization Solutions Engineering

Revision: A00

Dell vStart 1000 for VDI: Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 Reference Architecture

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This document is for informational purposes only and may contain typographical errors and technical inaccuracies. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any kind.

© 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell and its affiliates cannot be responsible for errors or omissions in typography or photography. Dell, the Dell logo, OpenManage, Compellent, Force10, Kace, EqualLogic, PowerVault, PowerConnect, and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel and Xeon are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft, Windows, Hyper-V, and Windows Server are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. VMware, vSphere, ESXi, vMotion, vCloud, and vCenter are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U. S. and other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

July 2012

Revision History

Revision Description Date

A00 Initial Version July 2012


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Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 2

2 Audience............................................................................................................... 2

3 Overview .............................................................................................................. 2

4 Design Principles ................................................................................................... 14

5 Reference Architecture ........................................................................................... 15

6 Dell Blade Network Architecture ................................................................................ 16

7 Network Architecture ............................................................................................. 18

8 Storage Architecture .............................................................................................. 20

9 Management Infrastructure ...................................................................................... 23

10 Enterprise Zero Client and Thin Client Recommendations .............................................. 31

11 Scalability ........................................................................................................ 33

12 Delivery Model ................................................................................................... 35

13 Reference......................................................................................................... 38


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1 Introduction The Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution is an enterprise infrastructure solution that has been designed and validated by Dell™ Engineering for desktop virtualization. It is available to be partially racked, cabled, and delivered to your site, to speed deployment. Dell Services will deploy and configure the solution tailored for business needs and ready to be integrated into your datacenter. vStart 1000 is offered in configurations with VMware® vSphere® Hypervisor with Citrix XenDesktop 5.6.

Dell vStart 1000 for VDI includes PowerEdgeTM M1000e blade chassis, M620 blades, Dell Compellent™ Storage, Dell Force10™ network switches, Brocade Fibre Channel switches, and VMware vSphere. The solution also includes PowerEdge R620 servers as management servers. VMware vCenter Server, Compellent Enterprise Manager, and OpenManage™ Essentials, are included with the solution.

2 Audience IT administrators and IT managers, who have purchased or are planning to purchase a vStart configuration, can use this document to understand the component details of the solution.

3 Overview This section provides a high-level product overview of the VMware vSphere, Dell PowerEdge blade servers, Dell Force10 S4810, Force10 S55, and Brocade 5100 Fibre Channel Switches, and Dell Compellent Storage. Readers can skip the sections of products with which they are familiar.


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Dell vStart 1000 for VDI Overview Figure 1.


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Table 1 below describes the key solution components and the roles served.

Table 1: Solution Components

Component Details

Hypervisor Server M1000e chassis with M620 Blade Servers and embedded VMware vSphere 5

LAN Switch Two Force10 S4810 and 10GbE Pass-through-k modules for the Chassis

SAN Switch Two Brocade 5100 Fiber Switch and Dell 8 | 4 I/O modules for the chassis

Storage Two Compellent Series 40 controllers with SAS enclosures

Management Infrastructure Two R620 servers with embedded VMware vSphere 5 hosting management VMs. One Force10 S55 used as a 1Gb management switch

Management components hosted in the management infrastructure

• VMware vCenter Server

• Citrix XenDesktop 5.6

• Compellent Enterprise Manager

• Dell Management Plugin for VMware vCenter

• Virtual Integrated System (VIS) Creator

• OpenManage Essentials

• VMware vCloud Connector

• Compellent Plugin for VMware vCenter

3.1 VMware vSphere 5

VMware vSphere 5 includes the ESXi™ hypervisor as well as vCenter™ Server which is used to configure and manage VMware hosts. Key capabilities for the ESXi Enterprise Plus license level include:

• VMware vMotion: VMware vMotion technology provides real-time migration of running virtual machines (VM) from one host to another with no disruption or downtime.

• VMware High Availability (HA): VMware HA provides high availability at the VM level. Upon host failure, VMware HA automatically re-starts VMs on other physical hosts running ESXi. VMware vSphere 5 uses Fault Domain Manager (FDM) for High Availability.


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• VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and VMware Distributed Power Management (DPM): VMware DRS technology enables vMotion to automatically achieve load balancing according to resource requirements. When VMs in a DRS cluster need fewer resources, such as during nights and weekends, DPM consolidates workloads onto fewer hosts and powers off the rest to reduce power consumption.

• VMware vCenter Update Manager: VMware vCenter Update Manager automates patch management, enforcing compliance to patch standards for VMware ESXi hosts.

• VMware Storage vMotion™: VMware Storage vMotion enables real-time migration of running VM disks from one storage array to another with no disruption or downtime. It minimizes service disruptions due to planned storage downtime previously incurred for rebalancing or retiring storage arrays.

• Host Profiles: Host Profiles standardize and simplify the deployment and management of VMware ESXi host configurations. They capture and store validated configuration information, including host compliance, networking, storage, and security settings.

For more information on VMware vSphere, see www.vmware.com/products/vsphere.

3.2 Citrix XenDesktop 5.6

The solution is based on Citrix XenDesktop. Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete end-to-end solution that delivers Microsoft Windows 7 virtual desktops to users on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Virtual desktops are dynamically assembled on demand, providing users with pristine, yet personalised, desktops each time they log on.

Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete virtual desktop delivery system by integrating several distributed components with advanced configuration tools that simplify the creation and real-time management of the virtual desktop infrastructure.

The core XenDesktop components include:

● XenDesktop Controller (DC) ― Installed on servers in the data centre, the controller authenticates users, manages the

assembly of users’ virtual desktop environments, and brokers connections between users and their virtual desktops.

● Citrix Provisioning Server (PVS) ― The Provisioning Services infrastructure is based on software-streaming technology. This

technology allows computers to be provisioned and re-provisioned in real-time from a single shared-disk image. In doing so, administrators can completely eliminate the need to manage and patch individual systems. Instead, all image management is done on the master image. This greatly reduces the amount of storage required compared to other methods of creating virtual desktops. The Provisioning Server runs on a virtual instance of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on the Management Server(s).

● XenDesktop Farm Database ― A Microsoft SQL database that hosts configuration and session information and as a result

should is hosted on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 in a SQL mirror configuration with a witness.

● Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) ― The Virtual Desktop Agent is a transparent plugin that is installed on every virtual desktop

and enables the direct connection between the virtual desktop and users’ endpoint devices. This connection is made using the Citrix ICA (Independent Computing Architecture) protocol.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere


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● Web Interface Server ― The Web Interface provides users with simple and controlled access to XenDesktop virtual

desktops. Users access their resources through a standard Web browser or through the Citrix online plug-in. The Web Interface employs Java and .NET technology executed on a Web server to dynamically create an HTML depiction of server farms for XenApp Web sites. Users are presented with all the resources (applications, content, and desktops) published in the server farm(s) made available. Stand-alone Web Interface sites can be utilized or they can be integrated into a corporate portal.

● Citrix License Server ― The Citrix License Server is an essential component at any Citrix-based solution. Every

Citrix product environment must have at least one shared or dedicated license server. License servers are computers that are either partly or completely dedicated to storing and managing licenses. Citrix products request licenses from a license server when users attempt to connect.

3.2.1 Citrix Profile Manager

Citrix Profile Management is a component of the XenDesktop suite which is used to manage user profiles an minimise many of the issues associated with traditional Windows Roaming profiles in an environment where users may have their profile open on multiple devices at the same time. The profile management toolset has two components, the profile management agent which is installed on any device where the user profiles will be managed by the toolset, which will be the virtual desktops. The second component is a Group Policy Administrative Template, which is imported to a group policy which is assigned to an organisational unit within active directory which contains the devices upon which the user profiles will be managed.

In order to further optimise the profile management folders within the user profile that can be used to store data will be redirected the users’ home drive. The folder redirection will be managed via group policy objects within Active Directory. The following folders will be redirected;

● Contacts

● Downloads

● Favorites

● Links

● My Documents

● Searches

● Start Menu

● Windows

● My Music

● My Pictures

● My Videos

● Desktop

3.2.2 Citrix Personal vDisk Technology

Citrix Personal vDisk is a high-performance enterprise workspace virtualization solution that is built right into Citrix XenDesktop and provides the user benefits of a persistent desktop image, with the storage savings and performance of a shared image. With Citrix Personal vDisk, each user gets a personal workspace which they can use to personalize their desktop. Additionally, this workspace contains any user or department installed apps and any data and settings the VDI administrator chooses to store there. Since personal vDisk workspaces only contain user changes, this radically reduces storage requirements. Personal vDisk provides the following benefits to XenDesktop.


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● Persistent personalization of user profiles, settings and data.

● Enables deployment and management of user installed and entitlement based applications

● Fully compatible with Application delivery solutions such as SCCM, App-V and XenApp.

● 100% persistence with VDI pooled Storage management

● Near Zero management overhead.

Citrix Personal vDisk layout Figure 2.

XenDesktop VDI Image Layer Management

Common Base OS Image

User Workspace

Citrix Profile Management

Citrix Personal vDisk Technology

User DataCorporate Installed

Apps

User Settings

User Installed

Apps

3.3 Dell PowerEdge Blade Servers

Blade Modular Enclosure: The Dell PowerEdge M1000e is a high-density, energy-efficient blade chassis that supports up to sixteen half-height blade servers, or eight full-height blade servers, and six I/O modules. A high-speed passive mid-plane connects the server modules to the I/O modules, management, and power in the rear of the chassis. The enclosure includes a flip-out LCD screen (for local configuration), six hot-pluggable/redundant power supplies, and nine hot-pluggable N+1 redundant fan modules.

Blade Servers: The PowerEdge M620 blade server is the 12th generation half height blade server offering:

• New high-efficiency Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 family processors for more advanced processing performance, memory, and I/O bandwidth.

• Greater memory density than any previous PowerEdge server. Each M620 can deploy up to 24 x 16GB DIMMs, or 768GB or RAM per blade – 12TB or RAM in a single M1000e chassis.

• ‘Agent Free’ management with the new iDRAC7 with Lifecycle Controller allows customers to deploy, update, maintain, and monitor their systems throughout the system lifecycle without a software management agent, regardless of the operating system.

• The PowerEdge Select Network Adapter (formerly NDC) on the M620 offers three modular choices for embedded fabric capability. With 10Gb CNA offerings from Broadcom, QLogic & Intel, our customers can choose the networking vendor & technology that’s right for them and their applications, and even change in the future as those needs evolve over time. The


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Broadcom & QLogic offerings offer Switch Independent Partitioning technology, developed in partnership with Dell, which allows for virtual partitioning of the 10Gb ports.

I/O Modules: The enclosure provides three redundant fabrics using six I/O modules. The modules can be populated with Ethernet switches, Fibre Channel (FC), and pass-through modules. InfiniBand™ switch modules are also supported.

Chassis Management: The Dell PowerEdge M1000e has integrated management through a redundant Chassis Management Controller (CMC) module for enclosure management and integrated Keyboard, Video, and Mouse (iKVM) modules. Through the CMC, the enclosure supports FlexAddress Plus technology, which enables the blade enclosure to lock the World Wide Names (WWN) of the FC controllers and Media Access Control (MAC) addresses of the Ethernet controllers to specific blade slots. This enables seamless swapping or upgrading of blade servers without affecting the LAN or SAN configuration.

Embedded Management with Dell’s Lifecycle Controller: The Lifecycle Controller is the engine for advanced embedded management and is delivered as part of iDRAC Enterprise in 12th-generation Dell PowerEdge blade servers. It includes 1 GB of managed and persistent storage that embeds systems management features directly on the server, thus eliminating the media-based delivery of system management tools and utilities previously needed for systems management. Embedded management includes:

• Unified Server Configurator (USC) aims at local 1-to-1 deployment via a graphical user interface (GUI) for operating system install, updates, configuration, and for performing diagnostics on single, local servers. This eliminates the need for multiple option ROMs for hardware configuration.

• Remote Services are standards-based interfaces that enable consoles to integrate, for example, bare-metal provisioning and one-to-many OS deployments, for servers located remotely. Dell’s Lifecycle Controller takes advantage of the capabilities of both USC and Remote Services to deliver significant advancement and simplification of server deployment.

• Lifecycle Controller Serviceability aims at simplifying server re-provisioning and/or replacing failed parts and thus reduces maintenance downtime.

The table below shows the configuration of the compute nodes used for the Desktop sessions.

Shared Tier 1 Compute Host – PowerEdge M620

2 x Intel Xeon E5-2680 Processor (2.7Ghz)

192GB Memory (12 x 16GB DIMMs @ 1600Mhz)

VMware vSphere 5 on internal SD

Diskless

Broadcom 57810-k 10Gb DP KR NDC (iSCSI)

1 x Intel i350 1Gb QP serdes mezz (LAN)

iDRAC7 Enterprise w/ vFlash, 8GB SD

For more information on Dell Lifecycle Controllers and blade servers, see http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/dcsm-embedded-management and Dell.com/blades.

http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/dcsm-embedded-management

http://www.dell.com/blades


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3.4 Dell Force10 S4810 Switches

The Force10 S-Series S4810 is an ultra-low-latency 10/40 GbE Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch purpose-built for applications in high-performance data center and computing environments. Leveraging a non-blocking, cut-through switching architecture, the S4810 delivers line-rate L2 and L3 forwarding capacity with ultra-low latency to maximize network performance. The compact S4810 design provides industry leading density of 48 dual-speed 1/10 GbE (SFP+) ports as well as four 40 GbE QSFP+ uplinks to conserve valuable rack space and simplify the migration to 40 Gbps in the data center core. (Each 40 GbE QSFP+ uplink can support four 10 GbE ports with a breakout cable).

Powerful QoS features coupled with Data Center Bridging (DCB) support via a future software enhancement, make the S4810 ideally suited for iSCSI storage environments. In addition, the S4810 incorporates multiple architectural features that optimize data center network flexibility, efficiency, and availability, including Force10’s stacking technology, reversible front-to-back or back-to-front airflow for hot/cold aisle environments, and redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and fans.

For more information on Force10 switches, see Dell.com/force10.

3.5 Dell Force10 S55

The Dell Force10 S-Series S55 1/10 GbE ToR switch is designed for high-performance data center applications. The S55 leverages a non-blocking architecture that delivers line-rate, low-latency L2 and L3 switching to eliminate network bottlenecks. The high-density S55 design provides 48 GbE access ports with up to four modular 10GbE uplinks in 1-RU to conserve valuable rack space. The S55 incorporates multiple architectural features that optimize data center network efficiency and reliability, including reversible front-to-back or back-to-front airflow for hot/cold aisle environments and redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and fans.

For more information on Force10 switches, see Dell.com/force10.

3.6 Brocade 5100

The Brocade 5100 switch is a high density FC switch providing 40 ports in a 1U form factor. The 5100 includes redundant power supplies and fans making it well suited to the high availability needs of virtualization infrastructures. It also includes the Ports-on-Demand capabilities for cost reduction when installing in smaller environments.

For more information on Brocade 5100 Fibre Channel Switches, see Dell.com/brocade.

3.7 Dell 8/4 Gbps FC SAN Module

The Dell 8/4 Gbps FC SAN Module is a 24-port FC module with eight external ports and 16 internal ports that installs in a Dell PowerEdge M1000e Blade Enclosure. Built on industry-standard N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) technology, the module eliminates the traditional challenges of heterogeneous switch-to-switch interoperability and can non-disruptively connect Dell blades to NPIV-enabled FC SANs, including Brocade, Cisco, McData, and others. The Dell 8/4 Gbps FC SAN Module eliminates incremental switch management and configuration by presenting FC connections as a logical device (rather than switch domains) to the SAN fabric. The module enables the benefits of port aggregation, failover, and redundancy without the complexities of additional SAN switches or additional switch domains.

http://www.dell.com/force10

http://www.dell.com/force10

http://www.dell.com/brocade


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For more information on Dell 8/4 Gbps FC SAN Module, see Dell.com/us/enterprise/p/fc-san/pd.

3.8 Dell Compellent Series 40 Storage Center

The Dell vStart 1000 for VDI stack utilizes a Dell Compellent Storage dual-controller configuration with 4|8 Gb FC interconnects and 4 Gb FC or 36 Gb SAS backend interconnects. The Series 40 controllers connect to servers without server-side agents and automatically fail over to another controller when clustered. The Series 40 features six PCI-e expansion slots, battery-less cache, redundant hot-swappable power supplies, and cooling fans to help ensure non-stop operation and high availability. Virtual ports increase port capacity, disk bandwidth, I/O connectivity, and port failover.

Features of the Dell Compellent Series 40 Storage Array include:

• Fluid Data Architecture – Storage is managed at the most granular level with built-in system intelligence to enable the dynamic flow of enterprise data.

• Storage Virtualization – Storage is virtualized at the disk level to create a flexible pool of storage resources shared by all servers all the time.

• Thin Provisioning – Allocation is completely separated from utilization so any size volume can be created at any time, yet capacity is only consumed when data is written.

• Automated Tiered Storage – Data dynamically cascades from tier to tier according to actual usage, freeing up high-performance drives for mission-critical applications.

• Space-efficient Replays – Continuous snapshots only capture changes in data for real-time protection with instant recovery to any point in time.

• Thin Replication – Data is replicated between local and remote sites using space-efficient snapshots and native IP or FC connectivity, eliminating the need for high-speed data links or identical system configurations.

• Unified Storage Resource Management – All storage resources are managed through a single point-and-click interface, providing a complete view of the entire storage environment.

• Open, Agile Hardware Platform – Storage is designed for persistence, not obsolescence, leveraging a single modular hardware platform coupled with technology independence.

Compellent Enterprise Manager: Compellent Enterprise Manager is included in the solution. It simplifies network storage management by providing a single, centralized console for the administration of multiple local and remote Compellent systems. Users can configure and verify remote replication processes, monitor storage capacity and disk utilization in real time, and generate comprehensive enterprise storage usage and performance reports.

For more information on Dell Compellent, see Dell.com/Compellent.

3.9 PowerEdge R620 Management Server

The Dell PowerEdge R620 uses Intel Xeon E5-2600 series processors and Intel chipset architecture in a 1U rack mount form factor. These servers support up to ten 2.5” drives and provide the option for an LCD located in the front of the server for system health monitoring, alerting, and basic management configuration. An AC power meter and ambient temperature thermometer are built into the server, both of which can be monitored on this display without any software tools. The server features two CPU sockets and 24 memory DIMM slots.

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/fc-san/pd

http://www.dell.com/Compellent


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Shared Tier 1 Mgmt Host – PowerEdge R620

2 x Intel Xeon E5-2680 Processor (2.7Ghz)

96GB Memory (6 x 16GB DIMMs @ 1600Mhz)

VMware vSphere 5 on internal SD

Diskless

Broadcom 57800 2 x 10Gb SFP+ + 2 x 1Gb NDC

1 x Broadcom 5720 1Gb DP NIC (LAN)

1 x Intel X520 2 x 10Gb SFP+ DP NIC (iSCSI)

iDRAC7 Enterprise w/ vFlash, 8GB SD

2 x 750W PSUs

For more information, see the PowerEdge R620 guides at Dell.com/PowerEdge.

3.10 OpenManage Essentials

The Dell OpenManage™ Essentials (OME) Console provides a single, easy-to-use, one-to-many interface through which to manage resources in multivendor operating system and hypervisor environments. It automates basic repetitive hardware management tasks — like discovery, inventory, and monitoring— for Dell servers, storage, and network systems. OME employs the embedded management of PowerEdge™ servers — Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 7 (iDRAC7) with Lifecycle Controller — to enable agent-free remote management and monitoring of server hardware components like storage, networking, processors and memory. OpenManage Essentials helps you maximize IT performance and uptime with capabilities like:

• Automated discovery, inventory and monitoring of Dell PowerEdge™ servers, EqualLogic™ and PowerVault™ storage and PowerConnect™ switches

• Agent-free server monitoring as well as BIOS, firmware and driver updates for Dell PowerEdge servers, blade systems and internal storage

• Control of PowerEdge servers within Windows®, Linux®, VMware® and Hyper-V® environments

For more information on OpenManage Essentials, see Dell.com/openmanageessentials.

3.11 Dell Hardware and Storage Management integrated into vCenter

Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter is included in the solution. This enables customers to:

http://www.dell.com/PowerEdge

http://www.dell.com/openmanageessentials


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• Get deep-level detail from Dell servers for inventory, monitoring, and alerting — all from

within vCenter

• Apply BIOS and Firmware updates to Dell servers from within vCenter

• Automatically perform Dell-recommended vCenter actions based on Dell hardware alerts

• Access Dell hardware warranty information online

• Rapidly deploy new bare metal hosts using Profile features

3.12 VIS Creator

VIS Creator is an elastic, policy-driven platform that simplifies workload delivery and lifecycle management for IT department and end users. It empowers authorized end users to deploy their own workloads for quick response to business needs. Additionally it controls sprawl and optimizes utilization of virtual machines with automated provisioning and reclamation policies.

Dell VIS Creator enables authorized users to access a customized catalog of IT resources, some of which can be ready for deployment in minutes. With VIS Creator, authorized users can:

• Request new services from a customized catalog of resources

• Modify existing resources

• View details and consumption of existing resources

Utilizing the automated self-service delivery model of VIS Creator, users can request and purchase solutions that are the right size today, with the confidence that changes can be made easily and quickly in the future.

VIS Creator provides administrators and end users with a powerful set of tools, including the ability to:

• Eliminate time-consuming steps by formalizing the resource-deployment process and streamlining the approval process

• Respond to changes quickly by selecting and deploying standard IT resources almost instantly

• Customize an extensive set of out-of-the-box workflows to help automate many common tasks associated with workload deployment

Giving end users the ability to select, deploy, and manage IT resources sounds as though it could wreak havoc with internal governance, but the truth is quite the opposite. With VIS Creator in place, IT administrators can:

• Define policies to limit resource consumption

• Ensure that IT requests are provisioned to standards

• Enforce process workflows, as well as user rights and access control

• Define which users have access to specific resources and processes


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With its robust automation of policies and access controls, VIS Creator can help you establish consistent IT governance through processes, not people. For administrators, this means the ability to:

• Organize resources, policies, processes and management access controls for each group or service tier

• Reserve dedicated computer resources for a group from a shared physical infrastructure

• Utilize workflows for building, managing, reclaiming, decommissioning, and archiving each machine

• Define group membership and user rights

For more information on Dell Compellent, see Dell.com/VISCreator.

3.13 Dell Cloud Connectivity using VMware vCloud Connector

VMware vCloud Connector lets you view, operate on and transfer your computing resources across vSphere and vCloud Director in your private cloud environment, as well as Dell vCloud public cloud.

• Expand your view across hybrid clouds. Use a "single pane of glass" management interface that seamlessly spans your private vSphere and public Dell vCloud environment.

• Extend your datacenter. Move VMs, vApps, and templates from private vSphere to a Dell vCloud to free up your on-premise datacenter resources as needed.

• Consume cloud resources with confidence. Run Development, QA, and production workloads using Dell vCloud, a VMware technology-based public cloud.

The Dell Cloud with VMware vCloud™ Datacenter is an enterprise-class, multi-tenant infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) public cloud solution that is hosted in secured Dell data centers. Utilizing VMware vCloud Connector, Dell Cloud provides you with unique hybrid cloud capabilities to extend your internal data center with Dell and VMware by transitioning your VMware virtualized workloads into our vCloud data center. vCloud hosting provides you with a secure, manageable and flexible public cloud application.

For more information, see Dell vCloud website.

http://www.dell.com/VISCreator

http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/by-service-type-cloud-services-cloud-hosting.aspx


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4 Design Principles The following principles are central to the design and architecture of Dell vStart 1000 for VDI Solution.

1. Redundancy with no single point-of-failure: Redundancy is incorporated in every aspect of the solution, including server high availability features, networking, and storage.

2. Management: Provide integrated management using VMware vCenter, Dell Management Plug-in VMware vCenter, Dell OpenManage Essentials, and Compellent plug-in for VMware vCenter.

3. Cloud Enabled: The solution includes VIS Creator, which enables customers to manage their virtualization infrastructure as a private cloud. The private cloud can in turn be connected to Dell vCloud using VMware vCloud Connector.

4. Integration into an existing data center: This architecture assumes that there is an existing 10 Gb Ethernet infrastructure with which to integrate.

5. Hardware configuration for virtualization: This solution is designed for virtualization for most general cases. Each blade server is configured with appropriate processor, memory, host bus, and network adapters as required for virtualization.

6. Racked, Cabled and Ready to be Deployed: vStart is available partially racked, cabled, and delivered to the customer site, ready for deployment. Components are configured and racked to optimize airflow and thermals. Based on customer needs, different rack sizes and configurations are available to support various datacenter requirements.

7. Power, Cooling, and Weight Considerations: Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution is configured with Power Distribution Units (PDUs) to meet the power requirements of the components as well as regional constraints. Power consumed, cooling required, and information regarding rack weight are provided to enable customers to plan for the solution.

8. Flexible configurations: Dell vStart 1000 for VDI is pre-configured to suit most customer needs for a virtualized infrastructure. The solution also supports additional options, such as configuring racks, server processors, server memory, and storage, based on customer needs.


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5 Reference Architecture This solution consists of a PowerEdge M1000e chassis populated with PowerEdge M620 blade servers running VMware ESXi. provides high-level reference architecture for the solution. The figure shows high-level logical connectivity between various components. Subsequent sections provide more detailed connectivity information.

Dell vStart 1000 for VDI Network Topology (Logical View) Figure 3.


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6 Dell Blade Network Architecture The Dell blade chassis has three separate fabrics referred to as A, B, and C. Each fabric has two I/O modules, for a total of six I/O modules slots in the chassis. The I/O modules are A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. Each I/O module can be an Ethernet physical switch, an Ethernet pass-through module, FC switch, or FC pass-through module. Each half-height blade server has a dual-port network daughter card (NDC) and two optional dual-port mezzanine I/O cards. The NDC connects to Fabric A. One mezzanine I/O card attaches to Fabric B, with the remaining mezzanine I/O card attached to Fabric C.

In this solution, the Chassis Fabric A contains 10 GbE Pass-Through-k modules and is used for LAN. Fabric B contains Dell 8|4 Gbps SAN modules and is used for SAN. The Fabric C is unused.

M620 blade servers use the Broadcom 57810-k Dual port 10GbE KR Blade NDC to connect to the fabric A. Pass-Through-K modules uplink to Dell Force10 S4810 network switches providing LAN connectivity. QLogic QME2572 8 Gbps Fibre Channel I/O mezzanine cards are used to connect to Dell 8|4 Gbps SAN modules. The uplinks of Dell 8|4 Gbps SAN modules connect to Brocade 5100 switches providing SAN connectivity.

The diagram below illustrates how the fabrics are populated in a Dell blade server chassis and how the I/O modules are utilized.

I/O Connectivity for M620 Blade Server Figure 4.

Fabr

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110

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Pas

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Mod

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Fabr

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Broadcom 57810-k 10Gb KR

NDC

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QME2572

Mezz CUnused

Network Interface Card Partition (NPAR): NPAR allows splitting the 10GbE pipe on the NDC with no specific configuration requirements in the switches. With NPAR, administrators can split each 10GbE


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port of an NDC into four separate partitions, or physical functions and allocate the desired bandwidth and resources as needed. Each of these partitions is enumerated as a PCI Express function that appears as a separate physical NIC in the server, operating systems, and hypervisor. Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution takes advantage of NPAR. Partitions are created for various traffic types and bandwidth is allocated, as described in the following section.


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7 Network Architecture LAN traffic in the Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution is categorized into four traffic types: VM traffic, management traffic, vMotion traffic, and Out-of-Band (OOB) management traffic. VM traffic, management traffic, and vMotion traffic are associated with the blade servers. OOB management traffic is associated with CMC, iDRAC, Brocade management, and Compellent management traffic. This section provides the network best practices for implementing VMware vSphere 5 on Dell blade servers and Force10 S4810 switches.

On the M620 blade servers, each of the 10GbE ports is partitioned into four network interfaces using NPAR resulting in a total of eight NICs for each server. A virtual switch is created for the three traffic types: VM traffic, management traffic, and vMotion traffic. Two partitions, one from each physical network port, are connected as uplinks to the virtual switch. This creates a team of two network ports, enabling NIC failover and load balancing for each vSwitch. The resultant design and concept is illustrated in.

vSwitch, NPAR and I/O Module Configuration Figure 6.

Traffic Isolation using VLANs: LAN traffic is separated into four unique VLANs; one VLAN each, for management, out-of-band management, vMotion, and VM traffic. Network traffic is tagged with the respective VLAN ID for each traffic type in the virtual switch. Routing between the management and out-of-band management VLANs is required to be configured in the core or the S4810 switches. Additionally, the Force10 S4810 switch ports that connect to the blade servers need to be configured in VLAN trunk mode to pass traffic with different VLANs on a given physical port.

Load Balancing and Failover: This solution uses Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID configuration at the vSwitch for load balancing the LAN traffic. Any given virtual network adapter will


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use only one physical adapter port at any given time. In other words, if a VM has only one virtual NIC, it will use only one physical adapter port at any given time. The reason for choosing this option is that it is easy to configure and provides good load balancing across VMs, especially in the case of a large number of VMs.

Inter Switch Links for S4810s: The two Force10’s S4810 switches are connected using Inter Switch Links (ISLs) using two 40 Gbps QSFP+ links. Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs) are then created between the two 40 Gbps QSFP+ ports, providing a path for communication across the switches.

Note that the two switches can also be stacked together. However, this is not recommended, as this configuration will incur downtime during firmware updates of the switch or failure of stack links.

Uplinks: There are several options to uplink the Force10 switches to the core network. Selecting the uplink option depends on the customer core network and customer requirements. One simple option is to create multiple uplinks on each switch and connect them to the core network switches. Uplink LAGs can then be created from the S4810 to the core network.


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8 Storage Architecture In this solution, Compellent Storage Center is connected to the Dell blade servers using Brocade 5100 FC switches.

8.1 Fibre Channel Fabric Architecture The solution is configured with two FC fabrics as shown in . The two fabric design ensures that changes to one fabric do not impact the other fabric.

Fibre Channel SAN Logical Connectivity Figure 7.


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8.2 Storage Connectivity

Connectivity between the Dell FC SAN Module and Brocade 5100: Each blade is populated with a QLogic QME2572 8 Gbps Fibre Channel I/O mezzanine card, which is used to connect to Fabric B. Fabric B is populated with Dell 8|4Gbps SAN modules. The Dell FC SAN Module is configured to operate as a port aggregator for aggregating 16 internal ports to four external ports. Dell FC SAN module port aggregator operates in access gateway mode for providing N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV) functionality. The following are the FC ports that the FC SAN Module uses:

• F_Port - internal fabric port that connects a blade server (HBA). • N_Port - external node port that connects to a switch.

Using Brocade Port Trunking, multiple external N_Ports are combined to form a single logical port. The FC SAN Module uses internal F-port to external N-port mappings as configured to direct traffic from the blade server (HBAs) to the fabric.

In this solution, a trunk group is configured on each Brocade 5100 switch with four FC ports. Each Dell SAN module automatically forms a trunk with the corresponding external N-ports connected to the FC switch ports.

Connectivity between Brocade 5100 and Compellent Storage Controller: In the solution, each Compellent Series 40 storage controller is configured with two quad ports FC HBAs. Two ports per HBA are used to connect each storage controller to the two Brocade 5100 switches.

Compellent Storage Connectivity: In this solution, Compellent series 40 storage controllers are configured with two quad port 6Gb/s SAS HBAs. Using the two quad port SAS HBAs, multiple Compellent 24 bay 2.5” SAS enclosures are connected. The enclosures are grouped into two redundant daisy chained connections for optimal performance. Each daisy chain loop can have a maximum of 96 drives.

8.3 Performance

Dell Compellent Series 40, with the dual-controller configuration, 8 Gb Fibre Channel interconnects provides high bandwidth for data flows. This bandwidth is complemented with a large variety of drives in multiple speeds and sizes. The Series 40 also uses virtual port IQNs and WWNs, thereby enabling higher throughput and fault tolerance.

8.4 Drive Types and Automated Tiered Storage

In Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution, the number of storage enclosures and the drives in the enclosures can be customized based on customer requirements. Administrators can mix SSD and SAS drives in the same system, as well as SAS drives with the same form factor (but different speeds and capacities) in the same storage enclosure. A maximum of 16 enclosures is supported in DVS vStart.

High speed drives are assigned to higher Tiers and low speed drives to lower Tiers. Compellent Storage Center automatically configures RAID levels for these tiers and automatically moves the data between the tiers based on access patterns. Compellent Fluid Data storage dynamically moves data to the optimal tier based on actual usage. The most active blocks reside on high-performance SSD, FC, or SAS drives, while infrequently accessed data migrates to lower-cost, high-capacity SAS or SATA drives. For more details, refer to the Automated Tiered Storage web page. Automated Tiered Storage requires Data Progress licenses for Compellent.

http://www.compellent.com/products/software/automated-tiered-storage.aspx


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8.5 RAID Array Design

Dell Compellent Series 40 supports RAID 5, 6 and 10. The Compellent Storage Center will dynamically set up RAID based upon the demands of applications accessing data on the storage tier(s).

8.6 Multipath Configuration In the solution, VMware Native Multipath Plug-In (NMP) is used to provide multi-pathing. Path Selection Plug-Ins (PSPs) run with the VMware NMP and are responsible for choosing a physical path for I/O requests. Round Robin (VMW_PSP_RR) path selection algorithm is the recommended configuration for Compellent Storage Center. Round Robin uses a path selection algorithm that rotates through all available active optimal paths enabling load balancing across the paths. This ensures all the paths are used to provide the maximum bandwidth and balance IO across the paths/fabrics.


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9 Management Infrastructure

Management Components Figure 8.

Two PowerEdge R620 servers and one Force10 S55 1Gb Ethernet switch are used for management infrastructure. The R620 servers are connected to the Force10 S4810 switches using Broadcom 57810 Dual Port 10Gb Network Adapter. The servers are connected to the Compellent storage through the Brocade 5100 switches using a QLogic QLA2562 8Gbps Fibre Channel Card. Note that the Compellent storage is shared between management cluster and compute cluster. The Compellent storage must be sized so that sufficient bandwidth is allocated for both the management VMs and compute VMs.

The R620 servers run VMware ESXi 5.0 hypervisor and are a part of the unique vSphere Cluster. VMware High Availability is enabled in that cluster to provide HA for virtual machines. The following management components are installed as virtual machines in the management infrastructure as illustrated in:

• VMware vCenter Server (Compellent Plugin for vCenter is installed along with VMware vCenter client)

• XenDesktop 5.6 (Further detail on XD components below)

• OpenManage Plugin for vCenter

• Compellent Enterprise Manager

• OpenManage Essentials


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9.1 XenDesktop 5.6

The solution is based on Citrix XenDesktop. Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete end-to-end solution that delivers Microsoft Windows 7 virtual desktops to users on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Virtual desktops are dynamically assembled on demand, providing users with pristine, yet personalised, desktops each time they log on.

Citrix XenDesktop provides a complete virtual desktop delivery system by integrating several distributed components with advanced configuration tools that simplify the creation and real-time management of the virtual desktop infrastructure.

The core components of XenDesktop are:

● XenDesktop Controller ― Installed on servers in the data centre, the controller authenticates users, manages the

assembly of users’ virtual desktop environments, and brokers connections between users and their virtual desktops.

● Citrix Provisioning Server ― The Provisioning Services infrastructure is based on software-streaming technology. This

technology allows computers to be provisioned and re-provisioned in real-time from a single shared-disk image. In doing so, administrators can completely eliminate the need to manage and patch individual systems. Instead, all image management is done on the master image. This greatly reduces the amount of storage required compared to other methods of creating virtual desktops. The Provisioning Server runs on a virtual instance of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on the Management Server(s).

● XenDesktop Database ― A Microsoft SQL database that hosts configuration and session information and as a result

should be hosted on a resilient database platform.

● Virtual Desktop Agent ― The Virtual Desktop Agent (VDA) is installed on every virtual desktop and enables the

direct connection between the virtual desktop and users’ endpoint devices. This connection is made using the Citrix ICA (Independent Computing Architecture) protocol.

Click HERE for more information on Citrix XenDesktop.

The communication flow for XenDesktop 5.6 is shown below

http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/xendesktop/cds-library-wrapper-rho.html


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9.1.1 Citrix Personal vDisk Technology

Citrix Personal vDisk (PVD) provides the ability to allow users to store persistent data in a per user container within a XenDesktop environment. PVD works with Provisioning server or Machine Creation Services and appears as an option when setting up a new catalog in Desktop Studio. The size of the personal vdisk is specified when configuring the desktop catalog and should be set at 10GB minimum on Tier 2 storage. This reserve may need to be higher for more intensive workloads that store more data. Consideration should be paid not only to the Tier 2 capacity impacts of PVD, but also the IOPS and virtualization host CPU increase. ~25% additional CPU and +2 IOPS is required per user with PVD. To calculate density impact, the user type density per host should be divided by 1.25 (example: 120 / 1.25 for basic users with PVD and 10 IOPS vs 8 with no PVD). See section 7.3.4 for more information on sizing and scaling with Citrix PVD.


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XenDesktop VDI Image Layer Management

Common Base OS Image

User Workspace

Citrix Profile Management

Citrix Personal vDisk Technology

User DataCorporate Installed

Apps

User Settings

User Installed

Apps

By design, PVD creates a User Workspace consisting of a personal vdisk that is split between user personalization and application data, with the default split being 50/50. If a user manages to fill their entire personal vdisk, it is possible to increase the size of a personal vdisk after the virtual desktop has been assigned by utilizing the XenDesktop Desktop Director.

This technology uses set of Kernel mode drivers that load during the Windows boot process. These drivers allow most applications to work in a seamless manner with the personal vdisk attached. Exceptions to this are applications that operate or install components prior to the loading of the Citrix PVD drivers. Specifically, certain device driver installers or Anti-virus software may not work properly if installed within the personal vdisk. Based on the core Windows level operation of the filter driver, an overhead is added as part of the calculation used to determine write processes should be routed to the base desktop or the personal vdisk. This has been validated as part of the testing conducted in this document.

It has not been observed but is expected that a substantial growth in the amount of user personalization and application data, will have an effect on server scalability and performance. Additionally, applications that are registry intensive can also be expected to have a degrading effect on scalability and performance.

9.1.2 Citrix Profile Manager

Citrix Profile Management is a component of the XenDesktop suite which is used to manage user profiles an minimise many of the issues associated with traditional Windows Roaming profiles in an environment where users may have their profile open on multiple devices at the same time. The profile management toolset has two components, the profile management agent which is installed on any device where the user profiles will be managed by the toolset, which will be the virtual desktops. The second component is a Group Policy Administrative Template, which is imported to a group policy which is assigned to an organisational unit within active directory which contains the devices upon which the user profiles will be managed.

In order to further optimise the profile management folders within the user profile that can be used to store data will be redirected the users’ home drive. The folder redirection will be managed via group policy objects within Active Directory. The following folders will be redirected;

● Contacts

● Downloads

● Favorites

● Links

● My Documents


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● Searches

● Start Menu

● Windows

● My Music

● My Pictures

● My Videos

● Desktop

9.1.3 Provisioning Services 6.1

Citrix Provisioning Services is the infrastructure component that provides operating system streaming technology. It allows administrators to create virtual disks that represent a computer hard drive, and then relocate that vdisk onto the Provisioning Server, or on a storage device that is accessible to the Provisioning Server.

Once the vdisk is available, the target device no longer needs its local hard drive to operate; it boots directly across the network. The Provisioning Server streams the contents of the vdisk to the target device on demand, in real time, and the target device behaves as if it is running from its local drive.

9.1.4 Provisioning Services Networking Dependencies

Network services include a DHCP service, BOOTP service, Pre-boot Execution Environment (PXE) service, and a TFTP service. These services can be used during the boot process to retrieve IP addresses, and locate and download the boot program from the Provisioning Server to the target device.

9.1.5 SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1

The Citrix and VMware databases will be hosted by a single dedicated SQL 2008 R2 SP1 Server VM in the management tier. Care should be taken during database setup to ensure that SQL data, logs, and TempDB are properly separated onto their respective volumes. Create all Databases that will be required for:

● Citrix XenDesktop

● Provisioning Server

● Vmware vCenter

● Vmware vCenter Update Manager (optional)

Initial placement of all databases into a single SQL instance is fine unless performance becomes an issue, in which case database should be separated into separate named instances. Enable auto-growth for each DB. See evolutionary section below for more information. Best practices defined by Citrix and VMware should be adhered to, to ensure optimal database performance. The EqualLogic PS series arrays utilize a default RAID stripe size of 64K. To provide optimal performance, disk partitions should be configured to begin from a sector boundary divisible by 64K. Disks to be used by SQL Server should be aligned with a 1024K offset and then formatted with a 64K file allocation unit size (data, logs, and tempdb).

All clustered services are summarized in below:

Role Purpose

FileShare “Homes” Homes Share for end users i.e. their data location

FileShare “Profiles” User Profiles Share

SQL Databases DB vCenter, Provisioning Server and XenDesktop Database


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9.1.6 VMware vCenter and SQL

The vCenter 4.1 VM used in the stack will start as a single Windows 2008 R2 VM, residing on the Management Virtual Infrastructure ESXIi Server. This VM will have a hardware configuration as outlined in section 4.1.1 and it will connect to SQL Server to provide its database.

This database for vCenter will reside on the virtual SQL server running SQL 2008 R2.

Also, VMware Converter will be installed on the VCenter server to facilitate importing OVF or Virtual Machines from other Virtual Environments for management purposes. All licensing for the VMware products will also be installed on this vCenter Server, the following is the license requirement.

● 4 CPU x VSphere 4 Standard

● 1 x vCenter Server 4 Standard

‘Gold Image’ VM’s will be generated for each base Operating System required within the bundle. Also, Customization Scripts will be added to vCenter to ensure all cloning activity from these VM’s produce VM’s with new SID and also licensing, naming convention and some default network settings etc.

Lastly, vCenter will have to obtain its own SSL certificate, either from a root certificate authority or via an OpenSSL tool. This is required for the XenDesktop Desktop Delivery Controller to connect via the web to vCenter.

9.1.7 Citrix License Server

The Citrix License Server is an essential component at any Citrix-based solution. Every Citrix product environment must have at least one shared or dedicated license server. License servers are computers that are either partly or completely dedicated to storing and managing licenses. Citrix products request licenses from a license server when users attempt to connect.

The Citrix License server component requires minimal system resources; the resource requirements are so minimal that there is no hardware requirements above those required by the operating system used to host the service. The License Server must be version 11.9 or newer and will be based on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 running as a virtual machine on the first management server.

9.1.8 Citrix Web Interface Server

The Web Interface provides users with simple and controlled access to XenDesktop virtual desktops. Users access their resources through a standard Web browser or through the Citrix online plug-in. The Web Interface employs Java and .NET technology executed on a Web server to dynamically create an HTML depiction of server farms for XenApp Web sites. Users are presented with all the resources (applications, content, and desktops) published in the server farm(s) made available. Stand-alone Web Interface sites can be utilized or they can be integrated into a corporate portal.


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9.1.9 Windows File Services

Windows File Services are used to store user profile and home drive data. Unless an advanced user profile abstraction tool is used, profiles and user data should be controlled using the folder redirection and profile management tools native to Windows and administered via Windows Group Policy and Citrix User Profile Manager. If an optional FS7500 NAS head is used, the File Services role will be migrated to the NAS and the virtual file server instance(s) removed. See section 11 for more details on the FS7500.

9.1.10 Citrix Desktop Receiver

The Citrix Desktop Receiver is a client-based plug-in that is installed on the user’s endpoint device. This is to be used in-conjunction with Citrix XenDesktop when the user requires the ability to interact with their local desktop as well as the XenDesktop. This package provides the toolbar functionality, allowing the user to pan and scale their XenDesktop inside their local desktop. When a user logs into a Web Interface site to access XenDesktop, the Web Interface site can detect that the Citrix Desktop Receiver is absent from endpoint devices, and automatically prompt users to download and install it from the site.

9.1.11 Citrix Netscaler VPX

The Netscaler platform should be leveraged >1000 users to provide load balancing capabilities for the Citrix Web Interface and XML services. Since these appliances have the ability to provide secure remote access to the Citrix XenDesktop environment their inclusion in the solution provides the ability for the solution to be upgraded in the future if this functionality is required.

The Netscaler virtual appliance can be optionally configured in a High availability pair, as an active/passive cluster. The appliances will provide load balancing services for the following XenDesktop components:

● Citrix Web Interface


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● XenDesktop XML service

● Provisioning Services TFTP service

Since the appliances will be deployed on the same VLAN as the services they will provide load balancing services to each appliance will be configured with a dedicated Netscaler IP address (NSIP) and Subnet IP address (SNIP). The Virtual Server IP addresses (VIP) that are used for load balancing will be initially configured on the primary appliance in the cluster however, these addresses and all related configuration will be automatically copied to the secondary appliance once the High availability feature is enabled. In the event that the primary appliance is unavailable the secondary appliance will detect that its partner is offline and will automatically promote itself to primary status and deliver the Virtual servers.

Netscaler Load Balancing OptionsVirtual Desktop Pool

Storage

VM 3

VM 1Delivery Controller

Delivery Controller

Delivery Controller

VM 2

XenDesktop Farm

Netscaler

Web Interface

Web Interface

Netscaler

Tier 1 Array

Tier 2 Array

NAS

Provisioning Server

Provisioning Server

Netscaler

All services should be configured using the standard setup wizard once the Netscaler VPX 200 license is installed, this will allow the administrator to configure the System Time, NSIP and SNIP address, in addition the wizard will allow the administrator to specify that the appliances are load balancing XenDesktop at which point the IP addresses of the two web interface servers and the XML Brokers (XenDesktop Controllers) will be required. It should be noted that the Web interface servers should be installed prior to any port changes for the XML service however the XML port changes should be completed on both the Web Interface configuration and the XenDesktop Controller prior to configuring the Netscaler appliance. Once the XML load balancing is configured the administrator will be required to change the XenDesktop farm configuration parameters on the Web Interface servers to ensure that the load balanced XML service is at the top of the server list, with the “real” servers configured as lower priority servers and that the server list is not be used for load balancing

9.1.12 Windows Active Directory Integration

Windows Active Directory integration for XenDesktop 5.0 is required for authentication services only, unlike previous versions where the controllers were discovered using Service Principle names which were maintained as object in the Active Directory structure.


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10 Enterprise Zero Client and Thin Client Recommendations Wyse Thin and Zero Client devices and software provide superior security, reliability and energy efficiency when compared to a traditional PC. Wyse desktop devices and software help streamline the delivery of Citrix infrastructure to millions of users around the world. Thin Clients create a more secure environment that minimizes or eliminates exposure to data loss, viruses and malware. By utilizing thin clients as the access device for end user, deployments can benefit from centralized management and complete control of all endpoints. Since thin clients eliminate components with high failure rates, deployments can expect reduced costs and improved reliability over the life of a desktop virtualization deployment.

10.1 Wyse Xenith Pro

Wyse Xenith Pro is the next-generation zero client for Citrix HDX and Citrix XenDesktop, delivering ultimate performance, security and simplicity. The Wyse Xenith Pro features a true Zero Engine architecture which offers industry leading security and performance. With a powerful AMD G-series processor, Xenith Pro is up to three times faster than competing devices. This additional computing horsepower allows dazzling HD multimedia delivery without overtaxing your server or network. The Wyse Xenith Pro requires zero configuration and management—your Citrix XenDesktop server configures it out-of-the-box to your preferences for plug-and-play speed and ease of use. Completely virus and malware immune, the Xenith Pro draws under 14 watts of power in full operation, far lower than traditional PC’s.

Click HERE for more information on the Wyse Xenith Pro.

Display recommendations for the Z50D are listed below

The U3011 shown above supports 2560x1600, VGA, DVI, DP and USB. Other options include the P2212H with 1920x1080, VGA, DVI and USB, and the E2213 with 1680x1050, VGA and DVI.

http://www.wyse.com/products/cloud-clients/zero-clients/Xenith-Pro


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10.2 Wyse T10

The Wyse T10 sets the new standard for affordable thin clients. Providing an exceptional user experience, the T10 features the incredibly fast Wyse ThinOS, for environments in which security is critical. Boot up in just seconds and log in securely to the network. The T10 delivers a superior Citrix and Microsoft user experience, along with the usability and management features traditionally found in premium thin clients. The T10 delivers outstanding performance based on its system-on-a-chip (SoC) design, and a built-in media processor delivers smooth multimedia, bi-directional audio and Flash playback. Flexible mounting options let you position the T10 vertically or horizontally on your desk, on the wall or behind your display. Using about 7 watts of power in full operation, the T10 creates very little heat for a greener, more comfortable working environment.

Click HERE for more information on the Wyse T10.

Display recommendations for the T10 are listed below

The P2412H shown above supports 1920x1080, VGA, DVI and USB. Other options include the E2213 with 1680x1050, VGA and DVI, and the E1913 with 1440x900, VGA and DVI.

http://www.wyse.com/products/cloud-clients/thin-clients/T10


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11 Scalability As workloads increase, the solution can be scaled to provide additional compute and storage resources independently.

Scaling Compute and Network Resources: This solution is configured with two S4810 network switches. Up to two PowerEdge M1000e chassis can be added to the Force10 two switches. In order to scale the compute nodes beyond two chassis, new S4810 switches need to be added. Additional switches can either be stacked together and/or connected to this distribution switch based on customer needs.

Scaling Storage Resources: Compellent storage can be scaled seamlessly and independent of the compute and network architectures. Additional drives and enclosures can be added to the existing controllers. New volumes can be created or existing volumes can be expanded to utilize the capacity in the added enclosures. Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution can scale up to maximum of 16 array enclosures. To scale beyond this, additional racks or controllers can be added. Compellent Series 40 controller can scale up to a maximum of 960 drives.

Based on the best practices from Citrix and DVS Engineering validation work the following scaling guidelines have been established for the virtual management infrastructure and the hosts. 7 Windows Standard licenses are required to support the XenDesktop VM’s and this number grows as the environment scales.

Based on the DVS Engineering validation work, the per host density numbers below provide an idea of the number of users each host can accommodate. The Basic, Standard and Premium user workloads are generated by LoginVSI (from Login Consultants), the intensity of activity and applications increases as you go up through the workloads, giving real world relevance to the validation. There is of course always a ratio of basic, standard or premium users so actual densities will vary in production

Basic User

Count

Standard User

Count

Premium User

Count

Physical Mgmt Servers

Physical Host

Servers

M1000e Blade

Chassis

Virtual PVS

Servers

Virtual Desktop

Controllers

Virtual License Servers

Virtual Web

Interface

Virtual vCenter Server

Virtual Windows

File Servers135 110 90 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 11000 815 667 1 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 12000 1630 1333 2 15 2 2 1 1 1 1 03000 2444 2000 3 23 2 3 2 1 1 1 04000 3259 2667 3 30 3 4 2 1 2 2 05000 4074 3333 4 38 3 5 2 1 2 2 06000 4889 4000 5 45 4 5 3 1 2 2 07000 5704 4667 5 52 4 6 3 1 3 3 08000 6519 5333 6 60 5 7 4 1 3 3 09000 7333 6000 7 67 5 8 4 1 3 3 0

10000 8148 6667 8 75 6 9 4 1 4 4 0


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User Type XD 5.6

Per Host User Density

Basic 135

Standard 110

Premium 90


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12 Delivery Model This Reference Architecture can be purchased as a complete solution, the DVS vStart. This solution is available to be partially racked, cabled, and delivered to the customer site, to speed deployment. Dell Services will deploy and configure the solution tailored to the business needs of the customer and based on the architecture developed and validated by Dell Engineering. For more details or questions about the delivery model, please consult with your Dell Sales representative.

Figure 7 below shows the Dell vStart 1000 for VDI solution with a single chassis. Figure 8 shows Dell vStart 1000 for VDI with two chassis and maximum storage enclosures. Note that switches shown in figures are shown mounted forward for representation. In actual use, ports face the back of the rack. PDUs shown are for illustration and will vary by region or customer power requirements. Additional PDUs are utilized within the rack.


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Dell vStart 1000 for VDI Single Chassis: Rack Overview Figure 9.


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Dell vStart 1000 for VDI Two Chassis and Maximum Storage: Rack Overview Figure 10.


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13 Reference • Dell TechCenter vStart Wiki

• Dell vStart: Dell.com/vStart

• Dell Force10 Switch Details • Brocade 5100 Product Details • Dell 8/4 Gbps Fibre Channel SAN module • Dell Compellent Storage

o Automated Tiered Storage o Fast Track o Dell Compellent Plug-In for VMware vCenter

• VMware vSphere links: o Virtual Networking Concepts

• Dell Management Plug-in for VMware vCenter Documentation

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/virtualization/w/wiki/3234.dell-vstart.aspx

http://www.dell.com/vStart

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/force10-s4810/pd

http://www.brocade.com/products/all/switches/product-details/5100-switch/index.page

http://www.dell.com/us/enterprise/p/fc-san/pd

http://www.dell.com/compellent

http://www.compellent.com/products/software/automated-tiered-storage.aspx

http://www.compellent.com/Products/Software/Fast-Track.aspx

http://www.compellent.com/Community/Blog/Posts/2010/9/Compellent-vSphere-Plugin.aspx

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/eslvmwre/plugin/index.htm