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Abstract First analysts and performance best practices for Windows 10

Windows 10 in VDI: first analysis and performance best

practices

TeamVRC:

First analysis and performance best practices for Windows 10 in VDI

1 Founding Partners:

Author(s) : TeamVRC -‐ Omar Bouhaj, Jeroen van de Kamp and Ruben Spruijt

Version: 1.0

Date: October 2015

TeamVRC:



©2015 TeamVRC, all rights reserved.

All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Brands or products mentioned in this document are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND

FOR REFERENCE PURPOSES ONLY

COPYRIGHT TEAMVRC

IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO (PARTIALLY) PUBLISH OR DISTRIBUTE CONTENT WITHOUT APPROVAL

TeamVRC:



Contents 1. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3

3. Test platform and approach ............................................................................................................ 4

4. Windows 7 vs Windows 10: default install ...................................................................................... 6

Comparing ESXTOP results .............................................................................................................. 6

Comparing VSImax ........................................................................................................................ 10

5. Windows 7 vs Windows 10: Fully Tuned ....................................................................................... 11

Most important windows 7 tuning examples are: ........................................................................ 11

Most important windows 10 tuning examples are: ...................................................................... 12

Comparing ESXTOP results ............................................................................................................ 14

6. Tuning Windows 10: first analysis ................................................................................................. 18

Comparing ESXTOP results ............................................................................................................ 18

Comparing VSImax ........................................................................................................................ 25

7. About ProjectVRC.team -‐ TeamVRC .............................................................................................. 26

TeamVRC objectives ...................................................................................................................... 26

TeamVRC – contributor ................................................................................................................. 27

TeamVRC -‐ member ...................................................................................................................... 27

Intended audience ........................................................................................................................ 27

Contact .......................................................................................................................................... 27

8. About the founders and founding partners .................................................................................. 28

Founders ........................................................................................................................................ 28

Founding Partners ......................................................................................................................... 29

9. About Login VSI ............................................................................................................................. 31

Login VSI overview ........................................................................................................................ 31

Login VSI 4.1 Knowledge Workload ............................................................................................... 32

10. About the TeamVRC platform .................................................................................................. 36

TeamVRC:



1. Conclusion This ProjectVRC.team paper contains a first analysis of Windows 10 as a VDI workload. While currently Windows 7 is most popular in VDI environments, the interest in Windows 10 is tangible in the virtualization community. Because Windows 8 adoption has been terribly low, upgrading to Windows 10 is quite a significant change and raises many (new) questions.

The big question is of course: How does Windows 10 compare to Windows 7 and what tuning gives the best scalability and user experience in VDI environments. It is clear that we, the VDI community, still need to learn and investigate new performance tuning best practices.

For reference Windows 10 is compared to Windows 7 with Login VSI 4.1. First Windows 10 is compared to Windows 7 with only minimal tuning. All default features, services and functionalities are enabled with this comparison. Interestingly, VSImax is 12% lower for Windows 10 without tuning. This is a little surprising to see, because on a CPU and storage level, both un-‐tuned OS’s are not that different.

Secondly, both Windows 7 and 10 are fully tuned (stripped of all unnecessary features and services) and compared. This scenario is more interesting to most organizations currently using VDI tune their desktop image. Again, Windows 10 fully tuned for performance scores a 12% lower VSImax score than Windows 7 fully tuned. On CPU and storage level the differences are now much bigger. When fully tuned, Windows 10 has a clearly bigger storage IO and throughput footprint than Windows 7.

All in all, this is very encouraging news for the VDI community. Windows 10 truly shows her potential as a VDI solution. It is good to see two generations of Windows do not result in an enormous performance and scalability gap. But organizations with limited VDI storage should be very cautious, because a tuned Windows 10 image clearly demands more from storage than a fully tuned Windows 7 image.

Future ProjectVRC.team publications will dive deeper into performance tuning analysis than this preview paper, but some basic performance analysis of major Windows 10 features resulted in surprising conclusions. For instance, disabling defender and Windows Search combined increased VSImax by 10%. Removing the AppX (Windows Store apps) applications from the image resulted in a minimum of 5% increase in VSImax. Disabling Cortana and the start menu widgets improved performance by 8%.

However, when the CPU and storage utilization for the different tuning levels are compared, results are sometimes counter intuitive and not what could be logically expected. Simply put: Tuning Windows 10 for VDI performance proves to be finicky and sometimes the results are totally unexpected.

In short, this paper can draw three major conclusions:

• First, Windows 10 is not a bad operating system for VDI and does not have a huge performance gap with Windows 7. However, organizations with limited VDI server and storage capacity need to be careful and should consider upgrading/modernizing their VDI infrastructure before Windows 10 is used at scale.

TeamVRC:



• Secondly, performance tuning of Windows 10 for VDI has significant impact on scalability and user experience, but we still need to learn a lot. ProjectVRC.team encourages the VDI community to reach out to us to share their experience and tuning suggestions for Windows 10. Team VRC is looking forward to continue its investigations and publish even more detailed follow research on this topic. Please contact us at twitter: @ProjectVRC or email: [email protected] with your suggestions and ideas.

• Lastly, and maybe the most important conclusion of this preview paper: any organization considering Windows 10 should perform their own scalability and performance testing before they migrate from Windows 7. Windows 10 is significantly different from Windows 7 and each VDI environment is unique with specific applications, infrastructure and user requirements. Without doubt, not validating and testing Windows 10 VDI performance at scale could result in unpleasant surprises.

TeamVRC:



2. Introduction Windows 10 is finally here. At the time of writing, October 2015, already more than 100 million PCs have upgraded after only 2 months. Currently, Windows 10 is mostly used in the consumer space. Business adoption is logically still low, but that is expected to change quickly in the upcoming years.

Windows is not the only operating system in the modern Workspace anymore. The rise of mobile and cloud services changed the way we consume media, be social, are productive and collaborate with our peers. But even so, Windows will remain by far the most important Workspace platform for many years to come.

Everyone, not just consumers, did not like Windows 8. Business adoption has been terribly low. This was truly the Windows version that most preferred to skip. The schizophrenic way how classic desktop applications and full screen touch (modern) applications were presented, combined with the removal of the start menu, alienated many consumers and business users.

Now, this all has changed. Windows 10 is not just the version of Windows that everyone wants to love again; Microsoft made radical changes to its strategy how they delivered it to the market. Instead of releasing major new versions every couple years, Windows is now more delivered like a service and is continuously updated.

Windows 10 is not perfect and not without controversy. For example, how Microsoft tracks user behavior and the continued stream of Windows updates raises concerns for some. But maybe the biggest change is that all these changes and new features combined are massive. The reality is for most (especially for businesses) Windows 10 is a leapfrog OS, because we all skipped Windows 8 and are still working on Windows 7. This truly magnifies the impact.

That is why ProjectVRC.team will focus and research Windows 10 in the upcoming years. With so many new features and innovation happening on a functional, management and security level we as IT administrators have a lot to learn. After many years of testing and research, we know Windows 7 inside-‐out. We know how to get the most performance, highest scalability and optimize the OS for the best user-‐experience in VDI.

With Windows 10 we are at the forefront of a new era. We need to learn new best practices and we need to adjust our management strategies for a new Windows world. It is impossible not to get super-‐excited about exploring and finding new performance best practices for years to come.

This paper is a first analysis of how Windows 10 performs in VDI and how it compares to Windows 7. It will most definably not be the last publication on this topic. We, the VDI community, are still learning. And ProjectVRC.team hopes that this paper kick starts the conversation on how we should optimize Windows 10 for the best user experience and scalability.

TeamVRC:



3. Test platform and approach For testing Login VSI 4.1 is used. All tests are executed with:

• The knowledge worker workload • 2 vCPU per desktop VM • 2 GB of Memory per VM • For both Windows 7 & 10 the x64 version is used • Office 2013 x86 • Windows and Office fully patched via Windows update

o Windows 7 also includes the ‘VDI-‐hotfix’ • 2GB fixed Page file • The Windows VM’s are ‘Stateful’ and local profiles are used • In both Windows 7 and 10 Internet Explorer 11 is used

All tests are performed on:

• Dell PowerEdge R730 server • 2x Two Intel® Xeon® E52670 v3 2.3GHz – 12 Cores/24 Threads • 384 GB DDR4 RDIMM at 1866 MHZ • Power configuration in the server bios is set to ‘High Performance’ • Local Storage using

o PERC H330 RAID Controller o 3x 1 TB Samsung 850 PRO SSD’s configured in Raid 0 (perfect for testing, not

recommended in production) • vSphere 6.0b with default configuration • VMware Horizon 6.0 was used to deploy the desktop pool

About our testing approach

• All test are 100% automated to prevent manual error and safe time • Every test is repeated 10x to get an accurate average that does not deviate more than 1% • Erroneous tests and both the highest and lowest score are removed from the average score

calculation to prevent outliers from unrealistically influencing the average score • Between every test the hosts are fully rebooted • After each reboot the host is idled for 30 minutes before the test is started • All tests are executed in Login VSI’s Direct Desktop Mode. This is very important since this

makes this paper relevant for everyone, because no specific remoting protocol is used. In Direct Desktop Mode, all sessions are started as a console session.

The big advantage of using DDM is that now all comparisons are not influenced by changes on a remoting protocol level when we switch from Windows 7 to Windows 10. As a result, you may regard this paper as a ‘pure’ comparison of both OS’s in a VDI context.

When you are interested what the impact is of Windows 10 in a Citrix XenDesktop or VMware View environment, it is recommend you do your own testing or wait for dedicated publications on this topic. Please realize that the results in this paper are a first indication, we still have a lot to learn.

TeamVRC:



It is vitally important you perform your own Windows 10 tests before you upgrade you Windows 7 VDI environment. Your own VDI environment, image, applications, management and security tooling will be radically

different from the test environment used in this paper. You are practically guaranteed to witness different results and you will need to learn your

own best practices based on your own requirements.

TeamVRC:



4. Windows 7 vs Windows 10: default install Although nobody is running Windows without any optimizations within VDI anymore (or at least should…), it is interesting to see how both OS’s compare, almost ‘out-‐of-‐the-‐box’, without any specific performance tuning for VDI. This Windows desktop image is created without any specific tuning, other then the very minimal configured in the standard Login VSI policies. For example, screen saver is disabled to make sure the test is executed without problem. All functionality, like themes, hibernation, Windows Update, Defender and Windows Search are enabled. In Windows 10 also Cortona and the telemetry gathering by Microsoft (usage statistics) is enabled.

First we compare the ESXTOP results, secondly the overall impact on capacity with VSImax.

Comparing ESXTOP results

%Processor Time represents the total CPU utilization on a host level, including vSphere overhead. Without any specific Tuning both Windows 7 and 10 have almost the same total Physical CPU utilization, Windows 10 is only slightly higher.

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TeamVRC:



The same conclusion applies to %Util, which represents the CPU utilization for the VM’s only, without the overhead of the hypervisor. Windows 7 and 10 behave the same, Windows 10 is only marginally higher.

When the total commands are reviewed the differences are not very big. Interestingly, Windows 10 is clearly less erratic, starts lower than Windows 7 when there is low load and ends higher under full load.

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It is clear that Windows 7 had a couple of read spikes during the test. Overall Windows 10 has, without specific tuning, an approximately 25% higher read IO profile than Windows 7.

More interestingly, Windows 10, by default, has a lower Write IO profile than Windows 7. Writes are typically costlier than reads (which are easy to cache) in a storage environment, so this can be considered a ‘good’ thing.

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When we review the total of MB reads, Windows 10 is clearly higher.

However, while the IO volume of Windows 10 is lower, the throughput in MB’s is up to 50% higher by the end of the test.

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Comparing VSImax

When the VSImax scores are compared, VSImax is 12% lower for Windows 10 in comparison with Windows 7.

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TeamVRC:



5. Windows 7 vs Windows 10: Fully Tuned Now let’s compare Windows 7 and 10 fully tuned (to the max). In this image every scheduled task, service, feature, component that technically can be disabled to preserve resource utilization has been disabled.

Bear in mind, Windows 7 and 10 are quite different, that is why for both OS’s the list of tuning looks different. Testing Windows optimized to the bone is very interesting to better comprehend the differences between both OS’s, but is difficult to recommend in practice. For instance, Windows Search provides a key feature for most desktop users and Defender needs to be enabled for a reasonably secure experience. Still what potentially can be disabled will be disabled.

Most important windows 7 tuning examples are:

• Disabling unnecessary boot features • Disabling Windows Services:

o Application Experience o BitLocker o Windows Search

§ Disable Contents indexed in addition to file properties (C:\ drive) o Windows Update o Windows Themes o Windows Defender o Windows Superfetch

• Disabling Windows Scheduled Tasks: o "microsoft\windows\Application Experience\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Bluetooth\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Defrag\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Diagnosis\ ", o "microsoft\windows\DiskDiagnostic\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Registry\ ", o "microsoft\windows\SideShow\ ",

• Disabling Windows Components: o Disabling Hibernation o Disabling Ready Boost o Disable System Restore o Windows Media Player o Windows Gadget Platform o XPS-‐Foundation

• Registry o Disable Error Reporting o Disable memory dumps o Disable TCP/IP / Large Send Offload o Increase service startup timeouts o Increase Disk I/O Timeout

• Disable NTFS last access timestamp • Disable hard disk timeouts

TeamVRC:



• Configure Event Logs to 1028KB • Visual Effects

o Set to best performance

Most important windows 10 tuning examples are:

• Disabling unnecessary boot features • Disabling Services:

o AllJoyn o Bitlocker o BITS o Biometric o Geolocation o Windows Search

§ Disable Contents indexed in addition to file properties (C:\ drive) o Windows Update o Windows Themes o Windows Defender o Windows Superfetch o Windows Store o Storage Service o Microsoft Account

• Disabling Scheduled Task o "microsoft\windows\Application Experience\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Bluetooth\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Customer Experience Improvement Program\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Defrag\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Diagnosis\ ", o "microsoft\windows\DiskDiagnostic\ ", o "microsoft\windows\Registry\ ", o "microsoft\windows\SideShow\ ",

• Disabling Windows Components: o Disabling Hibernation o Disabling Cortana o Disabling Telemetry Collection o Disabling Ready Boost o Disable System Restore o Windows Media Player o Windows Gadget Platform o Windows PowerShell o WCF-‐Service o XPS-‐Foundation o Search Engine

• Removing Appx Applications o 3DBuilder o Appconnector o BingFinance

TeamVRC:



o BingNews o BingSports o BingWeather o Getstarted o MicrosoftOfficeHub o MicrosoftSolitaireCollection o OneNote o People o SkypeApp o Windows Photos o WindowsAlarms o WindowsCalculator o WindowsCamera o WindowsMaps o WindowsPhone o WindowsSoundRecorder o WindowsStore o XboxApp o ZuneMusic o ZuneVideo

• Cleaning up the default start menu widgets • Removing One Note Auto Start up • Registry

o Disable Error Reporting o Disable memory dumps o Disable TCP/IP / Large Send Offload o Increase service startup timeouts o Increase Disk I/O Timeout

• Disable NTFS last access timestamp • Disable hard disk timeouts • Configure Event Logs to 1028KB • Visual Effects

o Set to best performance

TeamVRC:



Comparing ESXTOP results First we compare the ESXTOP results, secondly the overall impact on capacity with VSImax.

Fully tuned, Windows 10 only consumes 10% more total Processor time (which includes hypervisor overhead) in comparison to Windows 7.

However, when we compare both Windows utilization (CPU consumed without hypervisor overhead) we see an almost 15% higher utilization for Windows 10 by the end of the test.

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Fully tuned Windows 10 has a much higher, almost double, total IO/s footprint than Windows 7. This is surprising, since tuning reduced the IO footprint of Windows 7 quite dramatically.

Fully tuned, the read IO’s for Windows 10 are up 40-‐50% higher for Windows 10 in comparison to Windows 7.

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A much bigger difference is witnessed when we compare the Write IO’s. Window 10 easily has twice the IO write footprint of Windows 7 fully tuned.

When the disk throughput is compared, it is clear that both Windows 7 and are very similar. Interestingly, by the end of the test, Windows 10’s MB Read throughput is a little lower while its Read IO proved to be higher.

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Windows 10 fully tuned disk throughput is roughly twice as high as Windows 7. These result do correlate with Windows 10 fully tuned IO write profile.

When fully tuned Window 7 & 10 VSImax scores are compared, it is clear that Windows 10 is about 12% lower in comparison with Windows 7. This is reasonable to expect; Windows 10 is 2 generations newer than Windows 7. These numbers are very promising, especially when we look back at Windows Vista, which was a total (performance) disaster for VDI environments.

Be warned: this conclusion only applies to VDI hosts where CPU is the main bottleneck. These test were performed on local SSD’s in RAID 0: so disk latency is extremely low, and throughput and IO capacity is very high. When you migrate from Windows 7 to Windows 10 in an environment where disk IO and throughput is limited, your VSImax score for Windows 10 will be substantially lower. When you migrate to Windows 10, ensure your VDI storage can handle it.

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TeamVRC:



6. Tuning Windows 10: first analysis Now let’s review what the impact is of specific tuning within Windows 10. For this we compare Windows 10:

• Default Install • Tuned with Search and Defender enabled • Tuned with Search, Defender, Cortana and Start menu widgets enabled • Tuned with Search, Defender, Cortana, Start Menu widgets and Appx apps enabled • Fully tuned

Note: Appx apps enabled means that the Appx apps are not removed from the image.

First we compare the ESXTOP results, secondly the overall impact on capacity with VSImax.

Comparing ESXTOP results

When the different tuning levels are compared on a total %Processor time, including hypervisor overhead some interesting conclusions can be made.

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TeamVRC:



The biggest drop in total % processor time is witness when Search and Defender are disabled. Enabling Cortana, the Start Menu Widgets and not removing the Appx Apps only have small impact on overall processor utilization.

When the different tuning levels are compared on a total %Util Time, excluding hypervisor overhead some almost the same conclusions can be made as with %Processor Time.

The biggest drop in total % Util time is witness when Search and Defender are disabled. Enabling Cortana, the Start Menu Widgets and not removing the Appx Apps little impact on overall VM utilization. It evens seems that %Util time for ‘Default Install’ is slightly lower than ‘Tuned with Search, Defender, Cortana, Start Menu widgets and Appx apps enabled’.

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When the total Commands for the different tuning levels in Windows 10 are compared, it is clear that the ‘default install’ consumes less IO at the beginning of the test. By the end of the test ‘Fully Tuned’ is at the same level as ‘Default install’. The other tuning levels show practically the same IO footprint throughout the test.

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When the Read IO’s for the different tuning levels in Windows 10 are compared, it is clear that the ‘default install’ consumes less Read IO at the beginning of the test. By the end of the test ‘Fully Tuned’ is clearly lower as ‘Default install’. The other tuning levels show practically the same IO footprint throughout the test. These results are to say the least, very counter intuitive.

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Reads sec

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When the Write IO’s for the different tuning levels in Windows 10 are compared, it is clear that the ‘default install’ consumes less Write IO’s throughout the test. By the end of the test ‘Fully Tuned’ is clearly lower as ‘Default install’. The other tuning levels show practically the same IO footprint throughout the test.

So far when we reviewed the IO behavior between the different tuning levels, the results were counter intuitive. CPU result showed improved CPU utilization, especially when we compared ‘Default Install and ‘Fully Tuned’. The IO results prove almost the opposite, but the differences are small.

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When the MB Read throughput is compared the differences are much bigger than with the IO measurements. More importantly: these MB read results do align with expectations. The more tuning is applied, the lower the MB read throughput is. So far no explanation is found why IO patterns are so different and unexpected in comparison to the MB Read throughput results.

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Finally, when we compare MB Write throughput, it is clear that ‘fully tuned’ shows the lowest footprint, but the other tuning levels show a higher MB write throughput than ‘default install’.

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Comparing VSImax

While the ESXtop results for the different Windows 10 tuning levels where sometimes very counter intuitive, the VSImax result are mostly not. Fully tuning the Windows 10 image will result in a 24% higher VSImax. As a result, when you tuning Windows 10 to the fullest, your server host capacity will improve by a significant 24%.

Enabling Windows 10 defender and search will lower VSImax by 10% in comparison to fully tuned.

Also it is clear that removing appx apps will improve overall capacity by at least by 5% when we compare the ‘Tuned with Search, Defender, Cortana, Start Menu widgets and Appx apps enabled’ and ‘Tuned with Search, Defender, Cortana and Start menu widgets enabled’.

There is obviously still a lot to be learned. While Windows 10 VDI capacity clearly is improved with tuning, it does seem to change the behavior of Windows 10. As result, VSImax scores are improved, but clearly IO patterns change when we review the ESXTOP results. Windows 10 tuning seems very tricky, and its behavior is not always as expected.

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TeamVRC:



7. About ProjectVRC.team -‐ TeamVRC Welcome to “ProjectVRC.team -‐ TeamVRC”. Here you will find independent and unbiased research with a focus on desktop virtualization, data center, storage and cloud technologies. The (desktop) virtualization, data center and cloud market is continuously changing and it is happening at an accelerated pace. Innovations can have a big impact, but also seemingly innocent updates or configuration changes can make a tremendous difference. Finding objective information is more important than ever but can be a challenge, especially with so much marketing bloat and un validated best practices floating around.

The goal of ProjectVRC.team is to find new and validate best practices, make unbiased comparisons and perform independent market research. With this information, you will be able to make better informed choices and save time, costs and frustration. Expect to find white papers and blogs with technical deep dives, best practice analysis, product comparisons and community surveys.

ProjectVRC.team has now evolved in to a community driven successor to ‘Project Virtual Reality Check’, originally initiated by Ruben Spruijt and Jeroen van de Kamp they started this community project early 2009, as of today 1000s of tests have been executed.

In the haze of the extreme rate of innovation in the virtualization market and corresponding marketing promises this information is appreciated. Therefore, we published our methods and conclusions in various whitepapers that can be downloaded from www.Projectvrc.team

TeamVRC objectives Since the start of TeamVRC early 2009 the overall goal is to investigate, validate and give answers to the following questions and much more:

• What is the true impact of innovations on a hardware and hypervisor level? • Which performance optimization on the virtualization host and guest virtualization level can

be configured, and what is the impact of these settings on user density? • With the introduction of the latest hypervisor technologies, can we now recommend running

large-‐scale SBC workloads on a virtualization platform? • How does a VDI infrastructure scale in comparison to Remote Desktop Services? • How do various Microsoft Windows Client OS-‐es scale as a virtual desktop? • How do x86 and x64 TS platforms compare in scalability on bare metal and in virtualized

environments? • What is the best way to partition (memory and vCPU) the Virtual Machines on the hypervisor

host, to achieve the highest possible user density? • What is the impact of the latest and greatest hardware on (virtualized) terminal servers and

desktops? • What is the impact of adding extra ‘layers’ to a Remote Desktop Services or (VDI) desktops,

like application virtualization? • What is the impact and what are the best practices for the major AntiVirus solutions in VDI? • What is the impact of Microsoft Office 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 both x86 and x64 in VDI?!

TeamVRC:



• How do VDI and Remote Desktop Session Host (TS) compare from each other from a user density perspective, what is the performance impact of Windows 8.1? How does Windows Server 2008R2, 2012 and 2012R2 scale in both bare metal and virtual environments?

TeamVRC is not finished, and probably never will be. We look forward to evaluate new innovations such as Storage solutions, Cloud Computing, and Remoting Protocols. TeamVRC publishes their findings on www.projectvrc.team

TeamVRC – contributor TeamVProjectVRC evolved to TeamVRC. Everyone can become a ProjectVRC.team Contributor with their own research. As long as the research topic is interesting and practically feasible, everyone can apply to publish content under ProjectVRC.team platform. Of course all ideas for publication suggestions must be verifiable, replicable, unbiased and independent. For this clear publication guidelines are in place. For example: all content is peer-‐reviewed by other ProjectVRC.team contributors and for instance with technology comparisons, involved vendors are actively engaged in the findings before publication.

TeamVRC -‐ member When you register, you automatically will become ProjectVRC.team Member. As ProjectVRC.team member you able to freely download and review all content. Sometimes, we will ask members to volunteer in quick market and technology surveys to share with other members. This helps us better understand where our industry is moving or better comprehend what (technical) choices we make in the real world.

Intended audience This document is intended for IT managers, architects, (performance) analysts, system administrators and IT-‐pros in general who are responsible for and/or interested in designing, implementing and maintaining virtualized Remote Desktop Services and Virtual Desktop Infrastructures.

Contact All information about Virtual Reality Check can be found at www.projectVRC.team. We try to provide accurate, clear, complete and usable information. We appreciate your feedback. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions for improvements of this document, we want to hear from you! Please send an email to Jeroen van de Kamp ([email protected]) or Ruben Spruijt ([email protected]). Include the product name and version number, and the title of the document in your message.

TeamVRC:



8. About the founders and founding partners Founders Jeroen van de Kamp

As Chief Technology Officer, Jeroen van de Kamp (1972) is responsible for defining and executing the technical strategy for Login VSI and Login Consultants. From the start, Jeroen has played a critical role in the technical growth and accreditation Login has accumulated over the years. He has developed several core solutions which allow Login VSI and Login Consultants to easily differentiate in the cloud and virtualization market.

Jeroen is also responsible for several well-‐known publications like the Flex Profile Kit, TCT templates & "The black hole effect". Because of his contribution to the technical community van de Kamp is recognized as a thought-‐leader in the application delivery industry and has become a residential speaker for seminars like BriForum, Citrix Solution Summit and many others. Previous to his position as CTO at Login VSI and Login Consultants Jeroen held positions as Infrastructure Architect at Login Consultants; IT Consultant at QFace ICT and IT specialist at ASG de Veer. To contact Jeroen send an email to [email protected] and [email protected] or follow him on twitter: @thejeroen.

Ruben Spruijt

Ruben Spruijt is Chief Technology Officer at Atlantis Computing, responsible for driving vision, technology evangelism and thought leadership with Atlantis customers, partners and communities. Ruben is a well-‐regarded author, speaker, geek, market analyst, and all-‐around technologist. An established industry leader and luminary, he is one of only a few individuals in the world to hold three prestigious virtualization awards: Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) and VMware vExpert.

Ruben has presented more than 150 sessions at national and international events such as BriForum, Citrix iForum Japan, Citrix Synergy, Gartner Catalyst, Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft TechEd, NVIDIA GTC, and VMworld. Ruben founded several independent industry analysis bodies including Project Virtual Reality Check (VRC), Team Remote Graphics Experts (TeamRGE), AppVirtGURU, WhatMatrix, written and co-‐authoring multiple disruptive ‘Smackdown’ research whitepapers. Ruben is based in the Netherlands where he lives with his wife and three kids. To contact Ruben directly send an email to [email protected] or follow Ruben on Twitter: @rspruijt.

TeamVRC:



Founding Partners Atlantis Computing

At Atlantis Computing, we are engaged in a resistance movement against traditional data storage. Autocratic and old school, those in power have held the industry captive, stifling innovation for their own gain and forcing customers to pay to play. It’s time to overthrow the system. We have taken up the charge to harness software power to conquer hardware limitations and those that restrict the new order – head on.

IT is freed to radically alter the enterprise storage infrastructure, releasing it from the box and scaling it in the cloud. No trade-‐offs, storage capacity is freed up and performance is commoditized. And data storage that was once under-‐realized, sluggish and controlled by a few is now liberated for any app, any enterprise, any server and any device.

Atlantis Computing, winner of the Best of VMworld and Best of Citrix Synergy awards, offers the industry’s most flexible and powerful software-‐defined storage platform. Atlantis USX delivers better performance than the fastest all-‐flash array, at half the cost of traditional SAN, on any class of enterprise storage. Atlantis USX is a 100% software-‐only solution purpose-‐built to boost any virtualized workload’s performance by up to ten times, while also increasing effective storage capacity by up to ten times.

Atlantis Computing is privately held and funded by Adams Street Partners, Cisco Systems, El Dorado Ventures and Partech International, with headquarters in Mountain View, California and offices in Europe and Asia. Follow us on Twitter @AtlantisSDS

LoginVSI

Login VSI provides performance insights for virtualized desktop and server environments. Enterprise IT departments use Login VSI products in all phases of their virtual desktop deployment—from planning to deployment to change management—for more predictable performance, higher availability and a more consistent end user experience.

The world's leading virtualization vendors use the flagship product, Login VSI, to benchmark performance. With minimal configuration, Login VSI products works in VMware Horizon View, Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services) and any other Windows-‐based virtual desktop solution.

Login PI gives real-‐world performance insights by simulating real users and real user tasks. The virtual user logs in and launches common applications, recording how long it takes for the tasks to complete. The system then watches for any large discrepancies in the results and can generate alerts.

The engine that powers Login VSI products is unique in the industry in that it simulates real user activities using synthetic users and includes pre-‐configured workloads. By using virtual users instead of real users, Login VSI can deliver more predictable testing results and monitoring insights that ultimately benefit the end user experience.

TeamVRC:



PQR

PQR, trusted advisor and integrator, takes care of the entire course of professional IT infrastructures, focusing on availability of data, applications and work spaces with optimized user experience in a secure and manageable way. Combining the expertise of datacenter, workspace, cloud solutions and IT services, PQR guarantees a stable environment, without processes getting complicated.

In addition to many traceable references PQR absorbs a wide range of knowledge areas, according to high status levels and preferable certifications. PQR is Cisco Premier Partner, Citrix Platinum Solution Advisor & Elite Partner, Hitachi Data Systems Platinum Partner, HP Platinum Partner, Microsoft Gold Partner, NetApp Star Partner, RES Platinum Partner and VMware Premier Partner.

PQR, founded in 1990, is established in De Meern and counts over 100 employees.

TeamVRC:



9. About Login VSI In this whitepaper, the industry standard Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) benchmarking solution was used. Login VSI offers a benchmarking methodology which calculates index numbers based on the amount of simultaneous sessions that can be run on a single physical machine, running either bare metal or virtualized operating systems. The commercial version of Login VSI offers different pre-‐packaged workloads and workload customization, including the addition of customer specific applications. To keep the results of the TeamVRC tests representative it is imperative that 100% identical tests are run on different types of systems. Therefore, TeamVRC uses the standard Login VSI Knowledge Worker workload without any customization of the load scripts.

Login VSI focuses on how many users can run simultaneously on a system, while maintaining acceptable response times. Login VSI is comparable to investigating the maximum amount of seats on a bus or airplane using trial and error. This maximum number is called the “Virtual Session Index (VSImax v4)”. On Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Server Based Computing (SBC) with Remote Desktop Services (RDS) workloads this gives very valid and useful information. This index simplifies comparisons and makes it possible to understand the true impact of configuration changes on hypervisor host or guest level.

Login VSI is a product independent benchmark which is specifically designed for VDI and SBC environments. With Login VSI it is possible to perform different load test scenarios:

• Test the maximum active session/desktop capacity (VSImax) of a single server • Perform a stability/soak/stress test for a longer period on a single server • Determine the maximum active session/desktop capacity (VSImax) of a group of servers

(a site/block/farm/enclosure) • Perform a stability/soak/stress test for a longer period on a group of servers (a

site/block/farm/enclosure)

Login Virtual Session Indexer can be downloaded from: www.loginvsi.com

Login VSI overview A typical Login VSI 4.x environment consists of these components:

• Login VSI file share (VSIshare) o Login VSI binaries

§ Management Console § Launcher § Analyzer § Session monitor § Data library

• An active directory infrastructure (Optional) o Login VSI user accounts o Login VSI group o A set of policies that make sure a test runs smooth

• Launcher(s) o Connection clients (e.g. Microsoft RDP, Citrix ICA or other client)

TeamVRC:



• Target o Microsoft Office

Login VSI 4.1 Knowledge Workload The standard Login VSI knowledge workload designed to run on 2vCPU’s per desktop VM.

• This workload emulates a medium knowledge worker using Office, IE, PDF and Java/FreeMind.

• Once a session has been started the workload will repeat (loop) every 48 minutes. • The loop is divided in 4 segments, each consecutive Login VSI user logon will start a different

segment. This ensures that all elements in the workload are equally used throughout the test.

• During each loop the response time is measured every 3-‐4 minutes. • The medium workload opens up to 5 applications simultaneously. • The keyboard type rate is 160ms for each character. • Approximately 2 minutes of idle time is included to simulate real-‐world users. • Each loop will open and use: • Outlook, browse messages. • Internet Explorer, browsing different webpages and a YouTube style video (480p movie

trailer) is opened three times in every loop. • Word, one instance to measure response time, one instance to review and edit a document. • Doro PDF Printer & Acrobat Reader, the word document is printed and reviewed to PDF. • Excel, a very large randomized sheet is opened. • PowerPoint, a presentation is reviewed and edited. • FreeMind, a Java based Mind Mapping application.

TeamVRC:



VSImax v4.1 The philosophy behind Login VSI is different to conventional benchmarks. In general, most system benchmarks are steady state benchmarks. These benchmarks execute one or multiple processes, and the measured execution time is the outcome of the test. Simply put: the faster the execution time or the bigger the throughput, the faster the system is according to the benchmark.

Login VSI is different in approach. Login VSI is not primarily designed to be a steady state benchmark (however, if needed, Login VSI can act like one). Login VSI was designed to perform benchmarks for SBC or VDI workloads through system saturation. Login VSI loads the system with simulated user workloads using well known desktop applications like Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and Adobe PDF reader. By gradually increasing the amount of simulated users, the system will eventually be saturated. Once the system is saturated, the response time of the applications will increase significantly. This latency in application response times a clear indication whether the system is (close to being) overloaded. As a result, by nearly overloading a system it is possible to find out what its true maximum user capacity is.

After a test is performed, the response times can be analyzed to calculate the maximum active session/desktop capacity. Within Login VSI this is calculated as VSImax. When the system is coming closer to its saturation point, response times will rise. When reviewing the average response time it will be clear the response times escalate at saturation point. With previous versions of Login VSI (LoginVSI 3.x and older), if the system was not saturated during the test, it will not be able to calculate VSImax. This has changed with LoginVSI 4.0.

This VSImax is the “Virtual Session Index (VSI)”. With Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Terminal Services (RDS) workloads this is valid and useful information. This index simplifies comparisons and makes it possible to understand the true impact of configuration changes on hypervisor host or guest level.

The philosophy behind Login VSI is different to conventional benchmarks. In general, most system benchmarks are steady state benchmarks. These benchmarks execute one or multiple processes, and the measured execution time is the outcome of the test. Simply put: the faster the execution time or the bigger the throughput, the faster the system is according to the benchmark.

Login VSI is different in approach. Login VSI is not primarily designed to be a steady state benchmark (however, if needed, Login VSI can act like one). Login VSI was designed to perform benchmarks for SBC or VDI workloads through system saturation. Login VSI loads the system with simulated user workloads using well known desktop applications like Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and Adobe PDF reader. By gradually increasing the amount of simulated users, the system will eventually be saturated. Once the system is saturated, the response time of the applications will increase significantly. This latency in application response times a clear indication whether the system is (close to being) overloaded. As a result, by nearly overloading a system it is possible to find out what its true maximum user capacity is.

After a test is performed, the response times can be analyzed to calculate the maximum active session/desktop capacity. Within Login VSI this is calculated as VSImax. When the system is coming closer to its saturation point, response times will rise. When reviewing the average response time it will be clear the response times escalate at saturation point. With previous versions of Login VSI

TeamVRC:



(LoginVSI 3.x and older), if the system was not saturated during the test, it will not be able to calculate VSImax. This has changed with LoginVSI 4.0.

This VSImax is the “Virtual Session Index (VSI)”. With Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Terminal Services (RDS) workloads this is valid and useful information. This index simplifies comparisons and makes it possible to understand the true impact of configuration changes on hypervisor host or guest level.

Server side response time measurements

It is important to understand why specific Login VSI design choices have been made. An important design choice is to execute the workload directly on the target system within the session instead of using remote sessions. The scripts simulating the workloads are performed by an engine that executes workload scripts on every target system, and are initiated at logon within the simulated user’s desktop session context.

An alternative to the Login VSI method would be to generate user actions client side through the remoting protocol. These methods are always specific to a product and vendor dependent. More importantly, some protocols simply do not have a method to script user actions client side.

For Login VSI the choice has been made to execute the scripts completely server side. This is the only practical and platform independent solution, for a benchmark like Login VSI. The relative overhead and footprint of a benchmark engine scripted in AutoIT is small enough (1-‐5% range) for Login VSI’s purposes.

Calculating VSImax v4.1 The simulated desktop workload is scripted in a 48-‐minute loop when a simulated Login VSI user is logged on, performing generic Office worker activities. After the loop is finished it will restart automatically. Within each loop the response times of five specific operations are measured in a regular interval: twelve times in within each loop. The response times of these five operations are used to determine VSImax.

The five operations from which the response times are measured are:

Notepad File Open (NFO)

Loading and initiating VSINotepad.exe and opening the open file dialog. This operation is handled by the OS and by the VSINotepad.exe itself through execution. This operation seems almost instant from an end-‐user’s point of view.

Notepad Start Load (NSLD)

Loading and initiating VSINotepad.exe and opening a file. This operation is also handled by the OS and by the VSINotepad.exe itself through execution. This operation seems almost instant from an end-‐user’s point of view.

Zip High Compression (ZHC)

This action copy's a random file and compresses it (with 7zip) with high compression enabled. The compression will very briefly spike CPU and disk IO.

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Zip Low Compression (ZLC)

This action copy's a random file and compresses it (with 7zip) with low compression enabled. The compression will very briefly disk IO and creates some load on the CPU as well.

CPU

Calculates a large array of random data and spikes the CPU for a short period of time.

VSImax Metrics

Once the test is finished, VSImax v4.1 can be calculated. Previous VSImax models (Classic and Dynamic) needed Microsoft Office Word to function. With the new 4.1 timers this is no longer needed, we are therefore more flexible and applicable to a larger scale of scenario's.

The following actions are part of the VSImax v4.1 calculation and are weighted as follows (US notation):

• Notepad File Open (NFO): 0.75

• Notepad Start Load (NSLD): 0.2

• Zip High Compression (ZHC): 0.125

• Zip Low Compression (ZLC): 0.2

• CPU: 0.75

This weighting is applied on the baseline and normal Login VSI response times.

VSImax Baseline

With the introduction of Login VSI 4.1 we also created a new method to calculate the baseline of an environment. With the new workloads (Task worker, Power worker, etc.) enabling 'basephase' for a more reliable baseline has become obsolete. The calculation is explained below.

The 13 lowest VSI Index Calculation response time samples are taken from the entire test and are averaged. The result is the Baseline. In short:

• Sort the VSI Index Calculation values from lowest to highest

• Take the lowest 13 samples of the VSI Index Calculation

• Average the 13 results and the result is the baseline

TeamVRC:



10. About the TeamVRC platform This chapter describes the architecture and components used by the TeamVRC community. TeamVRC is using a Cisco UCS platform together with Hitachi Data Systems storage to perform VDI and SBC related performance tests. PQR, as founding partner of TeamVRC, provides support and makes sure the infrastructure is up-‐to-‐date, available and remotely accessible for the TeamVRC contributors.

*Note, for this paper a different lab environment was used: described in chapter 3.

Physical design Figure 1 shows the basic components and connectivity used to for the server, storage, and network. Four Cisco B200-‐M2 blades run VMware vSphere 5.1.0 and are hosting the backend infrastructure required for Login VSI and managing various hypervisors. Two Cisco B230-‐M2 can be provided with a hypervisor hosting virtual desktops or RDS servers or even with a bare metal RDS-‐server. Two Hitachi Data Systems AMS2100 are in place to provide the necessary storage for all the blades. With this hardware, two Login VSI tests can run simultaneously on dedicated hardware and storage.

Figure 1, physical infrastructure

TeamVRC:



Logical design As mentioned earlier, there are enough resources to run two (different) Login VSI tests simultaneously. Therefore, the hardware is split up in three logical environments, one for the general infrastructure components (VRC-‐Infra, colored green) and two for the Login VSI infrastructures (VRC-‐1 and VRC-‐2).

logical design

Figure 2, logical design

Test approach Unless mentioned otherwise, TeamVRC consistently used these methodologies to perform their tests:

• All tests are executed on a virtual desktop environment using View 5.2.0 on vSphere 5.1. • All sessions are launched from Windows 2008R2 VM’s using direct RDP 7.1 connections. • All test operations are fully automated: this ensures the consistency of the data. • All tests are performed in a stateful desktop VM configuration • Before each test is started, the server host and launcher infrastructure are completely restarted

to ensure the test is not influenced by previous tests. • In all tests the VMs are pre-‐booted, as a result the logon time frame is always 48 minutes. • To ensure VMware vSphere’s Transparent Page Sharing (TPS) can free memory resources, each

test is initiated at least 30 minutes after the last VM has been started.

TeamVRC:



• All tests are performed at least ten times and the average result is reported in this document (both ESXtop and VSImax v4).

• All VSImax v4 tests are performed with ESXTOP running in the background with a 30 second sample interval.

• VMware View Composer is used to create and deploy the VMs as linked clones. • The VM’s are fully optimized with the optimizations of the TeamVRC whitepaper phase III. For a

detailed overview please download the available Windows XP and Windows 7 whitepaper here. (registration required)

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