VMware Horizon Apps Performance Reference Architecture: VMware ...

TECHNICAL WHITE PAPER – JULY 2017

VMWARE HORIZON APPS PERFORMANCE REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE VMware Horizon 7 version 7.1 and VMware Horizon Apps version 7.1

VMWARE HORIZON APPS PERFORMANCE REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE

Table of Contents Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 VMware Reference Architectures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 VMware Horizon Apps Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 VMware Horizon Apps Benefits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 RDSH Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 VMware Just-in-Time Management Platform. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Components of Horizon 7 and Horizon Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 VMware vSphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 VMware vSAN Storage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Horizon Apps Component Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 VMware vSphere Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Horizon Apps Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Testing Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Success Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Key Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Test Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 User-Experience Performance Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Boot Storms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Host Performance Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Virtual Machine Performance Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Storage Performance Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Appendix A: Configuration and Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Horizon Connection Server Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Desktop Pool and Farm Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 App Volumes Manager Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Storage Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Network Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Configuration of RDSH Server Master Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Login VSI Test Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R | 2


Appendix B: Virtual Machine Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Infrastructure Server VMs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 RDSH Server Image Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Appendix C: Bill of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Hardware BOM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Software BOM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Appendix D: Details of Infrastructure VM Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Active Directory Domain Controllers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 SQL Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Horizon Connection Servers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 App Volumes Managers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Management vCenter Server Appliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 RDSH vCenter Server Appliance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Additional Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84



Executive Summary VMware Horizon® Apps provides a single platform for delivering virtualized Windows applications and shared desktop sessions from Windows Server instances using Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS). With Horizon Apps, you can publish business-critical Windows apps alongside SaaS and mobile apps in a single digital workspace, easily accessed with single sign-on from any authenticated device or OS. This white paper provides a reference architecture for Horizon Apps Advanced Edition, which includes the RDSH features of VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition. This reference architecture is based on addressing key business requirements such as making standard Windows applications available to employees, and targeting use cases such as task workers and knowledge workers. We carried out extensive testing to evaluate the performance and capacity characteristics of VMware Horizon Apps in a JMP (Just-in-Time Management Platform) environment. This paper describes a simple, validated architecture and details of the test results, which are summarized in Figure 1.

Horizon 7 RDSH User Sessions

Horizon 7 RDSH VMs

RDSH vSphere Hosts

Infrastructure vSphere Hosts

Baseline

700

110

MBps

32 4,000

4

vSAN Throughput Performance (at Peak)

vSAN IOPS Performance (for VM Boot Storm)

/vmfs/volumes/VSI-Logs/Test123.csv Windows Logman

Windows Logman manages and schedules performance counter and event trace log collections on local and remote systems. This tool is used to analyze how applications are affecting computer performance. We used Logman to collect and analyze performance data of the Windows VMs, including the infrastructure and RDSH systems.

T E C H N I C A L W H I T E PA P E R | 2 6


Login VSI

Login Virtual Session Indexer (Login VSI) is the industry-standard benchmarking tool for measuring the performance and scalability of centralized desktop environments such as VDI and RDSH. Active Directory users are systematically logged in to client endpoints, called launchers, which are standard PCs running the latest Horizon Client. During a test, domain users launch virtual desktop sessions from launchers to the target desktop or application pool that is under test. In this project, we used the Blast Extreme display protocol for the desktop sessions.

Launchers

Connection Server

vCenter Server (Desktops)

Share Server

Blast Extreme Desktop Pool Figure 11: Login VSI Logical Diagram

We used Login VSI to generate a reproducible, real-world test case that simulated the execution of various applications, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, FreeMind / Java, and Photo Viewer. This benchmark workload was then run against various configurations of the test environment. Hardware and software remained the same, but we ran different user, desktop, and application configurations. Various workload profiles can be run during a Login VSI test. The medium-level knowledge worker workload was selected for this test because it is the closest analog to the average desktop user that we see in our customer deployments. For more information on Login VSI workloads, refer to Introduction to Login VSI Workloads and Login VSI Workload Breakdown. Login VSI was configured to run a knowledge worker workload against a Horizon 7 farm of 32 RDSH machines, with the tests set up to log users in to shared, session-based RDSH virtual desktops incrementally every ~4 seconds. Once logged in, each session remained active for the duration of the test, and for at least 15 minutes after the final user logged in, thereby ensuring full concurrency for the desired number of sessions. Not reaching VSImax was an indication of satisfactory user response at the predetermined user count. (VSImax represents the largest number of user sessions you can run in a particular environment with good user experience.)



Login VSI recorded and measured the total response time of all the applications from each session and calculated the VSI average index by taking the average response times and dropping the highest and lowest 2 percent. Increased latencies in response times indicated when the system configuration was saturated and had reached maximum user capacity. Refer to VSImax Overview for details on how Login VSI is measured and calculated.

Adapted from Login VSI Figure 12: Login VSI Workloads

VSIbase is a baseline score that reflects the response time of specific operations performed in the desktop workload when there is little or no stress on the system. A low baseline indicates a better user experience, resulting from applications responding quickly in the environment. VSIBASE SCORE (MS)

PERFORMANCE RATING

0–799 ms

Excellent

800–1399 ms

Very Good

1400–1999 ms

Good

2000–9999 ms

Reasonable/Poor

During testing, Login VSI sessions were initiated by launchers (simulated user operations) that ran on a separate compute and storage infrastructure using the knowledge worker workload in benchmark mode. A total of 40 launchers were used, each running a maximum of 18 sessions. Each launcher (client endpoint) was configured with 4 vCPUs and 4 GB of vRAM, following Login VSI sizing guidelines. VMware Blast Extreme (JPG/PNG) was used as the display protocol during all tests.



Test Results We exercised every test configuration with full-session concurrency, to ensure that all elements of the environment could handle the simultaneous user load of 700 active users with two Horizon Connection Servers, two App Volumes Manager servers, and a dedicated vCenter server for the RDSH block. Throughout testing, we had no problem sustaining the 700-session load, each with two AppStacks attached, and with the user profiles managed by User Environment Manager along with a mandatory profile locally placed in the RDSH image. The following summary outlines the key data points for the testing. • User experience results from Login VSI tests: ––VSI baseline response time: 730 ms – Considered an excellent VSI index result, this baseline score reflects the response time of specific operations performed in the desktop workload when there is little or no stress on the system. A low baseline score indicates a better user experience, resulting from applications responding quickly in the environment. VSIBASE SCORE

PERFORMANCE RATING

0–799 ms

Excellent

800–1399 ms

Very Good

1400–1999 ms

Good

2000–9999 ms

Reasonable/Poor

––VSI average index response time: 1015 ms – Considered an excellent VSI index result, this number represents the application-consistent response times that measured the user experience. The lower the numbers, the more responsive the apps and user experience remained throughout workload testing. • vSphere host performance: ––Average CPU utilization at steady state: 65 percent – 65 percent CPU utilization at peak load means the servers can maintain the overall user load in the event that one of the four RDSH vSphere hosts becomes inoperable. ––Average RAM used at steady state: 150 GB out of 384 GB available – Although each host server was configured with 384 GB of RAM, only 150 GB was needed to drive the load. ––Peak network utilization per host server per adapter: 574 Mbps – With dual 10G NICs available on each host, less than 1G per adapter was used during peak load with 700 active sessions running the Login VSI workload. • vSAN datastore performance: ––Average read latency: 0.69 ms; maximum read latency: 3.14 ms – Sustained read/write latency reported under 5 ms is a good result for hyper-converged infrastructure (including vSAN) running end-user-computing (EUC) workloads. ––Average write latency: 2.6 ms; maximum write latency: 4.68 ms – Sustained read/write latency reported under 5 ms is a good result for hyper-converged infrastructure (including vSAN) running EUC workloads. ––Peak I/O operations per second (IOPS) at steady state: 1525 – This is a moderate level of IOPS given the 700 sessions we tested with. ––Peak throughput at steady state: 115 MBps – This is a reasonable level of storage throughput given the 700 sessions we tested with.



User-Experience Performance Results User login times are a key measure of desktop performance. Users who have to wait for long periods of time for their desktops and apps to be ready are generally not satisfied with the user experience. During each test scenario, we measured the time for each of the 700 simulated users to log in to their RDSH desktop session. During testing we observed only a slight increase in login time with App Volumes. As a general rule for VDI with App Volumes, the additional time it takes to mount AppStacks volumes on the back end means longer login times for users on the front end, and the more AppStacks assigned to users, the longer the login times. This is a key consideration for making decisions about the number of applications in a single AppStack, or AppStack density. With RDSH however, the paradigm is changed. With RDSH, AppStacks are mounted at the machine level rather than to user accounts. AppStacks are attached at boot time as opposed to login, which helps to minimize the impact on user experience during login. Note: Login VSI reports the login time from the point at which the session is established until the VSI workload has started the test, which adds additional time to the reported statistic (LogonTimer) once the desktop has been presented.

Figure 13: Average User Login Times as Reported by Login VSI



The following bar chart compares the login times, as reported by Login VSI, for various Horizon 7 product configurations including: • Baseline test with a manual farm using roaming profiles • Test with a manual farm along with User Environment Manager and mandatory profiles • Test with automated farm using Instant Clone Technology and User Environment Manager (UEM) • Full JPM test with App Volumes, Instant Clone Technology, and User Environment Manager (This is the setup recommended by this guide.) Only marginal differences were observed across the test scenarios, with a less than two-second increase in login time with two App Volumes AppStacks in place. The variance in login times for the three test scenarios that do not include App Volumes should be considered as similar results within a margin of error of each other.

Figure 14: Average User Login Times Comparison Chart

Login VSI is a valuable user experience benchmark tool for end-user-computing (EUC) workloads. It allowed us to adjust the active user session count and measure the corresponding impact on user experience and application responsiveness. During our testing, we increased the session count until we reached the point where user experience degraded below acceptable levels, and then we adjusted for high availability.



Figure 15 shows the VSImax scores that represent the impact that increasing the number of active sessions has on application response times and, thus, user experience. The VSI baseline score of 730 ms places the results in an excellent performance rating category. Once we reached 700 sessions, if we ran additional sessions in this environment, with this synthetic workload, and simulated the loss of a single host server, the user experience degraded. For more information on the definition of VSImax, see VSImax Overview.

730 ms

Baseline

1015 ms

Average Index

0

Stuck Sessions

Figure 15: VSImax Scores Achieved

Note: Testing was performed with synthetic user workloads. Real-world users exercise applications and access data in a more intermittent, random manner. Also, most organizations deploy more than a single use case in a Horizon 7 or Horizon Apps environment. Real-world consumption patterns vary from organization to organization. Before deploying any EUC technology, it is important to understand the use-case resource requirements. Reference architecture workloads based on lab testing might not precisely match real-world user workloads.



The following VSImax chart illustrates the results of the primary test run documented in this reference architecture. All data points provided here indicate a passing score with excellent VSI response times validated.

Figure 16: VSImax Results Based on Active Session Count for the Primary Test Run



Figure 17 shows the VSI Comparison bar chart for two consecutive test runs, and displays the following metrics: • Active Session – Total number of sessions reported as active • Launched Sessions – Total number of sessions reported as launched by the VSI launcher systems • Stuck Sessions – Total number of reported stuck sessions, where the VSI workload prematurely terminated • Baseline – The calculated VSI baseline score (response time, in ms) • Threshold –The point where a VSImax is reached (baseline + 1000 ms) The results across both tests are well within the success criteria’s level of variability.

Figure 17: Login VSI Comparison Chart for Two (Primary and Secondary) Test Runs



Figure 18 shows the VSI Index Comparison chart for the two test runs. This chart compares the two tests during the ramp-up phase.

Figure 18: VSImax Index Chart Comparison for Two Test Runs



Boot Storms A key performance metric for end-user computing-environments is the ability to boot VMs quickly and efficiently to minimize user wait time for their desktop and application resources. As part of our test protocol, we always shut down every RDSH VM at the conclusion of a test. When we run a new test, we cold-boot all RDSH machines and measure the time it takes for all of them to report as available in the Horizon Administrator console. We also collect statistics to determine server and storage performance impact during the boot phase. As figure 19 shows, the VMware reference architecture can accomplish this boot-up task in less than 1 minute with 32 RDSH instant-clone VMs with minimum impact to the host servers—only slightly higher than 30 percent processor utilization at peak on the host servers.

Figure 19: RDSH Hosts CPU Usage Highlighting Boot Phase



Host Performance Results It is of vital importance for organizations to monitor vSphere host resource utilization to ensure that hosts are not loaded to the point where resource contention develops. Host resource contention can sometimes be tolerated in some server environments, but in EUC environments, resource contention can result in poor user experience and in most cases is the gating factor for those environments. Throughout testing, hosts were carefully monitored, and resource consumption metrics are presented in the following graphs. All results are considered to be well within the success criteria for the solution that accounts for server high availability (N + 1). Note: Callouts have been added throughout the data charts to indicate each phase of testing. TEST PHASE

DESCRIPTION

Boot

Start all RDSH or VDI VMs at the same time.

Login

The Login VSI phase of testing is where sessions are launched and start executing the workload over a 48-minute duration.

Steady state

The steady-state phase is where all user sessions are logged in and are performing various workload tasks such as using Microsoft Office, web browsing, PDF printing, playing videos, and compressing files.

Logout

Sessions finish executing the Login VSI workload and log out.

Table 2: Test Phase Callouts and Descriptions

RDSH vSphere Hosts

Highlights of the captured metrics are provided in Figure 20.

Hosts

Datastores

VMs

Metrics RDSH Hosts CPU Usage (%) 65% at Steady State

RDSH

Management and Infrastructure

RDSH VMs (vSAN)

AppStacks

RDSH Pool

Memory Usage (MB) 150 MB at Steady State Network Usage (Mbps) > 2 Gbps at Boot 600 Mbps at Steady State

Infrastructure VMs

Infrastructure VMs

Figure 20: RDSH vSphere Host Metrics



Figure 21 shows that the CPU consumption of each host server was around 65 percent during peak load, as intended. The primary gating factor for determining workload scalability is based on CPU usage at the host and workload VM level. Server fault tolerance has been incorporated into the design where the 700-session load can be maintained with one of the four host servers out of service.

Figure 21: RDSH vSphere Host CPU Usage

Figure 22 shows that the host memory usage was the same for all four servers, with a relative maximum usage of 150 GB (NonKernel memory) during peak load out of an available 384 GB per host server. Each RDSH VM was configured with 32 GB of vRAM, with all guest memory reserved.

Figure 22: RDSH vSphere Host Memory Usage



Figure 23 shows that network bandwidth consumption briefly spiked to 2 Gbps per network adapter, per host when booting the RDSH machines, with the sustained network load reaching 600 Mbps RX/TX during steady-state operations. Each host server was configured with two 10G network adapters, so the reported results should not be considered statistically significant.

Figure 23: RDSH vSphere Host Network Usage

See Horizon Apps Design for details on the VM and session distribution configured across the host servers.



Infrastructure vSphere Hosts


Hosts

Datastores

VMs

Metrics Infrastructure Hosts CPU Usage (%) < 15%

RDSH


RDSH VMs (vSAN)

AppStacks

RDSH Pool

Memory Usage (GB) Host 1: 90 GB Host 2: 60 GB Network Usage (Mbps) > 500 Mbps at Steady State

Infrastructure VMs

Infrastructure VMs

Figure 24: Infrastructure vSphere Host Metrics

Figure 25 shows that the CPU consumption of each infrastructure vSphere host was less than 15 percent throughout testing. The primary gating factor for determining workload scalability is based on CPU usage at the host and workload VM level. Server fault tolerance has been incorporated into the design, where the management operations and 700-session load can be maintained with one of the two hosts out of service.

Figure 25: Infrastructure vSphere Host CPU Usage



Figure 26 shows that the host memory usage was ~90 GB (NonKernel memory) on the first host and ~60 GB on the second, throughout testing, out of an available 256 GB per host server.

Figure 26: Infrastructure vSphere Host Memory Usage

Figure 27 shows that the network bandwidth consumption was under 500 Mbps per network adapter, per host throughout testing operations. Each host was configured with two 10G network adapters, so the reported results should not be considered statistically significant.

Figure 27: Infrastructure vSphere Host Network Usage

See Horizon Apps Design for details on the VM distribution configured across the host servers.



Virtual Machine Performance Results In addition to monitoring host performance, it is very important for organizations to monitor VM resource utilization to ensure that VMs are not loaded to the point where resource contention develops. Host resource contention can sometimes be tolerated in server environments, but in hosted desktop environments, resource contention can result in poor user experience or result in the loss of operational services needed to sustain a Horizon 7 or Horizon Apps environment. Throughout testing, the RDSH and infrastructure VMs were carefully monitored, and resource consumption metrics are presented in the following graphs. All results are considered to be well within the success criteria for the solution that accounts for high availability for each product component. RDSH Virtual Machines


Hosts

Datastores

VMs

Metrics RDSH VM CPU Usage (%) < 50%

RDSH

RDSH VMs (vSAN)

RDSH Pool

Memory Usage (GB) 12 GB Consumed at Peak Network Usage (Bytes/sec) 10 MBps at Peak Disk Usage (IOPS) 420 at Peak Disk Usage (Queue Length) 50 MBps SQL: < 250 KBps CS: > 15 MBps AVM: < 250 KBps VC-Mgmt: < 30 KBps VC-RDSH: < 110 KBps Disk Usage (IOPS) Disk Usage (Queue Length) DCs: Avg 10 IOPS, < 0.15 QL File: > 400 IOPS, < 1.2 QL SQL: < 60 IOPS, < 1 QL CS: Avg 5 IOPS, < 0.15 QL AVM: < 35 IOPS, < 0.1 QL VC-Mgmt: < 7 IOPS, < 3.5 ms VC-RDSH: < 22 IOPS, < 2.5 ms

Infrastructure VMs

Figure 34: Infrastructure VM Metrics



Appendix D includes charts that detail the metrics for each type of infrastructure VM: Active Directory domain controllers, file servers, SQL Servers, Connection Servers, App Volumes Managers, vCenter Server for the infrastructure VMs, and vCenter Server for the RDSH VMs.

Storage Performance Results Because vSAN and App Volumes are storage-focused technologies, we collected storage-related metrics during all phases of testing. Shared storage performance and capacity metrics are highlighted in the following figures. RDSH vSAN Datastore


Hosts

Datastores

VMs

Metrics RDSH vSAN Datastore Latency (ms) < 5 ms

RDSH


RDSH VMs (vSAN)

AppStacks

RDSH Pool

Throughput (MBps) Boot: < 80 MBps Steady State: < 120 MBps IOPS Boot: 4,000 IOPS Steady State: 1,500 IOPS

Infrastructure VMs

Infrastructure VMs

Figure 35: RDSH vSAN Datastore Metrics



Figures 36 through 38 show the vSAN datastore performance captured during the primary test run using vRealize Operations Manager and the vSAN Pack. The less than 5 milliseconds of write latency was observed at peak load.

Figure 36: Storage Performance Chart vSAN Datastore Latency (ms)

The write throughput was greater than 110 MBps, with the read throughput highest at boot to approximately 70 MBps, and less than 30 MBps at steady state.

Figure 37: Storage Performance Chart for vSAN Datastore Throughput (MBps)



Similar to the data throughput statistics, the read IOPS was highest during boot, captured at slightly above 4,000 and averaging around 500 IOPS throughput for most of the test. Write IOPS peaked at around 1,500 toward the end of steady state.

Figure 38: Storage Performance Chart for vSAN Datastore IOPS

AppStacks Datastore


Hosts

Datastores

VMs

Metrics AppStacks Datastore Latency (ms) < 1.5 ms

RDSH


RDSH VMs (vSAN)

AppStacks

RDSH Pool

Throughput (KBps) Boot: 7,000 KBps Steady State: 1,000 KBps IOPS Boot: 350 IOPS Steady State: < 10 IOPS

Infrastructure VMs

Infrastructure VMs

Figure 39: AppStacks Datastore Metrics



Figures 40 through 42 show the AppStacks datastore performance captured during the primary test run using vRealize Operations Manager. Less than 1.2 milliseconds of read latency was observed at peak load.

Figure 40: Storage Performance Chart for AppStacks Datastore Latency (ms)

The read throughput was slightly greater than 7 MBps at boot, when 32 RDSH machines attached two AppStacks per VM.

Figure 41: Storage Performance Chart for AppStacks Datastore Throughput (KBps)



Similar to the data throughput statistics, the read IOPS was highest during boot, captured at slightly above 350. Because AppStacks are read-only when used in production, all write activity recorded was negligible.

Figure 42: Storage Performance Chart AppStacks Datastore IOPS



Figure 43 shows the storage capacity for the vSAN datastore that housed the 32 RDSH VMs and Instant Clone Technology (that is, parent, replica, and template VMs, and provisioned clones). The total available capacity for the datastore was 11.53 TB, of which, 540.48 GB was used by the RDSH machines, and 558.25 GB was consumed for vSAN overhead operations (replicas, witnesses, RAID components, and so on).

Figure 43: vSAN RDSH Datastore Storage Capacity Reported by vCenter



Figure 44 shows the amount of the storage space used by each RDSH machine.

Figure 44: vSAN RDSH Datastore Storage Capacity for RDSH VMs



Conclusion This Horizon Apps RDSH solution addresses IT needs by delivering a platform that is cost effective and simple to deploy and manage. The design and approach used in this reference architecture provide for a flexible and high-performance solution, incorporating a familiar and consistent management model from VMware. In addition, the solution offers numerous enterprise-class data management features to deliver a scalable end-user-computing solution. This Horizon Apps architecture provisioned Windows Server RDSH virtual machines for delivering responsive, resilient, high-performance hosted apps and shared desktops while demonstrating many advantages for enterprise administrators. Instant Clone Technology, User Environment Manager, App Volumes, and vSAN were combined together and performance-tested as the core focus with excellent results. The testing for this solution validates functional support, interoperability, and scalability performance across the VMware Horizon suite of products and features related to RDSH delivery. Virtual desktop end-user experience, as measured by the Login VSI tool in benchmark mode, offers outstanding results using Intel Broadwell E5-2698 v4 processors as the gating factor for the RDSH vSphere host cluster. VMware vSAN provided acceptable results for the RDSH Instant Clone Technology–based machines.



Appendix A: Configuration and Settings This appendix lists the configuration and settings used for the various components of the Horizon 7 RDSH or Horizon Apps solution.

Horizon Connection Server Settings Table 3 lists the settings for Connection Server testing. CONFIGURATION PARAMETER

SETTING

General settings

The following fields were left unselected: HTTPS Secure Tunnel, PCoIP Secure Gateway, Blast Secure Gateway.

Authentication

Active Directory user credentials

Table 3: Connection Server Settings

Desktop Pool and Farm Settings Table 4 lists the settings for desktop-pool and farm testing. POOL PARAMETER

SETTING

Pool Type

RDS Desktop Pool

User Assignment

Floating

Adobe Flash Quality

Do Not Control

Adobe Flash Throttling

Disabled

Connection Server restrictions

None

Farm Type

Automated Farm (Instant Clones)

Display Protocol

VMware Blast

Allow users to choose protocol

Yes

Log off disconnected sessions

Never

Max sessions per RDS Host

30

Max number of machines

32

Minimum number of ready (provisioned) machines

0

Storage Optimization

Use VMware Virtual SAN

Table 4: Desktop-Pool Test Settings



App Volumes Manager Settings The following key configurations were used for this project. APP VOLUMES SETTING

VALUE USED FOR APPSTACKS ONLY

Individual datastore size

1 TB (dedicated for AppStacks)

Storage Group

None

Template

Template.vmdk (20GB)

Mount Local

Not Enabled (default)

Mount on Host

Not Enabled (default)

AppStack Attachments

Active Directory Machine OUs

Table 5: App Volumes Manager Settings for AppStacks

An AppStack storage group can be configured to replicate AppStacks between multiple datastores, and this type of spread distribution policy can ensure that users are connected to AppStacks in a roundrobin fashion. For the purposes of this study, a single datastore was used, so a storage group was not configured. App Volumes can be configured to use the Mount on Host option for all volume mount operations as a best practice. This option was not configured as part of this study so that the AppStacks’ storage performance could be observed at the datastore level. Note: Writeable volumes are not supported with RDSH and as such, were excluded from the design.

Storage Configuration Three datastores were provisioned on the shared Tegile T3600 storage system for the infrastructure cluster and AppStacks. VMware vSAN was used for the RDSH cluster. DATASTORE

PROVIDER

SIZE

PURPOSE

vsanDatastore-VDI

VMware vSAN

11.53 TB

RDSH cluster and VMs

T3600-02-RA-AppStacks-1

Shared Tegile T3600 Array

1 TB

Dedicated AppStacks volume

T3600-02-RA-Apps-1


1 TB

Infrastructure cluster and VMs

T3600-02-RA-Apps-2


1 TB

Infrastructure cluster and VMs

Local storage

Compact Flash

2x 16 GB

Boot storage for hosts

Table 6: Storage Layout



The following diagram shows the vSAN configuration used for the architecture and testing, which consisted of four vSphere hosts equipped with five SSDs per server. The vSAN datastore was used to store the RDSH VMs.

vSphere + vSAN

5x SSD

5x SSD

5x SSD

5x SSD

VMware vSAN Datastore (RDSH VMs) Figure 45: vSAN High-Level Architecture

Network Configuration The vSphere hosts were configured to allow each server blade to have access to two 10-GbE adapters. VMware vSphere Distributed Switch™ was used on all hosts.

Figure 46: Host Network Configuration

Two adapters were used as uplinks for a vSphere Distributed Switch that was used for the host management network, iSCSI access, vSphere vMotion®, and RDSH VM traffic.



Configuration of RDSH Server Master Images We built target RDSH images according to VMware best practices. A master Windows 2012 R2 image with 8 vCPUs and 32 GB of vRAM was built. The VMware Tools™ version and virtual hardware version matched the vSphere operating environment. We then optimized the image for RDSH with the OS Optimization Tool and made all recommended RDSH-specific configuration changes. For the App Volumes provisioning VM, we did not install the Horizon Agent. For target images, the Horizon Agent, User Environment agent (FlexEngine), and App Volumes Agent were installed. Because the vSphere hosts were equipped with an adequate amount of physical RAM (384 GB), and because we did not want to use shared storage for VM swap files, each RDSH VM had a 100 percent memory reservation set. We used the Active Directory Group Policy Object (GPO) settings shown in the following tables. CONFIGURATION OPTION

SETTING

Disable Automatic Updates

Disabled

Don’t show messages while viewing a document

Disabled

Show messages while I launch Reader

Disabled

Turn off user participation in the feedback program

Disabled

Enable protected Mode at Startup

Disabled

Table 7: Adobe Reader GPO Settings

CONFIGURATION OPTION

SETTING

Disable First Run Movie

Enabled

Disable Office First Run on application boot

Enabled

Disable Opt-in Wizard on first run

Enabled

Do not use hardware graphics acceleration

Enabled

Table 8: Key Microsoft Windows GPO Settings



CONFIGURATION OPTION

SETTING

Central location of Flex config files

\\file1.vmweuc.com\uemconfig\General

Process folder recursively

Enabled

Path and of log files

\\file1.vmweuc.com\uemusers\%username%\Logs\FlexEngine.log

Log level

Warn

Maximum log file size in kB

512

Log total size of profile archive and profile archive backups folder

Disabled

Location of storing user profile archives backups

\\file1.vmweuc.com\uemusers\%username%\Backups

Number of backups profile archive

1

Create single backup per day

Disabled

Location of storing user profile archives

\\file1.vmweuc.com\uemusers\%username%\Archives

Compress profile archives

Enabled

Retain file medication dates

Disabled

Use mandatory profiles on the RD Session Host server

Enabled

Set roaming profile path for all users logging onto this computer

C:\Users\MandatoryProfile

Table 9: User Environment Manager GPO Settings



Login VSI Test Parameters Table 10 lists the Login VSI parameters used for testing. CONFIGURATION ITEM

SETTING

Enable Session Monitor

Yes

Workload

Knowledge Worker

Benchmark Mode

Yes

Steady State Duration

15 Minutes

Dedicated Dataserver

Yes

Dedicated Webserver

Yes

VSImax reached

No (Used for workload and response time measure)

Office Version

2016

Home Directories

Yes

Overall logon rate

Session count x 4 seconds (one session every four seconds over 48 min.)

Sessions per launcher

~17

Launcher VMs

40

Launcher Hosts

8

Overall logon rate

Session count x ~4.1 seconds (one session every four seconds over 48 min.)

Table 10: Login VSI Test Parameters



Appendix B: Virtual Machine Specifications The settings for key components are contained in the tables that follow.

Infrastructure Server VMs Tables 11 through 16 list the specifications used when creating the various types of server VMs used in testing. ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS

Appliance, SUSE Linux 11

vCPU

4

vRAM

16 GB

Storage

320 GB

Table 11: vCenter VM Details

ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2

vCPU

4

vRAM

12 GB

Storage

50 GB

Table 12: Connection Server VM Details

ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS


vCPU

4

vRAM

12 GB

Storage

50 GB

Table 13: App Volumes Manager VM Details

ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS


vCPU

2

vRAM

8 GB

Storage

50 GB

Table 14: Active Directory Domain Controller VM Details



ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS


vCPU

2

vRAM

12 GB

Storage

150 GB

Table 15: SQL Server VM Details

ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

OS


vCPU

2

vRAM

12 GB

Storage

350 GB

Table 16: File Server VM Details

RDSH Server Image Configuration Table 17 details the virtual hardware settings and the software versions used for image configuration. ATTRIBUTE

SPECIFICATION

Operating system

Microsoft Server 2012 R2 Standard

Hardware

VMware Virtual Hardware Version 13

vCPU

8

Memory

32 GB (Reserved all guest memory)

Video RAM

Default

3D graphics

Off

NIC

E1000E was used (VMXNET3 is preferred)

Virtual SCSI controller

Paravirtual

Virtual Disk: VMDK 1 - OS

50 GB

Virtual Disk: VMDK 2 – AppStack 1

20 GB – Office 2016

Virtual Disk: VMDK 3 – AppStack 2

20 GB – Login VSI Apps

Virtual floppy drive

Removed

Virtual CD/DVD drive

Removed



ATTRIBUTE

SPECIFICATION

VMware Tools release

10.1.0.4449150

VMware Horizon Agent release

7.1.0.5170901

VMware User Environment Manager release

9.1.0.175

VMware App Volumes release

2.12.1.103

VMware vRealize Horizon release

6.4.0.4661670

Applications

Microsoft Office 2016 Pro Plus 32-bit Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 Login VSI 4.1.25.6 Target Installation The following apps were delivered as AppStacks: • Adobe Reader 11 • Adobe Flash 11.5 • Java 7.13 • Doro PDF 1.82 • FreeMind

Table 17: Desktop Image Configuration Settings



Appendix C: Bill of Materials This appendix details the major hardware and software components that were used during this project.

Hardware BOM The test configuration bill of materials is summarized in the following table. AREA

COMPONENT

QUANTITY

Host hardware Infrastructure

• Dell R730 Servers (2x Intel Xeon processor E5-2695 v3 CPUs 2.3 GHz)

2

• 256 GB of RAM • NICs 2x 10GbE, 2x 1 GB Host hardware RDSH

• Dell R730 Servers (2x Intel Xeon processor E5-2698 v4 CPUs 2.2 GHz)

4

• 384 GB of RAM • NICs 2x 10GbE, 2x 1 GB • Dell PERC H730P Mini RAID Controller, 5x 800 GB SSDs per server Storage hardware

• Tegile T3600 Storage Array – For App Volumes and Infrastructure datastores

1

• Firmware version 3.5 Network hardware

• Cisco Nexus 9372 Switches • Cisco 2248 Fabric Extenders

Login VSI Launchers

• Host servers • Storage array

2 2 4 1

Table 18: Hardware Test Configuration



Software BOM The test configuration bill of materials is summarized in the following table. COMPONENT

VERSION

VMware vSphere (ESXi, vCenter Server Applicance, vSAN)

6.5

VMware Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition

7.1

Connection Server

7.1

VMware App Volumes

2.12.1

VMware User Environment Manager

9.1

VMware vRealize Operations

6.4

VMware Horizon Client

4.4

Microsoft SQL Server

2014

Microsoft Windows Server

2012 R2 Standard

Microsoft Office

2016 ProPlus 32-bit

Login VSI

4.1.25.6 (Pro License)

Table 19: Software Test Configuration



Appendix D: Details of Infrastructure VM Metrics Throughout testing, the infrastructure VMs were carefully monitored, and resource consumption metrics are presented in the following graphs. All results are considered to be well within the success criteria for the solution that accounts for high availability for each product component. Note: Callouts have been added throughout the data charts to indicate each phase of testing. TEST PHASE

DESCRIPTION

Boot

Start all RDSH or VDI VMs at the same time.

Login

The Login VSI phase of testing is where sessions are launched and start executing the workload over a 48-minute duration.

Steady state

The steady-state phase is where all user sessions are logged in and are performing various workload tasks such as using Microsoft Office, web browsing, PDF printing, playing videos, and compressing files.

Logout

Sessions finish executing the Login VSI workload and log out.

Table 20: Test Phase Callouts and Descriptions

Active Directory Domain Controllers Figures 47 through 51 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and queuing of the Active Directory domain controller VM.

Figure 47: AD VM CPU Usage



Figure 48: AD VM Memory Usage

Figure 49: AD VM Network Usage



Figure 50: AD VM Disk Usage

Figure 51: AD VM Disk Queuing



Windows File Server Figures 52 through 56 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and queuing of the Windows file server VM.

Figure 52: File Server VM CPU Usage

Figure 53: File Server VM Memory Usage



Figure 54: File Server VM Network Usage

Figure 55: File Server VM Disk Usage



Figure 56: File Server VM Disk Queuing

SQL Server Figures 57 through 61 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and queuing of the SQL Server VM.

Figure 57: SQL Server VM CPU Usage



Figure 58: SQL Server VM Memory Usage

Figure 59: SQL Server VM Network Usage



Figure 60: SQL Server VM Disk Usage

Figure 61: SQL Server VM Disk Queuing



Horizon Connection Servers Figures 62 through 66 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and queuing of the Connection Server VMs.

Figure 62: Connection Server VM CPU Usage

Figure 63: Connection Server VM Memory Usage



Figure 64: Connection Server VM Network Usage

Figure 65: Connection Server VM Disk Usage



Figure 66: Connection Server VM Disk Queuing

App Volumes Managers Figures 67 through 71 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and queuing of the App Volumes Manager VMs.

Figure 67: App Volumes Manager VM CPU Usage



Figure 68: App Volumes Manager VM Memory Usage

Figure 69: App Volumes Manager VM Network Usage



Figure 70: App Volumes Manager VM Disk Usage

Figure 71: App Volumes Manager VM Disk Queuing



Management vCenter Server Appliance Figures 72 through 76 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and latency of the vCenter Server VM used for managing the infrastructure hosts and VMs.

Figure 72: Management vCenter Server VM CPU Usage

Figure 73: Management vCenter Server VM Memory Usage



Figure 74: Management vCenter Server VM Network Usage

Figure 75: Management vCenter Server VM Disk Usage



Figure 76: Management vCenter Server VM Disk Latency

RDSH vCenter Server Appliance Figures 77 through 81 detail the CPU, memory, network, and disk usage and latency of the vCenter Server VM used for managing the RDSH vSphere hosts and VMs.

Figure 77: RDSH vCenter Server VM CPU Usage



Figure 78: RDSH vCenter Server VM Memory Usage

Figure 79: RDSH vCenter Server VM Network Usage



Figure 80: RDSH vCenter Server VM Disk Usage

Figure 81: RDSH vCenter Server VM Disk Latency



Additional Resources VMware VMware Horizon 7 VMware Horizon 7 Documentation Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition Reference Architecture Horizon 7 Enterprise Edition Multi-Site Reference Architecture Horizon 7 Sizing Limits and Recommendations VMware App Volumes VMware User Environment Manager VMware OS Optimization Tool vRealize Operations for Horizon vRealize Operations for Published Applications VMware vSphere CPU Scheduler Performance Study Login VSI Login VSI Technical Documentation Login VSI VSImax Overview Login VSI Technical Introduction Login VSI Analyzing Results Introduction to Login VSI Workloads Login VSI Workload Breakdown Blogs VMware EUC Blog Login VSI Blog VMware Hands-On Labs HOL Catalog



About the Authors Lead Author Frank Anderson is a Solutions Architect in VMware End-User-Computing Technical Marketing. He is currently focusing on the creation of best-practice technical collateral throughout the Horizon portfolio, including performance studies, white papers, enablement of technical communities, and tool development. He has over 20 years of industry experience in end-user computing in the design, implementation, testing, and support of complex computing environments of many varieties. Contributing Author Donal Geary is a Reference Architect Engineer in VMware End-User-Computing Technical Marketing. Previously he worked as Lead System Administrator for VMware Internal IT and as Senior Technical Support Engineer for the VMware Global Support Services Organization. To comment on this paper, contact VMware End-User-Computing Technical Marketing at [email protected].


VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com

Copyright © 2017 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. Item No: VMW-TWP-HORZAPPSPERFORRA-USLTR-20170718-WEB 7/17

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