New! Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop on FlexPod Express with Cisco UCS Mini

11:30 AM
New! Citrix XenApp / XenDesktop on FlexPod Express with Cisco UCS Mini -

For companies geographically dispersed offices, such as remote offices / branch offices (Robos) or other satellite positions, a turnkey solution have for desktop virtualization can accelerate the deployment of enterprise-class.

a new Cisco Validated Design (CVD) for Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop uses a predefined, self-contained platform the FlexPod Data Center with Cisco UCS Mini -This makes it easy for the provision of reliable and Desktops applications from 350 to 700 users.

The FlexPod Data Center, co-designed by Cisco and NetApp, calculate integrated server, network fabric and hybrid storage components, an independent Creating drop-in VDI / SBC solution that can be installed in remote locations yet centrally managed.

A flexible solution

FlexPod Data Center with Cisco UCS Mini is the building block underlying the provision of simplified while density growth to support and proven mixtures of XenApp and XenDesktop workloads. While FlexPod provides a cookie-cutter solution this CVD shows how the solution is also very versatile.

Deployments can share a common architecture, component design, configuration procedures and management. At the same time user capacity can scale and expand the number of hosted shared desktops (RDS) or hosted pooled virtual desktops to increase (VDI). This scalability also benefit small and medium enterprises-they start small and grow as many as 700 users from 350 to.

The CVD describes a basic 4-leaf FlexPod with Cisco UCS Mini configuration, the 350 users supported (150 RDS and VDI 0 users). Cisco UCS B0 M4 Blade servers have been added to this basic configuration workload expansion and scale density support. All configurations followed by a fault-tolerant N + 1 design for infrastructure and RDS / VDI VMs. The size and density Validate combinations we performed single and multiple blade server scalability tests with Login VSI software. The complete CVD documenting the step-by-step process, we used the test environment to create the test configurations and contains all the test results

Fig. 1: Reference architecture components in the FlexPod with Cisco UCS Mini

UCSMiniFlexpod1

solution Overview

Figure 1 shows the major components in the CVD reference architecture, including:

  • Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6 software . Since Citrix XenDesktop 7.6 combines the functionality of previous XenApp and XenDesktop frees determination, the same software and the same PVS-Setup Wizard can both RDS sessions (Windows Server 2012 R2) and pooled hosted VDI desktops (with Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 8). In the CVD entire infrastructure and RDS / VDI workload Server 100% were virtualized on VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5 Update 2
  • Cisco UCS Mini . The Cisco UCS Mini combines servers, storage and a 10-Gigabit Ethernet network fabric in one easy-to-deploy, compact form factor. The chassis can support up to eight half-width Cisco UCS B0 M4 blade servers, each with two 10-Core 2.6 GHz Intel Xeon (E5-2660v3) processors and 256 GB. In this CVD, between four and seven blade servers 6324 fabric interconnects rack were for different testing cases.Two Cisco UCS provide redundant high bandwidth LAN and storage connectivity for the blade servers and the chassis configured and can connect optional servers, as also . Cisco UCS Manager manages all Cisco UCS Mini software and hardware components and Cisco UCS Central multiple UCS Manager domains for a comprehensive policy control and centralized management.
  • Cisco Nexus 9372 Switches aggregate. support order 10 GbE connectivity for FlexPod solution, this Layer 2 / Layer 3 access switches come with 48 10:01-Gbps Small Form Pluggable Plus (SFP +) ports and 6 Quad SFP + (QSFP +) uplink ports. In addition, 9373, the Nexus is Cisco ACI capable.
  • NetApp FAS2552 storage hybrid . The NetApp FAS2552 is a dual-controller storage system that combines low-latency SSDs for caching and cost-effective SAS drives for capacity. The array configuration in the tests used included four 0GB SSDs and twenty 00GB SAS drives. The array controllers have support for file system access via 10 GbE ports blade server boot over iSCSI and NFS / CIFS connectivity.

Key advantages of the solutions

The CVD architecture offers significant advantages in enterprise edge or small business implementations:

  • Self-sufficient and compact solution . The FlexPod with UCS Mini architecture defines a completely self-contained "all-in-one" solution with the infrastructure needed to support a mix of up to 700 Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop users. The solution consumes only 10 rack units and fits in less than a single data center rack, preserving valuable rack space.
  • Cost and scalable desktop virtualization for the enterprise edge . Powerful Cisco UCS blade servers enable high user density at low cost per seat. By adding additional blade server to the chassis, a basic 4-server configuration 350 user support easily scalable 350 more additional XenApp and XenDesktop user support. The NetApp storage array has a combination of low-latency flash devices and a tray with less expensive SAS drives, for economical I / O over an end-to-end Ethernet fabric.
  • fault tolerant design . The architecture defines redundant infrastructure and workload VMs on multiple physical Cisco UCS blade servers to keep users productive availability to optimize.
  • to implement and manage Simple . UCS Manager can monitor in the management domain and manage Cisco UCS servers in the FlexPod solution along with other Cisco UCS blade and rack servers. Cisco UCS Central Management via Cisco UCS Manager domains extend management across multiple remote sites to centralize.
  • Fully validated and proven solution . The CVD defines a reference architecture that tested under harsh usage scenarios, including boot and login storms. mandatory testing that each configuration Boot tested within 15 minutes and complete applications in 48 minutes at the peak user density.

test cases and main results

Test engineers conducted five different test cases (Figure 2). The first two single server scalability for RDS and VDI tested or recommended maximum density for each workload type on a single Cisco UCS B0 Blade M4 to determine with Dual Intel® E5-2660 v3 processors and 256GB of RAM. The other three tests the performance of mixed workloads on multiple blade servers analyzed

. Figure 2: Five test cases single server and multiple server scalability

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Several blade tests showed that the configurations for mixed workloads densities under simulated stress conditions (cold start -Boot and simulated login storms) could support. In this test case, the FlexPod led configured with UCS Mini solution under the RDS / VDI user mix, provides reasonable response times with the Login VSI clerk workload. treated NetApp hybrid storage easily IOPS with an average read and write latencies less than 5 ms. For all tests, extensive performance metrics were collected and are in full CVD published.

The test results show how easily enhance FlexPod with UCS Mini configurations and flex, so that installations to grow larger at the enterprise edge and supporting RDS and VDI capacity. To learn more about the solution and our test, you can download the complete CVD here

-. Rob Briggs, principal solutions architect, Citrix Systems, Inc. Follow @Briggs_Rob

- Frank Anderson, Senior Solutions Architect, Cisco Systems, Inc. Follow @FrankCAnderson

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