With XenApp, and Local Storage for service providers DaaS

With XenApp, and Local Storage for service providers DaaS -

With Citrix Solutions Lab we are always to implement looking for ways to Citrix software, the advantage of what Citrix deals use and what our competitors do not always reach.

In the recently published

of Citrix Service Provider solution on Microsoft Hyper-V and Cisco UCS Design Guide, we have a different approach for Hosted Shared Desktop (HSD) VMs and storage.

The rationale for a solution without a SAN or NAS building .:

costs and alternative approaches IOPS to reduce them

Typically desktops Citrix service provider as a service solution leverages Citrix provisioning Services (PVS) for Hosted Shared VMs, a write cache file uses the Windows swap file and PVS Write cache keep. This write cache is often held in a SAN or NAS. Due to the potentially high number of IOPS that can be created in hosted desktop workloads, beefy SAN or NAS storage is required, often to support a large number of users and VMs. Although the PVS Cache has significantly reduced in RAM disk overflow function IOPS requirements, some service providers at this stage may be interested in an alternative approach, if described with smaller scale scenarios.

What is High Availability?

Another decision drivers for the use of a SAN is a high availability (HA).

If the physical servers are in a cluster, the VMs can be migrated to another server in the cluster. With the latest versions of Microsoft Hyper-V there is no need for a cluster VMs to migrate between servers. But if a physical server fails in a cluster, the VM can not be accessed, migrated or restarted on other servers.

Both of these considerations have been taken into account, as we. For the use of local designed memory instead of a SAN or NAS

for this style guide we were providers for cost-effective, fast Citrix Service solution, and since storage is always one of the main costs in an insert (Citrix Service Provider Search or Enterprise customers / partners), our goal was to investigate the reduction of the cost. The question to be answered was: "Can we do this all on local storage while HA and power maintained at a reasonable price"? On a side note, a slow older SAN was used to keep the PVS vDisks and Infrastructure VMs as Active Directory, DNS, SQL, etc. Broker

So what we have built? [1945006[

SAN is no longer a driving requirement for VM migration, we decided to remove the SAN and use local memory in the Cisco blades for the write cache files, and configure the VMs PVS RAM cache with disk overflow, which also reduces the IOPS for storage. Each sheet was installed with a 400 GB SSD to hold the write cache data, and a 300 GB HDD to the operating system.

So, without migration or a SAN, which keep HA? 7.5 XenApp allows the creation of "Delivery Groups" (formerly known as "Worker Groups" in XenApp 6.5 known), the grouping of servers together. All the VMs belong to the same delivery group and with each VM error the workload to other VMs will be redistributed as the users log back. Each physical server 30 user 7 HSD VMs, each VM supports supports. The delivery group is configured in an N + 1 configuration, in which the loss of a VM can through the remaining VMs, and the same will be taken for the physical server. Even if a SAN using N + 1 configuration, should be able to be considered to handle the loss of a single physical server, or VMs migrate for server maintenance. Our configuration allows us the same level of HA support.

advantage! Adding more users on a large scale is very simple.

With a SAN if you have space, you can easily add more users, but if you do not have the space, then it becomes a problem. With the local storage solution, if you want to add additional users, add additional servers and join them to the delivery group.

What local storage works with free known per user?

[1945003einphysischerServerunterstützt7HSDVMsjedeVM-Unterstützung30BenutzerWenn] and an SSD costs $ 00 per user then your storage costs 4.29 to $ works (00 / (7 * 30)). It still needs a SAN or NAS to be to keep the VDA files and infrastructure components, but it does not require the amount of IOPs needed a HSD or VDI environment support.

This approach of local storage is not appropriate in all situations, but it offers some interesting possibilities for specific environments.

Learn the new Citrix Service Provider solution more on Microsoft Hyper-V and Cisco UCS Design Guide.

for further work by Citrix Solutions Lab, visit www.citrix.com/go/solutions-lab.

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