How to take advantage of new multiple options datastore VDI-in-a-Box 5.2

How to take advantage of new multiple options datastore VDI-in-a-Box 5.2 -

Last year, with version 5.1, VDI-in-a -Box introduces the ability to take advantage of two separate data stores for VDI-in-a-Box for better use of direct storage servers. When you use Hyper-V or ESX hypervisors, VDI-in-a-Box allows you to set a second datastore for separate storage of gold images and linked clones. Now with version 5.2 of VDI-in-a-Box, we introduced the possibility for a third datastore. In addition to the datastore options for images and gold desktops, there is now an option to store the personal vDisk associated with personal computers on a separate datastore. Administrators now have the ability to store images, workstations, and personal drives separately or together on the datastore of their choice. Best of all, this option is available on all supported hypervisors.

During the initial setup, vdiManager uses a single datastore. This primary database contains all the gold images, desktop instances, and vDisk associated with personal computers. Enabling multiple datastore function in advanced vdiManager properties can separate these three types of data in their own data stores.

The flexibility of multiple databases can be exploited by storing desktops on a pooled database for SSD IOPS performance improved. Since the workstations pooled require much less space, better IOPS performance can be obtained by adding small amounts of SSD to a server. Using SAS drives for primary datastore will provide more storage capacity to store the largest gold images. Using both SAS and SSD storage in servers enables VDI-in-a-Box to avoid being constrained by the limits IOPS SAS disks or low capacity SSD. With this combination of IOPS and storage space, administrators can pack more workstations than ever on each server in the VDI-in-a-Box network.

The third datastore option for personal records allows the administrator to place the PvD on SAS or SSD datastores. If there will be a lot of personal workstations and personal records will have a large amount of space, it may be advisable to place them on SAS drives. If there is not a lot of PCs in an environment, and they do not take a large share of space, they can be placed on the SSD datastore to improve reading and writing performance. Another option when running the VDI-in-a-Box environment on Hyper-V hypervisors 2012 or ESX datastore is to configure the personal drive to use shared storage. Doing this creates the added benefit of allowing personal computers to survive a server failure without the need for manual backup and restoration of personal records. In this scenario, each server in the VDI-in-a-Box network will be configured to use the same shared storage to keep personal records. When a server is hosting a personal computer, the personal record associated with that office would be stored on discs that can be played on all servers in the grid. In case the server hosting a personal computer should fail, a new office can be spun on a running network server and the new office can be reconnected to the same personal record, because it is being reading from the shared storage.

For more information on how the use of multiple datastores can improve performance, run more virtual desktop per server, and improve high availability of personal computers, please see the following reference links:

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX136080

http://www.citrix.com/tv/# videos / 7397

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