VMware View Nutanix Reference Architecture
VMware View Nutanix Reference Architecture
0 with View
Reference Architecture
Table of Contents
1.
8. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 47
9. Appendix: Configuration .............................................................................................. 48
10.
References....................................................................................................................... 49
Table of Figures ....................................................................................................................... 49
Table of Tables ......................................................................................................................... 50
11.
1. Executive Summary
This validated reference architecture document highlights the use of Nutanix webscale converged infrastructure to seamlessly scale and deliver consistent robust
performance for VMware Horizon 6 (with View). Nutanix is able to eliminate
bottlenecks and deliver both desktops and RDS (Remote Desktops Services) across
many nodes to meet small or large business requirements. This paper demonstrates
scaling from 4 to 6 to 8 nodes.
3. Solution Overview
Web-scale Powering Desktops on Demand
Nutanix delivers an out-of-the-box infrastructure solution for virtual desktops that
eliminates the high cost, variable performance, and extensive risk of conventional
solutions. The Nutanix web-scale converged infrastructure is a turnkey solution that
comes ready to run VMware Horizon View. The Nutanix platforms unique
architecture allows enterprises to scale their virtual desktops from 50 to tens of
thousands of desktops in a linear fashion, providing customers with a simple path to
enterprise deployment with the agility of public cloud providers.
The Nutanix platform supports every type of VDI user, from task and knowledge
workers to power and data scientists. Whether you have persistent desktops that
are customized for knowledge workers, shared hosted virtual desktops (HVD) for a
general workforce, or the most 3D graphics intensive users, Nutanix provides the
right resources in a single-box solution.
Nutanix Architecture
The Nutanix web-scale converged infrastructure is a scale-out cluster of highperformance nodes (or servers), each running a standard hypervisor and containing
processors, memory, and local storage (consisting of SSD Flash and high capacity
SATA disk drives). Each node runs virtual machines just like a standard virtual
machine host.
In addition, local storage from all nodes is virtualized into a unified pool by the
Nutanix Distributed File System (NDFS). In effect, NDFS acts like an advanced NAS
that uses local SSDs and disks from all nodes to store virtual machine data. Virtual
machines running on the cluster write data to NDFS as if they were writing to shared
storage.
NDFS understand the concept of a virtual machine and provides advanced data
management features. It brings data closer to virtual machines by storing the data
locally on the system, resulting in higher performance at a lower cost. Nutanix
platforms can horizontally scale from as few as three nodes to a large number of
nodes, enabling organizations to scale their infrastructure as their needs grow.
The Nutanix Elastic Deduplication Engine is a software-driven, massively scalable
and intelligent data reduction technology. It increases the effective capacity in the
disk tier, as well as the RAM and flash cache tiers of the system, by eliminating
duplicate data. This substantially increases storage efficiency, while also improving
performance due to larger effective cache capacity in RAM and flash. Deduplication
is performed by each node individually in the cluster, allowing for efficient and
uniform deduplication at scale. This technology is increasingly effective with
full/persistent clones or P2V migrations.
Sequential
streams
of
data
are
fingerprinted
at
4K
granularity
for
efficient
deduplication
VM
VM
11
...
VM
VM
11
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Cache
...
VM
VM
N
N
CVM
CVM
Cache
VM
VM
11
...
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Cache
Cache
Storage
Storage
VM
VM
N
N
Cache
Cache
CVM
CVM
Storage
Storage
Cache
...
VM
VM
N
N
Hypervisor
Hypervisor
Cache
Cache
Storage
Storage
CVM
CVM
NDFS
Figure 4 Elastic Deduplication Engine
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Linear scale out: Scale users seamlessly and modularly with no performance
degradation. Data locality allows local caching of data to remain close to the
workload and reduces congestion on the network. A control plane that spans all of
the nodes ensures that resources are never stranded like flash and managed
ineffectively.
Better than PC perform ance: NOS features, including inline-deduplication,
eliminate IOPS resulting in fast application response and boot/login experience.
Base images can be fingerprinted enabling the benefits of in-line deduplication with
no overhead. The Nutanix platform provides up to 130,000 plus random read IOPS
and over 78,000 random write IOPS up in a compact 2U 4-node cluster.
Lower costs: Lower infrastructure CAPEX than a PC and lower ongoing operating
costs due to ease of use and small footprint.
Elim inate project risk: Start small and expand as warranted always utilizing the
latest advances in CPU, memory, and flash.
Business continuity: Built-in native replication and disaster recovery (DR)
features enable highly available desktops to be deployed in mission-critical
environments. Block awareness allows larger clusters to lose up to 4-nodes without
using any additional capacity.
Enterprise-grade m anagem ent: Nutanix Prism delivers a simplified and intuitive
consumer-grade approach to managing large clusters, including a converged
management tool that serves as a single pane for servers and storage, alert
notifications, and provides the IPv6 bonjour mechanism to auto-detect new nodes in
the cluster. It provides the ability to spend more time enhancing your environment,
not maintaining it.
Prism Central allows control over multiple clusters, enabling true multi-tenancy and
desktop as service. Prism Central allows the VMware Horizon Cloud Pod
Architecture to be managed with ease and provides the ability to have physical
separation and control over clusters in local or remote datacenters. Businesses can
decide on a deployment plan that works best for them and their users.
VM w are Integration: Support for View Composer Array Integration (VCAI), and
vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI). Due to Nutanixs ability to cache to local
RAM, the View Storage Accelerator doesnt need to be used, saving deployment
time and storage. In some use cases, Nutanix can remove the need for additional
components, like View Composer, to due strong product integration.
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The benefits of the Nutanix Platform are now exposed to scale out vSphere deployments:
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Desktop virtualization with Horizon View enables organizations to do more with less
and adopt a user-centric, flexible approach to computing. By decoupling
applications, data, and operating systems from the endpointand by moving these
components into the datacenter where they can be centrally managed in your
clouddesktop and application virtualization offers IT a more streamlined, secure
way to manage users and provide agile, on-demand desktop services.
4. Solution Design
With the Horizon View on Nutanix solution you have the flexibility to start small with
a single block and scale up incrementally a node, a block, or multiple blocks at a
time. This provides the best of both worldsthe ability to start small and grow to
massive scale without any impact on performance.
The following section covers the design decisions and rationale for the Horizon View
deployments on the Nutanix Virtual Computing Platform. View Composer linked
clones where testing using
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3
Item
Detail
Rationale
Minimum Size
Scale Approach
Scale Unit
General
Infrastructure Services
vSphere
Cluster Size
Task parallelization
Datastore(s)
n-Controller model
Up to 24-48-nodes
Storage Pool(s)
Standard practice
ILM handles tiering
Container(s)
Standard practice
Features/
Enhancements
1
4
Item
Detail
Rationale
Min: 2 (n+1)
Scale: 1 per additional pod
Up to 2,000 users
Load Balancing
F5 or Load Balancer
vCPU: 4
Memory: 10 GB
Disk: 60GB vDisk
Up to 5 + 2 spare
Horizon View
Infrastructure
Connection Brokers(s)
Connection
Brokers
Virtual Hardware
Specs
Connection Broker(s)
per Pod
Load Balancing
vCenter
vCenter Appliance
1appliance per 2000 VMs
Task Parallelization
5.5.0.10100 Build
Installed separately from vCenter
1750781
Virtual Hardware
vCPU: 8
Resources for fast provisioning
Specs
RAM: 12 GB
Note: Due to the smaller environment one vCenter was shared
between the management and desktop\RDS infrastructure.
Larger environments should have separate vCenter systems for
management and desktop clusters.
View Composer Services
View Composer
1 per vCenter
Installed separately from vCenter
Best Practice
Virtual Hardware
vCPU: 2
Specs
RAML 4 GB
View Security Servers
Best Practice
View Security
Servers(s)
Virtual Hardware
Specs
Load Balancing
Min: 2 (n+1)
vCPU: 4
RAM: 10 GB
F5 or Load Balancer
Item
Detail
Rationale
Global Catalog/DNS
Server(s)
DHCP
HA for GC/DNS
Microsoft Best Practice
DHCP Server(s)
Load Balancing
DFS Server(s)
Load Balancing
Lowest Cost
SQL Server(s)
Data Protection
Active Directory
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5
File Services
SQL Server
Item
Detail
Rationale
vSwitchNutanix
Nutanix Default
vSwitch0 \ vDS
Nutanix Default
NIC(s): 2 x 10Gb
Teaming mode:
standard vSwitch: Port ID
Distrusted vSwitch: Load based
Teaming
ID: Varies
Mask: /24
Components:
vSphere Hosts
Nutanix CVMs
vCenter
SQL Servers
AD/ DHCP/DFS Servers
View Connection Servers
Virtual Switches
NIC Teaming
NetAdapterTeam
VLANs
Management VLAN
vMotion VLAN
ID: Varies
Mask: /24
Components:
vSphere Hosts
Front-end VLAN(s)
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Nutanix can host both virtual desktops and remote application services. Densities
will vary based upon specific images and workload. For VDI testing, we used a
medium workload using LoginVSI. To test Horizon View RDS functionality, shared
hosted desktops were created to test loads using a LoginVSI 4.1 light workload. The
task worker represents a comparable workload when determining Remote App
densities due to a limited number of applications launched per user and no heavy
video being played.
The following are examples of some typical scenarios for desktop deployment and
utilization.
Table 5: Desktop Scenario Definition
Scenario
Definition
Task Workers
Knowledge
Workers
Power Users
The following table contains initial recommendations for desktop sizing for a
Windows 7 desktop. Note: These are recommendations for sizing and should be
modified after a current state analysis.
Scenario
Task Workers
Knowledge Workers
Power Users
vCPU
1
1-2
2
Memory
1GB
2GB
4GB
Disks
30GB (OS)
30GB (OS)
30GB+ (OS)
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7
Redirect home directories or use a profile management tool for user profiles
and documents.
Node Type
Virtual Desktop
Task
120
Workload/User Density
Medium
Heavy
100
60
Node Type
RDS(shared hosted
desktops)
Light
200
Workload/User Density
Medium
Heavy
170
90
The following figure shows an example of a RDS node providing hosted shared
desktops:
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8
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Shadow Clones
The following figure describes the detailed IO path for a Horizon with View based
desktop on Nutanix. All write IOs will occur locally on the local nodes SSD tier to
provide the highest possible performance. Read requests for the Replica VM will
occur locally for all desktops when the NDFS Shadow Clone feature is enabled, as
this enables distributed caching of the Replica VM. These reads are served from the
high performance read cache (if cached) or the SSD tier. Each node will also cache
frequently accessed data in the read cache for any local data (delta disks, personal
vDisks (if used)). Nutanix ILM will continue to constantly monitor data and the IO
patterns to choose the appropriate tier placement. This helps to eliminate any
performance bottlenecks.
2
0
2
1
The following table shows the Nutanix storage pool and container configuration.
Name
SP01
CTR-RF2-VDI-01
CTR-RF2-RDS-01
Role
Main storage pool for all data
Container for all Desktops
Container for all Servers
Details
All Disks
vSphere Datastore
vSphere Datastore
Network
Designed for true linear scaling, Nutanix leverages a Leaf-Spine network
architecture. A Leaf-Spine architecture consists of two network tiers: an L2 Leaf
and an L3 Spine based on 40GbE and non-blocking switches. This architecture
maintains consistent performance without any throughput reduction due to a static
maximum of three hops from any node in the network.
The following figure shows a design of a scale-out Leaf-Spine network architecture
that provides 20Gb active throughput from each node to its Leaf and scalable 80Gb
active throughput from each Leaf to Spine switch providing scale from 1 Nutanix
block to thousands without any impact to available bandwidth:
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2
2
3
2
4
Nutanix Configuration
A Nutanix NX-3460 was used to host all infrastructure and Horizon services, as well
as the Login VSI test harness. Active Directory services ran inside of the
infrastructure cluster as well DHCP and SQL.
Two Nutanix NX-3460 were utilized as the target environment and provided all
desktop and RDS hosting. Tests were ran with:
6-node VDI
8-node VDI
Testing shows that Nutanix can handle Tier 1 workloads and scale in a linear fashion.
Both Nutanix blocks were connected to a top-of-rack switch via 10GbE.
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Hardware:
o
Login
VSI:
o
VM
Q ty
vCPU
M em ory
Disks
Connection Brokers
10 GB
1 x 60GB (OS)
View Composer
4 GB
1 x 60GB (OS)
SQL
8 GB
3 X 60 GB (OS,
DATA, Logs)
vCenter Appliance
10 GB
1 X 80 GB, 1 X 100
GB
:
Table 11: Horizon View Test Image Configuration
Attribute
Hardware
10 GB
1 x 60GB (OS)
CPU
2 vCPUs
N/A
Memory
8 GB
3 X 60 GB (OS, DATA,
Logs)
Memory reserved
10 GB
1 X 80 GB, 1 X 100 GB
Video RAM
128 MB
128MB
3D Graphics
Off
Off
NICs
VMXNet3 Adapter
VMXNet3 Adapter
Paravirtual
Paravirtual
50 GB
100 GB
Removed
Removed
Removed
Removed
Applications
Adobe Acrobat 11
Adobe Acrobat 11
FreeMind
FreeMind
Internet Explorer 11
Internet Explorer 11
MS Office 2010
MS Office 2010
VMware Tools
9.4.5.173405
9.4.5.173405
6.0
6.0
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6
Login VSI is used for testing and benchmarking by all major hardware and software
vendors, and is recommended by both leading IT analysts and the technical
community. Login VSI is vendor-independent and works with standardized user
workloads, therefore conclusions that are based on Login VSI test data are
objective, verifiable, and replicable.
For more information about Login VSI visit http://www.loginvsi.com/
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VSI Index Average: Indicates the average value as calculated by VSI. The VSI
Index Average differs from Average Response on the fact that Average
Response is the pure average. VSI Index Average applies certain statistical
rules to the average to avoid spikes from influencing the average too much.
VSImax v4: Shows the amount of sessions can be active on a system before
the system is saturated. The blue X shows the point where VSImax was
reached. This number provides an indication of the scalability of the
environment (higher is better).
VSIbase(line): shows the VSI index average for the environment when there is
no to little load on the environment. This number is used as an indication of
the base performance of the environment (lower is better). This number in
combination with the VSImax number will tell you:
o
And how long the environment can maintain that performance, how
scalable the VSIbase performance is (VSImax).
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Based on user experience and industry standards, Nutanix recommends that the
values be kept below the following values (LoginVSI 4.x):
M etric
Minimum Response
Average Response
Maximum Response
VSI Baseline
VSI Index Average
<4,000
<8,000
<5,000
<4,000
Acceptable
Acceptable
Acceptable
Acceptable
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6. Validation Results
All tests had 111 users launched per node with the objective of getting 110 or more
users to run as the Nutanix cluster scaled from 4,6,8-nodes proving the linear
scalability.
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The following are the test results for a 4-node NX-3460 with View Composer Array
Integration enabled with LoginVSI medium user profile supported by Window 7 SP1
Login VSI Medium Results
During the testing, VSImax was not reached with a baseline of 1346 and average
VSImax of 3376ms. The VSImax threshold was 3946. 441 sessions ran successfully.
3
1
Figure 19 CPU Utilization for all CVMs during the testing for 4-nodes.
3
2
3
3
Figure 24 CPU Utilization for all CVMs during the testing for 6 nodes with 664 users.
3
4
3
5
Figure 27 CPU Utilization for all CVMs during the testing for 6-nodes with 664 users.
3
6
Figure 28 8 Node - Total Cluster Read & Write IOPS during testing
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7
Linear Scale
During testing the 4-, 6- and 8-nodes test runs for Horizon View the number of users
per node and VSImax stayed consistent. Small variance can be contributed to
background cluster tasks that are allowing running to ensure high available for the
cluster like self-healing.
Boot Storm
Boot storms can be avoided or planned for but bad things happen like power
outages, maintenance windows and if youre dealing with events like shift change,
like in Health Care, you need to have ability to boot your desktops quickly. The
clock started at 2:25:34 in vCenter and the watch stopped when all the agents
reported back in the Horizon View Connection broker at 2:31:32. The system
required 6 minutes to boot 888 desktops running on 8 Nutanix NX-3460 nodes.
Figure 32 Cluster CPU did hit high briefly with the current vCenter settings but thats to be expected.
3
8
Figure 34 Over 50,000 IOPS to boot the desktops. Most of the IOPS coming from local cache.
3
9
4
0
Figure 37 CPU Utilization for all CVMs during the testing for 6 nodes with 664 users.
Figure 38 4 Node RDS - Total Cluster Read & Write IOPS during testing
4
1
Start Time
11:33:16
End Time
11:33:24
Total Time
8 sec
With Integration of VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration) support, Nutanix can
clone large servers like Windows Server 2012 R2 being used for RDS in seconds. This
is very important as Horizon View relies on host/virtualization for deployment of
RDS host. The ability to use Nutanix VMCaliber clones also saves flash for
performance instead of being used for copy operations.
7. Solution Application
This section applies this pod-based reference architecture to real-world scenarios
and outlines the sizing metrics and components. The applications below assume a
standard medium user workload, however will vary based upon utilization and
workload.
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2
NO TE: Detailed hardware configuration and product models can be found in the
appendix. Any starting size of 3 or more nodes can form the base of a Nutanix
cluster.
Scenario: 12 Nodes
Allocating 8-nodes for VDI and 4-nodes for RDS.
Table 14: Detailed Component Breakdown 12 Nodes
Item
Components
# of Nutanix nodes
# of Nutanix blocks
# of RU (Nutanix)
# of 10GbE Ports
# of 100/1000 Ports (IPMI)
# of L2 Leaf Switches
# of L3 Spine Switches
Value
12
3
6
24
12
2
1
Item
Infrastructure
# of vCenter Servers
# of vSphere Hosts
# of vSphere Clusters
# of Datastore(s)
# of RDS Servers
# of RDS Users
# of Virtual Desktops
Value
1
12
2
1
Up to 32
800
880
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3
Availability Domains
Availability Domains is a key construct for distributed systems to abide by for
determining component and data placement. When you have 3 or more uniform
blocks each with a minimum of 2 nodes you can lose a block and the cluster will
keep running. No additional capacity is used to achieve this redundancy just
intelligent data placement.
With the following configuration, a whole block can be down and the Nutanix
Cluster will still run. This allows for more than one node to be down for maintenance
at time, which leads to better OPEX during maintenance windows and overall higher
availability.
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4
Scenario: 24 Nodes
This configuration comprises of 16 NX-3060 nodes for VDI and 8 NX-3060 nodes for
RDS.
Item
Components
# of Nutanix blocks
# of Nutanix nodes
# of RU (Nutanix)
# of 10GbE Ports
# of 100/1000 Ports (IPMI)
# of L2 Leaf Switches
# of L3 Spine Switches
Value
6
24
12
48
24
2
1
Item
Infrastructure
# of vCenter Servers
# of vSphere Hosts
# of vSphere Clusters
# of Datastore(s)
# of RDS Servers
# of RDS Users
# of VDI
Value
2
24
1-2
1
Up to 128
Up to
1,600
1,600
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5
Availability Domains
With the following configuration a whole block can be down and the Nutanix Cluster
will still run. This allows for more than one node to be down for maintenance at time,
which leads to better OPEX during maintenance windows and overall higher
availability.
4
6
8. Conclusion
The VMware Horizon with View and Nutanix solution provides a single high-density
platform for desktop and application delivery. This modular linearly scaling
approach enables these deployments to easily grow. Localized and distributed
Shadow Clone cache, VAAI support allows RDS and Full Clone desktops to be
quickly deployed without wasting high-performance flash. Robust self-healing and
multi-storage controllers deliver high availability in the face of failure or rolling
upgrades.
4
7
Horizon user density will be primarily driven by the available host CPU resources
and not due to any IO or resource bottleneck for both virtual desktops and RDS
deployments on Nutanix. Login VSI test results showed densities of over 110 users
per Nutanix node for VDI and almost 200 users per node for RDS. From starting at
4-nodes and then scaling from 6- to 8-nodes, testing shows that Nutanix can offer a
pay as you grow model like public cloud providers, but in the comfort and security
of your own premises.
By having Nutanix Clusters with both RDS and virtual desktops, you can achieve
greater resiliency by allowing enough nodes to meet the requirements for
Availability Domains. The ability to lose up to 4 nodes without downtime comes
without sacrificing storage capacity and allows IT operations teams to have smaller
maintenance windows.
Infrastructure can be added on your terms and on your schedule without sacrificing
performance or overspending upfront.
9. Appendix: Configuration
Hardware
o
2 * Nutanix NX-3460
o
4
8
Storage / Compute
Per node specs (4-nodes per 2U block):
Network
Software
o
Nutanix
NOS 4.0.1
Horizon View
6.0
Virtual Desktop
o
RDS Server
Windows 7 SP1
Infrastructure
VM
o
RDS
CPU: 5 vCPU
Memory: 24 GB (static)
Storage:
10. References
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Web-scale properties of Nutanix ....................................................................................... 6
4
9
5
0
Figure 28 8 Node - Total Cluster Read & Write IOPS during testing ................................. 36
Figure 29 6-node - IO latency during testing with a peak of 2.9 ms .................................. 36
Figure 30 Overall Cluster CPU and Memory Consumption for 8 Nodes........................... 37
Figure 31 Linear Scale as nodes are added to the cluster. ..................................................... 37
Figure 32 Cluster CPU did hit high briefly with the current vCenter settings but thats
to be expected. ........................................................................................................................................ 38
Figure 33 Minimal latency when booting all of the desktops ................................................ 38
Figure 34 Over 50,000 IOPS to boot the desktops. Most of the IOPS coming from
local cache. ................................................................................................................................................ 38
Figure 35 Impact of shutting off a Nutanix Storage Controller............................................ 39
Figure 36 VSImax for 799 Horizon View RDS users on 4-nodes. ........................................ 39
Figure 37 CPU Utilization for all CVMs during the testing for 6 nodes with 664 users.40
Figure 38 4 Node RDS - Total Cluster Read & Write IOPS during testing ...................... 40
Figure 39 4-node RDS - IO latency during testing with a peak of 5.62 ms ..................... 41
Figure 40 Rack Layout 12 Nodes .................................................................................................... 43
Figure 41 12 node availability domain with VDI & RDS............................................................ 44
Figure 42 Rack Layout 24 Nodes.................................................................................................. 45
Figure 43 24-node availability domain with VDI & RDS ..........................................................46
Table of Tables
Table 1: Platform Design Decisions ................................................................................................... 13
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1
5
2
5
3