Hi, this might have being asked before but im basically looking for a best practice advise for a customer to size for a 150 concurrent connection view solution. As im really new to vmware view i hope the gurus can help me out a little.
these will be some assumptions
- 150 concurrent connections
- 1.5 gb ram per desktop
- about 40 gb on each desktop
- running windows 7 on all desktops
- want to implement HA
would like to know.
How many host needed for optimum use?
How many cpu per host/how many cores?
How much storage is recommended and what type of shared storage?
Hosts should be failry easy to calculate, based on the information you've given. I would recommend going with fewer cores per CPU, but higher clock speed. The clock speed is what will contribute to the end-user's experience, and the core count will contribute most to density per host. If you go with dual quad core 3.0 GHz CPUs, assuming 8 VMs per core under normal circumstances and 10 VMs per core in case of an HA failover, that would give you:
RAM should be calculated for each host based on those numbers, with some overhead. You could do 1.5 GB per VM with 96 GB of RAM per host, but that doesn't take any overhead into account. I would say you'd be best of with 128 GB of RAM per host in this situation, which would allow for no overcommitment with all 3 hosts functional, and moderate overcommitment in case of an HA failover.
Where you're going to run into some difficulty is IOPS to plan your storage. I would strongly recommend working with a company like LiquidWare Labs or Lakeside Software to do a full assessment of the environment, to get a really clear picture of the current usage on the desktops that are being virtualized. Without that, you're really just guessing that the storage (and even the hosts, really) have been spec'd right. Those two companies have tools that can eliminate much, if not all, of the guesswork.
If I had to guess on the storage, though, I would assume you'd need a shared storage solution that could provide at least 6,000 IOPS for 150 users. There are solutions out there that would provide way more than that, which would be great, but they're not cheap. If you have the time and money, look at Tintri as a possible storage solution.
These are obviously just my own two cents. I hope they're enough to get you started in the right direction. And if any of the gurus want to chime in with their ideas, I think it could be a really beneficial conversation for everyone.
Dave
Exist this calculator for vdi that can be useful for you.
ok... to summarize you would suggest.
- 3 host with 2xquad-core cpu 3.00Ghz @ each host
- 128 gb ram @ each host. (with HA considered)
so i would assume vcenter,view connection server, and the AD is virtualized in 1 of the 3 servers???
for the storage portion could you give me an idea for this type of setup, what type storage is the most cost effective yet suitable. eg FC/isci/NFS.
And how many disk would be able to achieve the 6000 iops that you suggested.
thanks in advance. your response has being very helpful so far.
Keep in mind that I don't know your environment, so this is just an off-the-cuff rough estimate. Also keep in mind that your vCenter server will need 2 vCPUs and at least 4 GB of RAM. Any Connection Servers you have will need 2 vCPUs and 10 GB of RAM. Those have to be accounted for on those three servers as well, unless you're going to put them on an existing vSphere environment, which would be even better. I was under the impression that you already had a functional AD in place, so I didn't take that into account at all. You could have a virtual AD server, but it's best to also have a physical AD server if you're going to do that.
6000 IOPS is just a really rough guess as to what I think 150 average Windows 7 users might generate. Please remember that this is pure speculation, and you would get much better results using assessment and planning software at this stage. As far as architecture goes, it really depends on what you currently use for shared storage. Low-end storage is generally going to be less responsive than more expensive high-end storage, so trying to cut corners on your disk subsystem will likely just lead to problems. I'm not suggesting you would try to cut corners, just warning against it.
As a rough guide, 15k SAS drives generally provide between 120 and 180 IOPS each. If you figure 150 per drive, you'd need about 40 traditional drives to get 6000 IOPS. Different vendors all have appealing offerings that leverage some solid state and some traditional spindles, so your chosen storage vendor may have some really good solutions available if you talk to them about it.
Dave
From: kcwk <communities-emailer@vmware.com<mailto:communities-emailer@vmware.com>>
Reply-To: communities-emailer <communities-emailer@vmware.com<mailto:communities-emailer@vmware.com>>
Date: Monday, April 23, 2012 2:33 PM
To: David Horvath <david.horvath@dmctechgroup.com<mailto:david.horvath@dmctechgroup.com>>
Subject: New message: "vmware view 5 sizing for 150 concurrent connection"
VMware Communities<http://communities.vmware.com/index.jspa>
vmware view 5 sizing for 150 concurrent connection
reply from kcwk<http://communities.vmware.com/people/kcwk> in VMware View™ (with View Manager) - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/2030995#2030995
Keep in mind that the newest Intel processors are a big jump in processing power over even the previous generation. These new Sandy Bridge processors, even at lower clock speeds, may be able to handle 150 concurrent sessions just fine.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/the-xeon-e52600-dual-sandybridge-for-servers
I debated the cores/clock speed piece for awhile and opted to get the 8 core processors running at 2.0GHz for my VDI rollout. All the server vendors including Dell, HP, Cisco, and IBM have released servers with the new processors.
I think your choice of storage will have a bigger determination of the end user experience for VDI. Nothing stresses storage like the I/O requirements of VDI.
Hi sorry to bring this back up.
Would like to enquire about the network portion.
For 150 concurrent connection what components do i need for the network portion??
i need a switch or a few switches that has 150 ports?? roughly what specs for the switch do i need ??
hope some1 can help me out. thanks
i know you guys dun have enough info to size the user bandwidth but just a rough estimate will do. the end users is an engineering company. thats all i know.