Hello all. We have a bit of a storied history with AppVolumes 2.X and similar issues. As someone that tested the private and public betas of 4.0 I think we were hoping for a lot better performance once 4.0 was released. This is not what we have seen so far. Here is our setup:
Win10 Enterprise v1909
4 CPU, 6GB memory, 60GB storage on Cisco Hyperflex
VMWare Tools 11.05
Horizon 7.11
DEM 9.10
AppVolumes 4.0
On a desktop pool where we have dozens of apps installed on the gold image, we see much better logon times. About 20-25 seconds sitting at "Welcome" for Win10 and an additional 30-35 seconds sitting at the "preparing" screen. Our total time to a usable desktop is typically less than 60 seconds, but can be a bit longer during peak times.
On a bare bones desktop pool with just Windows, Office 2016 and basic pre-reqs installed, we log in with 7-Zip, Adobe Reader, Chrome and Notepad++ coming down as individually packaged apps. We are typically looking at 55-60 seconds setting just at the "Welcome" screen and an additional 120-135 seconds sitting at the preparing screen. Once we hit the desktop there is typically an additional 30 second delay before DEM refresh on the last app volumes attachment occurs. This normally results in a 3:30 - 4:00 minute logon time to a usable desktop. From there, CPU and memory are higher than usual for the first several minutes before things wind down.
We have opened a SR and attached some flexengine and svservice logs, but curious as to what others have seen? Since we own AppVolumes as part of our environment we really want to make it work, but it's becoming harder and harder to not look elsewhere. We have completed several PoCs with Liquidware in the past for instance and saw much better results.
Thanks!
Thought I would post an update. App Volumes 4 update 1 was release recently and I installed this into our test environment. Our login times went from 1 minute and 20 seconds with 3 Applications attached to 37 seconds. I'll continue testing more applications to see what it does to our login times, but there is improvement with this new version of App Volumes.
I've posted my experience with 4.0 on other posts but I'll add here as well. We are fairly new with AppVolumes coming from Citrix App Layering (Unidesk) and still getting things ready for Production and we'll go live with App Volumes 2.18. Here is our setup:
Win10 Enterprise v1809
4 CPU, 8GB memory, Pure Storage
VMWare Tools 11.0.5
Horizon 7.10
DEM 9.10
In my limited testing with 4.0 we experience longer login times compared to 2.18, but not the times you see. We start the time from logging in to seeing your desktop icons. Using an image that has been optimized according to VMware's article on optimizing a gold image, with View Agent 7.10.1, DEM 9.10 and App Volumes 4.0 agent and no Packages assigned, we get a time of 22 seconds from logging in to seeing the desktop. Adding 1 Package (Chrome) makes our login go up to 52 seconds. And adding 2 more packages (Notepad++, Firefox) our login goes up to 1 minute 20 seconds.
Using an image optimized the same way above, but with App Volumes 2.18 agent and with 2 AppStacks assigned, the login averages 30 seconds. I've been using a virtual machine built for App Volumes with 3 AppStacks and I average about 40 second logins. So that is why we are going live with 2.18 instead of 4.0. We could easily have users with 15+ Packages and I can't imagine the login time it would take just with our experience with just 3 packages assigned.
Just a query, what version of vsphere are you guys running?
6.7.0.30000
6.7.0.42000 for us.
This shouldn't matter unless the packages are taking along time to attach. I haven't started looking at 4.0 yet since there are features I need that are missing. Try adjusting these keys(do an internet search on where they are) and set them to the lowest possible. You may see things that are happening that you may be able to resolve that hidden behind the peparing your desktop screen.
delayeddesktopswitchtimeout
statupdelayinmsec
I suggest reviewing this KB. https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/67426 Known performance issues with VMs running snapshots in < 6.7 U3 recently had this issue with a customer running 6.7 U1 and AppVols 4.0. Upgraded to 6.7 U3 and attachments where much faster.
Thought I would post an update. App Volumes 4 update 1 was release recently and I installed this into our test environment. Our login times went from 1 minute and 20 seconds with 3 Applications attached to 37 seconds. I'll continue testing more applications to see what it does to our login times, but there is improvement with this new version of App Volumes.
I see you are running appvols on Hyperflex. Did you have any issues adding the datastores to Appvols? We can see the vcenter servers but all HX datastores are grayed out.