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Sizing and Best Practices for Deploying VMware View 4.5

on VMware vSphere 4.1 with Dell EqualLogic Storage

VM, RAWC also automates launching of applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook, Adobe Reader and

others, based on specific criteria such as typing speed, number of emails and number of pages to

change. We customized the application simulation settings to achieve our desired user load profile.

In the following section, we present scale-out results for a task worker profile on different EqualLogic

iSCSI SANs. We created the task worker profile by choosing MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS

Outlook, Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer and McAfee Anti-Virus (scan on access mode) from the set

of available applications in RAWC tool. This task worker profile was configured to generate 3-5 IOPS

per desktop in steady state. We also simulated login storm events by starting all client sessions within a

set time frame, in order to simulate realistic login periods within an enterprise setting.

4.1 Test Results

We tested both persistent and non-persistent desktops to determine the maximum number of

desktops that can be supported in EqualLogic iSCSI SANs for the chosen workload. For persistent

desktops, all changes (writes to operating system, temporary system and application data as well as

user data) are redirected to persistent storage. All such changes are lost when a non-persistent

desktop is rebooted or refreshed at user logoff. Thus, every time the non-persistent desktop login

event occurs, extra client I/O operations take place in order for Windows to properly initialize the

client session. Consequently, during login storms the non-persistent desktop creates a higher

processing and I/O workload test case than the persistent desktop. The highest IOPS levels we

measured during our tests occurred during the non-persistent desktop login storm periods. Table 4

presents a summary of the test cases and the maximum recommended VDI client loading levels –

both for non-persistent and persistent configurations – for the task worker workload.

View Client VM Storage Platform Test Case

VDI Client Maximum

(Task Worker Workload Profile )

EqualLogic PS6000XVS

8 x 100GB SSD

8 x 450GB 15K rpm SAS

A) Non-persistent desktop 1014

B) Persistent desktop 1014

EqualLogic PS6000XV

16 x 600GB 15K rpm SAS

C) Non-persistent desktop 390

D) Persistent desktop 780

Table 4: Test Case Summary

Note: For more information on the Reference Architecture Workload Simulator, see

the following VMware Information Guide:



Workload Considerations for Virtual Desktop Reference Architectures