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Sizing and Best Practices for Deploying VMware View 4.5

on VMware vSphere 4.1 with Dell EqualLogic Storage

• You should also make sure that the server NIC ports and storage NIC ports are connected in a

way such that any single component failure in the SAN will not disable access to any storage

array volumes.

• Flow control should be enabled on both the server NICs and the switch ports connecting to

server and storage ports.

• We recommend you enable jumbo frames on the server NIC ports and the switch ports. Within

ESX you also need to set the jumbo frame MTU value on the virtual switches and the virtual

NICs used by the guest VM OS.

• You should disable spanning tree on switch ports connecting to end devices like server ports

and storage ports. Portfast should be enabled for these ports.

6.6 Storage

Storage recommendations for capacity and performance are presented in Section 5. Additional

recommendations:

• You should deploy multiple, separate volumes (maximum: 500GB) for hosting VMware

View linked clone desktops. Doing so will support isolation for manageability and

performance.

• When using the PS6000XVS, we recommending using a separate volume (from the ones

used for hosting linked clone desktops) for storing the linked clone master replica images.

You should not host replica images on volumes used for linked clones. Keep the number

of base images to a minimum (ideally one per XVS array). For example, in one of our tests

we had one 32GB volume where one base image was stored, and four 500GB volumes

that were used for linked clone delta space. Having a large number of clones linked to the

same base image will make the base image an I/O “hot spot.” By isolating the base image

to a separate volume, we ensure quick movement of that volume data to the SSD tier in

the XVS array.

• When using the PS6000XVS, first create the volumes where the linked clone master replica

images will be stored. Once that is done, create the volumes for storing linked clone

differential data.

• Hosting replica images on separate volumes is one of the new features View 4.5 supports



See

Storing View Composer Replicas and Linked Clones on Separate Datastores

in the VMware View

Online Library:

Earlier versions of View required creation of a replica image on each datastore used for

http://pubs.vmware.com/view45/ol/

Note: General recommendations for EqualLogic PS Series array network configuration and

performance is provided in the following document.



PS Series Array Network Performance Guidelines:

http://www.equallogic.com/resourcecenter/assetview.aspx?id=5229