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BP1018 Sizing and Best Practices for Citrix XenDesktop with Dell EqualLogic Storage 10
Table 2 EqualLogic volume layout on a single PS6010XVS array
• The volume named “vDisk-vol” was used to host the master vDisk image. This volume was
accessed by two provisioning servers using Windows Guest iSCSI initiators.
• Four volumes, each with 500 GB of capacity, were created for allocating write cache for virtual
desktops.
• Each of the volumes was presented to the ESXi server as an individual datastore.
• In the two array configuration, four more volumes, each with 500GB capacity, were used to
allocate write cache for the virtual desktops.
In addition to the PS6010XVS array, we used a PS6510E array to provide a CIFS share for all virtual
desktops through a Windows OS-based file server VM. This CIFS share was used to redirect the user
data and roaming profiles of virtual desktops to a centralized location. A single volume with 2 TB of
capacity was created on the PS6510E and this volume hosted the user profiles and user data folders
for all virtual desktops via the file server.
In one test, we also evaluated how the number of virtual desktops can be scaled by adding an
additional EqualLogic array. The volume layout remained the same in the two array configuration.
Only around 4 TB of capacity on the arrays was used with more than 18% head room on the storage
pool.
3.5 Citrix XenDesktop networking
We used 16 Dell PowerEdge M610 blade servers within a Dell PowerEdge M1000e Modular Blade
Enclosure as the platform for hosting virtual desktops. All 16 M610 blade servers were completely
dedicated to hosting virtual desktops. Citrix infrastructure components such as PVS, DDC, and
additional components such as Active Directory and vCenter were hosted on separate rack-based
servers.
3.5.1 Network architecture
Figure 4 illustrates the network connectivity between the blade server chassis and the storage array.
The connectivity from a single M610 blade server is shown. The connectivity from the ESX servers
hosting PVS, DDC, user data CIFS shares, and Login VSI workload launchers are not shown in this
diagram.
Volume name
Reported size
Capacity
vDisk-vol
150 GB
Total member capacity: 2.48 TB
Capacity used by volumes: 2.1 TB (84.8%)
Free member space: 384.87 GB (15.2%)
VDIVOL1
500 GB
VDIVOL2
500 GB
VDIVOL3
500 GB
VDIVOL4
500 GB