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BP1018 Sizing and Best Practices for Citrix XenDesktop with Dell EqualLogic Storage 14
4 Citrix XenDesktop test methodology
4.1 Test objectives
The primary objectives of our testing were:
• Develop best practices and sizing guidelines for a Citrix XenDesktop Provisioning Services
based VDI solution deployed on Dell EqualLogic PS6010XVS series storage, Dell PowerEdge
blade servers, and Dell PowerConnect switches with VMware vSphere 4.1 as the server
virtualization platform.
• Determine how many virtual desktops can be deployed using a single PS6010XVS array with
acceptable user experience indicators for task worker profiles.
• Determine the performance impact on the storage array during peak I/O activity such as boot
storms and login storms.
• Determine how to scale the number of virtual desktops by adding additional storage array
members.
The testing focused on the data center aspects of VDI and detailed statistics and metrics were
captured and analyzed for use cases including desktop boot-up, user logon, user workload execution
(steady state), and user logoff.
Note that the applications were delivered directly through desktop images instead of using Citrix
XenApp platform for application virtualization. The objective for this project was storage
characterization for the Citrix XenDesktop based VDI solution and the application delivery mechanism
does not impact this objective.
4.2 Test approach
The key VDI use cases which were validated are listed below:
• Task worker workload characterization
• Boot storm
• Login storm
• Scaling virtual desktops by adding an EqualLogic array
Before each test, the virtual desktops were restarted so that the results were not influenced by the
previous tests. When the virtual desktops were pre-booted, the tests were executed after waiting for at
least 20 minutes after the virtual desktops registered in the DDC. Only non-persistent desktops were
used where any changes made to the desktop image are lost as soon as the user logs off. However,
changes to user profiles were preserved by storing them on the CIFS file share.
4.3 Test tools
We used several test and monitoring tools to perform tests and to capture the key performance
metrics.