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Table Of Contents
For more information, see the chapter about creating desktop pools, in the Setting Up Desktop and Application
Pools in View. Networking requirements depend on the type of server, the number of network adapters, and
the way in which VMotion is configured.
Determining Requirements for High Availability
vSphere, through its efficiency and resource management, lets you achieve industry-leading levels of virtual
machines per server. But achieving a higher density of virtual machines per server means that more users
are affected if a server fails.
Requirements for high availability can differ substantially based on the purpose of the desktop pool. For
example, a stateless desktop image (floating-assignment) pool might have different recovery point objective
(RPO) requirements than a stateful desktop image (dedicated-assignment) pool. For a floating-assignment
pool, an acceptable solution might be to have users log in to a different desktop if the desktop they are using
becomes unavailable.
In cases where availability requirements are high, proper configuration of VMware HA is essential. If you
use VMware HA and are planning for a fixed number of desktops per server, run each server at a reduced
capacity. If a server fails, the capacity of desktops per server is not exceeded when the desktops are restarted
on a different host.
For example, in an 8-host cluster, where each host is capable of running 128 desktops, and the goal is to
tolerate a single server failure, make sure that no more than 128 * (8 - 1) = 896 desktops are running on that
cluster. You can also use VMware DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler) to help balance the desktops
among all 8 hosts. You get full use of the extra server capacity without letting any hot-spare resources sit
idle. Additionally, DRS can help rebalance the cluster after a failed server is restored to service.
You must also make sure that storage is properly configured to support the I/O load that results from many
virtual machines restarting at once in response to a server failure. Storage IOPS has the most effect on how
quickly desktops recover from a server failure.
Example: Cluster Configuration Examples
The settings listed in the following tables are View-specific. For information about limits of HA clusters in
vSphere, see the VMware vSphere Configuration Maximums document.
NOTE The following infrastructure example was tested with View 5.2 and vSphere 5.1. The example uses
View Composer linked-clones, rather than instant clones, because the test was performed with View 5.2. The
instant clone feature is introduced with Horizon 7. Other features that were not available with View 5.2
include Virtual SAN and Virtual Volumes.
Table 49. View Infrastructure Cluster Example
Item Example
Virtual machines vCenter Server instances, Active Directory, SQL database server, View Composer, View
Connection Server instances, security servers, parent virtual machines to use as desktop pool
sources
Nodes (ESXi hosts) 6 Dell PowerEdge R720 servers (16 cores * 2 GHz; and 192GB RAM on each host)
SSD storage Virtual machines for vCenter Server, View Composer, SQL database server, and the parent
virtual machines
Non-SSD storage Virtual machines for Active Directory, View Connection Server, and security server
Cluster type DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler)/HA
View Architecture Planning
64 VMware, Inc.