VDI with VM and Nimble

[kneelandt56]

Would there be much of a performance degrade by using an existing Nimble SAN that is currently configured for VM virtual servers and using it for VDI with a potential of 20-30 users?

[stl_cardinals11125]

My guess would be that it would depend on the iops load on the server as it stands before adding the VDI client.

Then estimate the load for the VDI server and see if it matches up.

As far as the performance settings go, I would keep it set for virtual servers mode.

[kneelandt56]

Thanks. That's kind of what I had thought. This VDI implementation is only going to be used for some mobile safety service users so there won't be too much in the way of boot storms as the computers are car-based systems that stay up 24/7. I really didn't want to invest in another SAN since this was going to be a very limited implementation. It may eventually require separation but it sounds like I should be okay for the short term.

[Nick_Dyer]

Hi Tom,

Have you taken a look at your Infosight statistics for your Cache and CPU utilisation? This will give you a good idea as to how much headroom for additional workloads you have available on the Nimble array. (if you haven't signed up for Infosight yet you can do so here: Nimble Infosight).

The array handles (and is designed to handle) multiple workloads very well - so there are no headaches to worry about when running VDI and standard virtualisation on the same array. The only thing you need to watch is your utilisation of cache (for read IO) and CPU (for write IO).

[wen35]

-few other things that introduce additional I/O in VDI environments:

1)master image recomposition: do you plan to  use linked clones (view composer)?  if yes, how often do you plan to recompose the replica image? Recompose operation does increase I/O load on your infrastructure so factor that in as well.

2)what is your Antivirus scan schedule/policy? 

My advice is to try out the deployment with both steady state and non-steady state operations (end user load during the day, image recompose, user login, AV virus definition update, AV scan) and observe Infosight data (like Nick suggested above), and most importantly, check with end users to see if virtual desktop performance is acceptable AND your existing applications are still within the acceptable latency range.

Hope this helps.

[daniel_kwong]

I run 300+ View linked clone and 7 production servers to support the View environment on a CS220 and while I do see some cache trashing (and probably need to upgrade cache soon), the environment runs very smoothly.  I think using it for a small number of VDI systems wouldn't be too much of a strain.  I would follow Wen's suggestion to do your due diligence though.