XenApp Virtualization Success How to Eliminate Storage and Networking Bottlenecks to Deliver Peak Performance Presenters Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations) Bala Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations) Chetan Venkatesh (Atlantis Computing) Challenges With Virtualizing XenApp Rick Ruskin Vice President eG Innovations [email protected] About eG Innovations Performance Assurance eG Innovations’ award-winning performance assurance solutions Made Easy automate and dramatically accelerate the discovery, diagnosis, and resolution of service performance issues - in complex virtual, cloud, and physical service infrastructures. Our customers use eG Innovations to enable end user productivity, reduce cost and complexity, and deliver on the ROI promise of transformational IT investments. Worldwide Locations New York, New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Singapore, London, Chennai Customers Over 1,000 customers worldwide Certifications Sample Awards & Recognition Companies Virtualizing XenApp  93% of XenApp deployments plan to virtualize  83% are already completely virtualized or migrating now  Achieving success with this migration is critical 25% currently migrating to virtualized XenApp 7% Don’t Plan to Virtualize 58% Completely Virtualized 10% Planned In 2013 Source: Survey by Atlantis Computing, April 2012 Sample size: 293 XenApp on Physical Servers = Complex Active Directory Client Network Web SQL Citrix ZDC Enterprise Apps Citrix XenApp License Server Profile Server XenApp Virtual Infrastructure = More Complex Active Directory SQL Switch Web on VMware ESX Network Enterprise Apps XenApp on VMware ESX ZDC on VMware ESX SAN Profile Server License Server Oracle vCenter Complexity Add virtual machines, connection brokers, profile servers, provisioning servers … a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong and impact user experience! What Happens When There Are Issues? Virtualizing Application Delivery Requires Collaboration  eG Innovations and Atlantis Computing are key elements to a successful, cost-effective XenApp Solution: – Reduce the cost & complexity – Deliver on the ROI and user experience promise of virtualized XenApp Ensuring Peak Performance of Virtualized Applications Bala Vaidhinathan CTO eG Innovations [email protected] Best Practice #1 “Total Performance Visibility” (Knowledge is Power) Dashboard Indicates Service Issue Service shows a serious problem Drilldown to Transactions User Impact detected Intuitive Performance Mapping XenApp issue? Intuitive Performance Mapping Host ESX issue impacting XenApp Pinpoint Root Cause Console vCPU maxed out. Pinpoint Root Cause Backup process runningl! Intuitive Auto-Correlation Auto-correlated alert points to the vCPU issue No More Fingerpointing eG Enterprise vCenter SAN Client Network Web on ESX XenDesktop Connection Broker XenDesktops on ESX Provisioning Server Profile Server License Server Oracle vCenter Best Practice #2 “Inside View of User Sessions“ (Monitor users not just Servers) Inside View for Every User Identify problems only visible from within the user session Provide – Real Time, in-depth, user session statistics with Correlation and quick Search. Benefit: Reduce service downtime; Keep users happy! Best Practice #3 “Pro-Active Monitoring” (Prevention is better than cure) Pro-Active Monitoring A critical event was raised when Citrix server went down Prevent Outages Proactive alert sent 30 mins before the problem occurred – alert pertained to user’s memory usage Benefit: Prevent problems from impacting users! Best Practice #4 “Monitoring of Capacity & Configuration Changes” (Changes and Bottlenecks) 5. Correlating Performance and Configuration Track Configuration Changes Correlate performance with configuration changes PERFORMANCE ALERTS CONFIGURATION CHANGE Benefit: Saves endless hours of troubleshooting 6. Historical Reports on Users, Not VMs Understand Usage Patterns Find out who the top users are Benefit: Know usage patterns, trends for effective capacity planning 5. Correlating Performance and Configuration Find Your Bottlenecks Benefit: Right size your environment for better ROI I/O issues – ESX Impact I/O issues – Storage Bottleneck Benefit: Right size your environment for better ROI Performance Assurance with eG Enterprise End User Experience Service Performance Infrastructure Performance Trading Connection Brokers Storage Accounting Online Banking Network Applications Patient records ... User Experience Total Management Performance Visibility Virtualization Profile Servers eG Enterprise Pre-emptive Alerting Automated Diagnosis Right-Sizing & Capacity Planning Best Practice Approach 1. Total Performance Visibility – Complete, end-to-end service view with performance correlation 2. Inside View of User Sessions – In-depth visibility with In-N-Out Monitoring inside each user’s desktop session 3. Pro-Active Monitoring – Auto-baseline and end-toend correlation to fix performance problems before users get impacted 4. Monitoring of Capacity and Configuration Changes – Right-size your environment for maximum ROI and weed out changes that cause performance issues Simplifying, Accelerating and Reducing Deployment Risks for Virtualized Citrix XenApp Chetan Venkatesh CTO Atlantis Computing [email protected] Atlantis Computing Introduction  Software company focused on virtual data center optimization – – – – HQ in Silicon Valley with offices in Europe Over 200 customers Over ¼ million licenses sold Partnerships with over 130 resellers globally  Strategic relationships with key industry vendors  Largest VDI and XenApp deployments in the world: JPMorgan Chase, Colt, US Navy, US Army Medical Command, etc. Major Risks of Virtualizing XenApp Storage Performance Bottleneck Storage Network Bottleneck SAN Storage Network XenApp on VMware ESX PVS Write-Cache Storage Options  Most use shared SAN/NAS storage  Local disk has limited IOPS and is difficult to maintain  Local SSDs fail with write-heavy workloads  PVS servers will become a storage or network bottleneck  RAM has limited capacity 5.5% PVS 5.5% Server Local RAM 61.6% Shared SAN/NAS Storage 27.5% Local Disk Source: Citrix Blog http://blogs.citrix.com/2011/10/31/pvs-write-cache-sizing-considerations-–-follow-up/ Where are the XenApp deployment risks?  Under-sizing of the PVS write-cache  SAN/NAS introducing storage network risk The impact:  Cost overruns – can be very significant  Project delays – while infrastructure is resized  Unhappy users and management – CFO, CIO, CEO, etc. … leads to risk aversion and very cautious approach to project Atlantis ILIO for Citrix XenApp  Performance – Accelerates boot/logon, provisioning, application response time  Storage Savings – 100%, No Storage! – No shared storage, local disk or SSDs required – Stores XenApp VMs/PVS write cache in-memory – Reduces RAM requirements by 90+% compared to PVS alone  Risk Reduction – – – – Absorbs write-cache sizing errors Avoid network bottlenecks – No network storage traffic No changes to XenApp images Supports PVS or full clones R2 Application Analysis R2 IO Inline R2 Compression Atlantis ILIO Virtual Machine Processing De-duplication IO Blender Fix Hypervisor R2 Fast Clone Storage Requirements with PVS  4-12 XenApp VMs per physical server  Most common Write-Cache size 16-20GB  8 IOPS per user for “heavy users” Sources: Citrix Blog http://blogs.citrix.com/2011/10/31/pvs-write-cache-sizing-considerations-–-follow-up/ http://blogs.citrix.com/2013/01/07/whats-the-optimal-xenapp-6-5-vm-configuration/ Atlantis ILIO for Citrix XenApp Testing  LoginVSI Medium Workload  12 VMs with 20GB PVS Write-Cache  92% reduction in RAM used as storage  33X faster provisioning  4x faster boot time  Faster app response time  16% density increase In-Memory XenApp (RAM used) 250 200 150 240 GB 100 50 19.2 GB 0 Citrix PVS Citrix PVS with ILIO Cost Impact for 1,000 User XenApp Deployment Virtually unlimited IOPS of RAM Dramatic Cost Savings Compared to SAN/NAS Cost Per User Under of $112 Automated Deployment 1. Automated Atlantis ILIO Deployment 4. Desktop Provisioning with Citrix PVS 2. Auto-Sizing and Configuration 3. Auto-Create Datastore Addressing the Risks of Virtualizing XenApp Storage Performance Bottleneck Storage Network Bottleneck SAN Storage Network XenApp on VMware ESX Simplifying, Accelerating & De-Risking XenApp      No SAN/NAS, no local disk and no SSDs to size and maintain No storage network traffic or fibre channel HBAs Amazing user experience by using RAM as storage Automated deployment of Atlantis ILIO VMs Just software, servers and RAM! XenApp on VMware ESX w/ Atlantis ILIO Putting the Pieces Together Rick Ruskin Vice President eG Innovations [email protected] Putting eG and Atlantis Computing Together Active Directory SQL SAN Storage Network Web on VMware ESX Network ZDC on VMware ESX Enterprise Apps XenApp on VMware ESX Profile Server Oracle License Server vCenter Automate and dramatically accelerate the discovery, diagnosis, and resolution of service performance issues. Putting eG and Atlantis Computing Together Active Directory SQL SAN Storage Network Web on VMware ESX Network Oracle vCenter ZDC on VMware ESX Enterprise Apps XenApp on VMware ESX ILIO for XenApp Eliminates the License Server Bottlenecks Profile Server You Can Engage At All Stages of Adoption Test Pilot Production Acceleration & Next Steps  More Details www.atlantiscomputing.com www.eginnovations.com  Contact Us Atlantis Computing (US) 877-310-2224 [email protected] eG Innovations (US) +1 732-794-1259 [email protected]