Top-5 Best Practices for Virtual Desktop Success

Top-5 Best Practices forVirtual Desktop

SuccessHow to Deliver VDI

Performance Assurance,

Contact Us:

[email protected]

Performance Assurance,

User Satisfaction & ROI

PresentersKarin Kelley (451 Group) | Rick Ruskin (eG Innovations)

Srinivas Ramanathan (eG Innovations)

Moderator

Holger SchulzeVP Marketing

© eG Innovations, Inc | www.eginnovations.com

VP Marketing

eG Innovations

[email protected]

Webinar Agenda

� Introduction

� Desktop Virtualization Trends

� Why Do VDI Rollouts Fail?

� 5 Best Practices to Deliver

VDI Performance Assurance



� Ask the Experts - Q&A

� Next Steps

Desktop Virtualization

Trends

Karin KelleyAnalyst, Infrastructure Management


Analyst, Infrastructure Management

The 451 Group

What it Looks Like Today


Drivers for VDI Adoption

� Centralized management

� Business continuity & agility, BYOD

� Centralized security

� Disaster recovery


� Thin endpoint devices

Desktop Virtualization

Adoption


Source: 451 Research, Market Monitor, May 2011

Barriers to Adoption

� Difficult to prove ROI

� User acceptance

� Complexity

� Performance issues


� Performance issues

� Scalability

Desktop Systems

Management

� Policy-based provisioning, remediation

� Capacity planning

� Performance monitoring

� Analytics, reporting


� Analytics, reporting

� Users, users, users!

Why Do VDI Rollouts Fail?

Rick RuskinVice President


Vice President

eG Innovations

[email protected]

About eG InnovationseG Innovations is the only enterprise-class performance

management solution that provides virtualization-aware correlation

and complete visibility across every layer and every tier of dynamic

& complex cloud, virtual, and physical IT environments to reliably

deliver mission-critical business services.

Worldwide

Locations

New York, New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin,

Singapore, London, Chennai

Customers Over 300 enterprise customers worldwide


CustomersOver 700 managed clients worldwide (via MSPs)

Year Founded 2001

Certifications

Sample Awards

& Recognition

Customer SuccessNearly 1,000 customers worldwide


VDITest

VDIPilot

VDI Production

VDI Acceleration

The VDI Adoption Stages


- Deploy on a few dozendesktops

- Typically use free licenses (VMware, Citrix, …)

- A few hundred desktops

- Test technology feasibility

- Small workgroup rollout

- Thousands of desktops

- Decidebetween VDI, XenApp, others

- Expect to see benefits of VDI including ROI

- 100,000desktops

- Reap the benefits of VDI

- VDI is missioncritical

VDI Adoption: Test

VDITest

Focus

� Assess & compare technologies

� Gain hands-on experience

with VDI technologies

� Narrow down architecture choices


- Deploy on a few dozendesktops

- Typically use free licenses (VMware, Citrix, …)

� Narrow down architecture choices

� Feasibility, test typical use cases

Typical Challenges

� No major challenges

� Learning curve

VDIPilot

- A few hundred

VDI Adoption: Pilot

Focus

� Assessment of desktops

� Technology choices (desktop, connection broker, SAN, etc.)

� Over-provisioned infrastructure


- A few hundred desktops

- Test technology feasibility

- Small workgroup rollout

� Over-provisioned infrastructure

� Make it work

Typical Challenges

� Occasional performance issues addressed manually (by throwing hardware at the problem)

VDI Production

VDI Adoption: ProductionFocus

� Day-to-day performance

� User experience

� Cost & ROI

Typical Challenges


- Thousands of desktops

- Decidebetween VDI, XenApp, others

- Expect to see benefits of VDI including ROI

Typical Challenges

� Performance issues w/o easy fix

� Users complain

� Over-provisioning jeopardizes ROI

� But WHY? Everything was GREAT

during the pilot?

VDI Acceleration

VDI Adoption: Acceleration

Focus

� Scale to 100,000’s of VDI users

� Robust, repeatable process

� Optimize & fine-tune VDI performance


- 100,000desktops

- Reap the benefits of VDI

- VDI is business critical

VDI performance

� Deliver solid ROI

Typical Challenges

� Address performance issues preemptively with performance assurance solution – before users call

Why Do VDI Rollouts Fail?

Problems- Users complain

about slow applications, VDI initiative stalls

Re

spo

nse

Tim

e [

s]

3

4

5

6

VDI Production

performance degrades

as rollout progresses


- Desktops competing for same resources

- Throwing hardware at the problem kills budgets & ROI

Re

spo

nse

Tim

e [

s]

0

1

2

3

5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000

VDI Pilot delivers

good performance

as rollout progresses

No. of Desktops

Assess

PlanMaintain

The Broken VDI Deployment Cycle

Why VDIRollouts Fail

- Much focus on early stages

- Over-confidence in VDI performance (due to over-provisioned infrastructure during pilot)


Design

Deploy

Re-Mediate

provisioned infrastructure during pilot)

- Performance issues arere-mediated after the fact

- Manual process can’t scale

- Fixing performance issues downstream is costly & it doesn’t scale (and isalmost impossible to pinpoint quickly)

VDI – How Hard Can It Be?

User Perspective

“I start my device,


User

“I start my device,

log on, and

expect the same

experience I had

with my physical

desktop

environment.”

Network

VDI – It Is Very Hard!

User

Virtual Desktops

on VMs

Connection

Active

Directory

on ESX

Provisioning

Server

SAN

Switch


Profile Server

Connection

Broker

vCenterOracle License Server

ComplexityAdd virtual machines, connection broker, profile server, provisioning server …

… a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong and impact user experience!

VDI Management Today

Network

UserVirtual Desktops

on VMs

Connection

Active

Directory

on ESX

Provisioning

Server

SAN

Switch


Profile Server

Connection

Broker

vCenterOracle License Server

Server

Isolated Management ToolsA single failure can bring down the entire service – but where is the root cause?

Each VDI element has its own dedicated management tool, but the service owner has no correlated performance visibility across the VDI environment.

VDI Application Service is Slow

End User LAN

Admin

Domain

admin

CB Admin Sys adminApplication

Admin

Hey, this is

not working!

EverythingIs OK

Not ourproblem

Looks fine Not mine

either

Talk tothe other

guys


Client Admin

Firewall

admin

Server admin

VMware admin

admin

The serveris working

OK

No othercomplaints

All lights Are green

We don’t see anything

wrong

Database

Admin

VMs are lightly

loaded

EverythingIs OK

VDI Service

Manager

Recap: Top 5 VDI Pain Points

�VDI

silos don’t

�No visibility

into user

�Over-

provisioning

kills ROI

�Poor user

experience

hurts VDI

success

�Detection

after the

fact = too

late


silos don’t

reveal cause

of problem

into user

sessions

success

5 Best Practices to Deliver


Srinivas RamanathanCEO & Founder


CEO & Founder

eG Innovations

[email protected]

Assess

Maintain


PerformanceLessons

- Consider inter-desktop dependenciesfrom the beginningPerformance

Plan


DesignDeploy

from the beginning

- Mitigate risk of VDI failure downstream

- Process vs costly ad-hoc fixes

- Ensure scalability & deliver ROI

Performance Assurance

��

5 Best Practices For VDI Management


�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

��



�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

VDI is slow

VDI is not

Users care about the “service”

The DNS servers areresponding well to

queries.

IT operations teams focus on infrastructure silos

The User / IT Management

Manage the VDI Service, Not Silos �Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


VDI is not

working

VDI freezes

oftenThe CPU usage of

the VMware servers is ok.

This disconnect is a threat to the success of transformational IT

initiatives & the promise of agility, scalability, and cost savings!

The User / IT Management

Disconnect

Monitor the VDI Service

Know when

user access is

slowing

�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


Get 360o VisibilityKnow which tiers

are working and

which are not.

�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


Virtual Server Monitoring Solutions cannot give you 360o visibility.

They focus on the virtualization platform only.

The VMs looks fine. vCenter

There is an alert indicating

an issue within the virtual

desktop.

Monitor Every Layer, Every Tier �Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


The VMs looks fine. vCenter

does not show any alert.desktop.

The hypervisor looks fine.

Alan’s virtual desktop

has a problem!

Monitor Every Layer, Every Tier �Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


Monitor Every Layer, Every Tier

Oops – there is 26%

retransmission from

the virtual desktop

�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


Root-cause

The effect of the problem

Automatic Root-Cause Diagnosis�

Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos


Deep visibility into every layer, every tier, & service-based

correlation enable rapid/accurate diagnosis of performance issues.

eG Enterprise: VDI Service Manager

Network? Database?

�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

eG Enterprise ManagerVDI Service Owner


Identify & resolve

problems preemptively,

before users call!

Application?

VMware?

Connection Broker?Profile Server?

The Service Manager is a General Practitioner for your VDI.

eG Enterprise ManagerVDI Service Owner

��



�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

Understand VDI Usage

� Know who is accessing VDI service

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI


Plan based on Usage Reports

� Top users, Top applications

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI


Know usage patterns and trends for effective capacity planning.

Get More Out of Your Investment

� Track user sessions on each server

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI


A few of the servers

are handling most of

the sessions

Know How to Invest Wisely �Right-Size

for Great

ROI� Find your VDI bottlenecks


��



�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

Preemptive Detection & Alerting

Broad Coverage Deep Insights

- LUN queue length

It is important to have the right metrics

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting


- LUN queue length

- VM CPU Ready

- TCP Retransmissions

- Memory leaks

- Profile sizes

Virtual

Physical

Cloud

Storage Application

Network

Database

VirtualizationLook for domain expertise in VDI, collect the right metrics.

Otherwise, it will be a case of “Garbage in, Garbage out”!

Auto-Baseline Key Metrics� Auto-compute time-of-day baselines

� Alert administrators when metrics violate baselines

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting


Preemptive detection & alerting lets administrators

see and fix problems before users notice

A Preemptive Alerting Example �Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

� A Real-World Scenario:

� The domain server goes down, pulling down

the VDI service. Why?

� eG’s alarm history provides a clue …


The domain

server has failed

and rebooted.

5 hours earlier, eG has

alerted about an issue!


Detection

& Alerting� eG’s In-N-Out monitoring of the VM on which

AD is running provides further insights

The Client/Server Run-Time Subsystem (csrss) is

a critical Windows process responsible for

console handling and GUI shutdown.


The csrss process in the

VM is leaking OS handles!


Detection

& Alerting� The fix: Apply the relevant Microsoft Hotfix!


��



�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

� Workload of the VM is user-dependent

� When a user complains, need to know which

physical server and VM they are on

� Need to know who the top users are for

capacity planning

Monitor Users, Not Just VMs�

Monitor

Users, not

just VMs


capacity planning

� User information required for billing, capacity

planning

Poor user experience impacts VDI success.

So focus on monitoring users, not just VMs!

Monitor Users, Not Just VMs�

Monitor

Users, not

just VMs

When a user calls,

search for the user


Know which ESX/Xen server

he/she is logged on to

search for the user

Monitor Users, Not Just VMs

See all the other users

logged on to the same

ESX/Xen host.

�Monitor

Users, not

just VMs


See performance issues at the user level so you can fix

and right-size your VDI environment for user satisfaction.

��



�Monitor

VDI Service,

not Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

Deep Visibility Into Sessions• The Outside view shows the portion of physical

resources used by each VM (CPU, disk, memory)

• Provided by the virtualization hypervisor

• Useful for capacity planning and identifying certain VM issues

• Does NOT show why a VM is consuming resources

Res

ourc

es o

f the

Phy

sica

l Mac

hine

0

100%

VM1 15%

VM2 25%

VM3 20%

VM432%

�Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions


0

100%

Res

ourc

es o

f the

Phy

sica

l Mac

hine

VM1 15%60% 10%

VM2 25%10

%

45

%

5

%30%

VM3 20%25% 60%

VM4 32%

12%

20%

40%

Apps inside a VM

• The Inside view shows the portion of resources allocated to

a VM that are used by each application and each user of the VM

• Provided by the guest OS (for Windows: WMI)

• Useful for user load balancing, identifying guest OS issues,

misbehaving applications, and unauthorized user activities

• Does show why a VM is consuming resources, accelerates fix

CPU usage inside a

virtual desktop is high

Deep Visibility Into Sessions�

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions


The top CPU process is

Windows Media Player.

The user is watching a

Deep Visibility Into Sessions�

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions


The user is watching a

movie ☺☺☺☺

Accelerate problem resolution

by understanding why a VM is consuming resources.

� �



�Monitor

VDI

Service, not

Silos

Deep

Visibility

into

Sessions

�Right-Size

for Great

ROI

�Monitor

Users,

Not Just

VMs

�Preemptive

Detection

& Alerting

VDI Performance Assurance Benefits

Achieve great ROI

Deliver great user experience


Accelerate adoption rates

Enhance service uptime

In a Nutshell

For Successful VDI Rollouts

- Build performance assurance early into the VDI life cycle


early into the VDI life cycle

- Look for VDI-aware performancemanagement solutions that address the 5 best practices

Ask the Experts …

&


&

Next Steps

�Free Demowww.eginnovations.com/demo

�Contact UsEmail: [email protected]


Email: [email protected]

Phone: 732-794-1259