Optimizing Citrix® XenDesktop® for High Performance Table of Contents Optimizing Citrix® XenDesktop® for High Performance Notice Credits About the Author About the Reviewers www.PacktPub.com Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more Why subscribe? Free access for Packt account holders Preface What this book covers What you need for this book Who this book is for Conventions Reader feedback Customer support Downloading the example code Downloading the color images of this book Errata Piracy Questions 1. XenDesktop® Architecture Introduction Getting started with hypervisors Architecture The Clients layer The Network layer The Access layer The Control layer The Services layer The Resources layer The Storage System layer The Hypervisors layer Terminology and concepts Hyperthreading The server side The client side Virtual machine Server virtual machines Desktop virtual machines XenApp® EdgeSight® FlexCast® Components Citrix Receiver™ Hypervisor NetScaler® StoreFront™ Delivery Controller Studio Director The License Server Database Active Directory DHCP DNS Desktop Server Storage vDisk Personal vDisk Virtual Desktop Agent Summary 2. Sizing System requirements Citrix Receiver™ StoreFront 3.x Database–Microsoft SQL Server Studio The Delivery Controller Director License Server 11.x NetScaler VPX™ CloudBridge VPX™ (WAN Optimization) Virtual Delivery Agent Microsoft Active Directory Microsoft DHCP Server Microsoft DNS Server Hypervisor host XenDesktop® site sizing calculations Storage calculation vMem–memory calculation vCPU–CPU calculation vNIC–network bandwidth User type Small XenDesktop® site Medium XenDesktop® site Large XenDesktop® site Enterprise XenDesktop® site Summary 3. Hypervisors VMware rings XenServer® domains Hyper-V partitions Full virtualization Paravirtualization Hardware-assisted virtualization Hypervisor Tools VMware Tools XenServer® Tools Hyper-V Tools Summary 4. Memory Optimization XenDesktop® nugget Hypervisor memory optimization Memory VMware Memory overhead Transparent page sharing Ballooning Hypervisor swapping Compression How memory reclamation works Virtual machine memory allocation XenServer® Memory overhead Memory overhead calculation Dynamic Memory Control Dynamic memory mode Target memory mode Static Memory Maximum Hyper-V Memory overhead Static memory Dynamic memory Summary 5. Network Optimization XenDesktop® nugget Network virtualization Traffic separation QoS ICA/HDX virtual channels Multi-stream and multi-port Multi-stream policy settings Multi-stream registry settings Streams Virtual Channels Virtual networking Virtual Ethernet adapters Virtual Switches VMware virtual networking VM DirectPath I/O Network I/O Control VMXNET 3 Large Receive Offload Port Groups Virtual Switch VLAN Virtual Guest VLAN Tagging External Switch Tagging NIC Teaming Load balancing Link aggregation Failover protection VMware networking maximums VMware networking tweaks XenServer® networking XenServer® networking maximums XenServer® networking tweaks Hyper-V networking Hyper-V networking maximums Hyper-V networking tweaks Summary 6. Storage Optimization XenDesktop® nugget Input/output operations per second Data de-duplication Personal vDisk Storage types Block versus file File storage types Block storage types Local versus network Local storage Network storage Hyper converged storage Redundant array of inexpensive disks Cloud storage technologies Storage virtualization VMware virtual storage Datastores Virtual machine filesystem Virtual machine storage vMotion VMware storage limits Virtual machine limits VMware ESXi host limits VMware storage tweaks VSAN vFRC CBRC Storage I/O Control I/O Analyzer SCSI Controller XenServer® virtual storage Repositories Blkfront, blkback, blktap, and tapdisk Tapdisk3 Storage resource pools IntelliCache XenMotion® XenServer® storage limits Virtual machine limits XenServer® host limits XenServer® pool limits XenMotion® limits XenServer® storage tweaks Sanbolic Melio Workload balancer Storage buffer Blkback page pool size Blktap page pool size Communication rings I/O scheduler Hyper-V virtual storage Cluster Shared Volumes Resilient filesystem Live migration Storage spaces Tiered spaces Disk storage types Hyper-V storage limits Hyper-V storage tweaks SMB Direct Storage drivers Unnecessary protocols Default disk path Storage controller Disk storage type Storage QoS Summary 7. CPU Optimization XenDesktop® nugget Virtual CPUs Hyperthreading Non-uniform memory access Intel VT AMD-V CPU virtualization VMware virtual CPUs Shares, reservations, and limits VMware virtual CPU limits Virtual machine limits VMware ESXi host limits VMware vCPU tweaks Power management NUMA in VMware Latency sensitivity XenServer® virtual CPUs XenServer® virtual CPU limits Virtual machine limits Host limits XenServer® vCPU tweaks Disable power management Caps, pins, and weights CPU tools irqbalance numad The number of Dom0 vCPUs Netback threads Hyper-V virtual CPUs Hyper-V vCPU limits Virtual machine limits Host limits Hyper-V vCPU tweaks Integration services and Enlightened I/O Roles 64 versus 32 1:12 overcommit ratio Summary 8. Performance Monitoring XenDesktop® nugget The ICA protocol XenDesktop® Director and EdgeSight® Using HDX Insight™ Third-party tools eG Innovations Lakeside software XenDesktop® performance metrics VMware monitoring tools GUI tools CLI tools vCLI PowerCLI esxtop Memory CPU Network Storage XenServer® monitoring tools GUI tools CLI tools Round Robin Databases xentop Memory CPU Network Storage xenmon xm Hyper-V monitoring tools GUI tools Hyper-V Manager CLI tools PowerShell library Resource metering Memory CPU Network Storage Load testing Summary 9. Acceleration XenDesktop® nugget Application Delivery Controllers Load balancer Secure ticket authority ADC caching ADC compression WAN Optimization Controllers WAN caching WAN compression WAN de-duplication WAN latency reduction WAN quality of service WAN protocol optimization Content Delivery Networks Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Content Delivery Network Three dimensional graphics and high definition HDX™ HDX™ 3D Thin clients Summary 10. XenDesktop® Component Tweaks Citrix Receiver™ tweaks Caching Compression Keyboard and mouse Citrix® Virtual Desktop tweaks Citrix® StoreFront™ tweaks HTML5 CRL checking Disable NetBIOS Socket pooling Application Initialization Citrix® Studio tweaks Database split Citrix® Director tweaks Pre-populate domain Session timeout Citrix® Delivery Controller tweaks SQL mirroring Connection Leasing Separate roles Citrix® License Server tweaks Active Directory tweaks Disable forest searching DHCP and DNS SQL databases Citrix Provisioning Services™ Spanning Tree Large Send Offload Auto negotiation Stream service isolation Summary Index Optimizing Citrix® XenDesktop® for High Performance Optimizing Citrix® XenDesktop® for High Performance Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: December 2015 Production reference: 1181215 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 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In no event shall Citrix, its agents, officers, employees, licensees, or affiliates be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of profits, business information, or loss of information) arising out of the information or statements contained in the publication, even if Citrix has been advised of the possibility of such loss or damages. Citrix, Xen, XenApp, XenDesktop, XenMobile, XenServer, XenMotion, XenCenter, NetScaler, MetaFrame, EdgeSight, FlexCast, Citrix Receiver, StoreFront, Citrix Ready, CloudPortal, CloudBridge, ICA, HDX, HDX Insight, Citrix Workspace Cloud, Sanbolic, Melio, and other Citrix marks and brands appearing herein are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.” Some of the images in the chapters are taken from the Citrix website and documentation. Credits Author Craig Thomas Ellrod Reviewers Erik