Have you checked out the ‘Citrix XenDesktop on Nutanix’ reference architecture solution design document?! No? You should! The Citrix Validated Solution (CVS) provides prescriptive guidance for these components including design, configuration and deployment settings thereby allowing customers to quickly deploy a desktop virtualization solution using Citrix XenDesktop. Validation was performed by extensive testing using Login VSI to simulate real-world workloads and determine optimal configuration for the integration of components that make up the overall solution. Everything in the solution document has been installed, configured, tested and verified by the Citrix Consulting APAC team. Can’t wait? Scroll down!
What you can expect
The document describes the installation and configuration, in great detail I might add, of Citrix’s two most popular FlexCast models, being the Hosted Shared Desktop model where multiple users share the same ‘desktop’ on a Windows Server 2008 R2 host, and the Hosted Virtual Desktop model, aka as VDI, presenting each user with its own personal virtual machine in a 1:1 relationship, on the Nutanix converged computing platform. Throughout the document they primarily focus on non-persistent desktop types. Both platforms (HSD and HVD) are build using Citrix’s XenDesktop 7.1 software leveraging Machine Creation Services (MCS) combined with Microsoft’s Hyper-V Server 2012R2 running on the Nutanix CVM virtual appliance.
The environment will be scaled to support a total of 1020 pooled or persistent Hosted Virtual Desktops (VDI) or 1400 shared virtual desktops based on Microsoft’s Hosted Shared Desktop model. Although I must note that they describe multiple (scale out) scenarios for both HSD as well as HVD, ranging from 400 up to 1400 users for HSD and from 250 HVD users up to 1020! It basically all comes down to the number Nutanix nodes and or blocks that are being used and the type of HSD or HVD configured. To give you an idea on what they tested, have a look at the HSD application set to the left. As you can see it’s not just basic Microsoft Office functionality that they’ve tested. Click to enlarge.
A word on the Nutanix hard & software involved
As you probably know Nutanix offers different hardware models, or configurations, with each model offering various amounts of (SSD and HDD) disk space, memory, CPU power etc. The same applies to the Nutanix OS, depending on the edition you buy more or less features become available, you can choose from Starter, Pro and Ultimate. Check out this blog by Joep Piscaer, it’s on the recent changes with regards to the Nutanix NOS software editions. And yes, they are indeed a software company before anything else! For the purpose of these tests they used the Nutanix NX-3060 model, below you will find a quote from the design document as far as the hardware is concerned.
The underlying compute, network and storage hardware is based on the Nutanix NX-3060 node. Each node is equipped with dual socket 10-core Intel Xeon Ivy Bridge CPU processors, between 128-256GB RAM, a pair of 10GbE network adapters and local storage consisting of SSD and HDD drives. The NX-3000 series solution is a bundled hardware and software appliance which houses virtual computing nodes in a 2U rack unit footprint. Each node runs Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Server Core and Data Center are supported) with Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 role enabled and the Nutanix Controller VM (CVM).
Check out this software feature list with regards to the different Nutanix NOS software available:
They’ve got you covered!
All soft and hardware decisions made are described in detail, the document also includes all Citrix (StoreFront, Delivery Controllers, Site information, database etc.) and Microsoft (Hyper-V, SCVMM, AD etc.) components and software needed, including detailed installation and configuration instructions, to build up the reference architecture, and believe me, they haven’t skipped a step. Even if you’re unfamiliar with some of the concepts and terms used throughout this article, and thus the design document, I would advice you to download and read it anyway, you might just learn something :-)
The document talks about The Pod Concept, it will tell you about the Nutanix Controller Virtual Machine, or CVM in short (one of its key components), it’s interaction with the underlying Hypervisor, VLAN’s, Citrix’s MCS, Arista Networks, Licenses needed, Microsoft System Center, Databases, Login VSI testing and more. It also included dozens of illustrations and references to external material. The Citrix Validated Solution architecture breaks the design into a number of distinct layers like the User Layer, Access layer, Desktop layer, Control layer, Hypervisor layer, Network and finally the Hardware layer. It uses clear tables and component overviews to show you exactly what you need (hardware, software, licenses) depending on the scenario you whish to deploy, it includes but is not limited to: various ‘Bill of Materials’, network overviews, DFS, AD, DNS, File servers configurations and the list goes on. Just imagine having a couple of switches and just one or two Nutanix (2U) Blocks in your datacenters holding your entire infrastructure including all the base infra components just mentioned!
To finalize, download your free copy here
Upcoming webinar
Are you technical and interested in learning more? register for their upcoming ‘VDI done right’ webinar coming Thursday, click the banner below to register. Successful desktop and application virtualization starts with making the right choices for virtualization software and virtualization infrastructure. Join the technical experts from Citrix and Nutanix as they discuss their joint solution for desktop and application virtualization.
