Dell Wyse Datacenter for Citrix XenDesktop
Dell DVS Enterprise is now Dell Wyse Datacenter (DWD) and with the brand change we are proud to announce the 6th release of our flagship set of enterprise VDI solutions for Citrix XenDestop. Dell Wyse Datacenter is the only true end to end (E2E) VDI solution suite in the industry providing best of breed hardware and software for any size enterprise. What makes Dell different is that we carefully vet, craft and test our solutions using real-world requirements and workloads making it easier for customers to adopt our solutions. Dell Wyse Datacenter includes a number of platform and scaling options to meet almost any need: rack, blade, local disk, iSCSI, fiber channel, low cost, high performance, high scale…we have a validated and proven answer to solve your VDI business problem.
The full DWD reference architectures for Citrix can be found here:
New in DWD 6th release:
- Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 support
- Support for Dell EqualLogic PS6210 series
- Dell Wyse Cloud Client updates
- High performance SAN-less blade offering
- Support for LoginVSI 4
- High IOPS persistent desktops using Atlantis ILIO: Link
- Citrix vGPU support for graphical acceleration
Citrix XenDesktop 7.1
Architecturally, Citrix XenDesktop has never been simpler. Yes, this is still a potentially very large scale distributed architecture that solves a complicated problem, but the moving parts have been greatly simplified. One of the most important architectural shifts involves the way XenApp is integrated within a XenDesktop Infrastructure. Now the management infrastructures are combined and all that separates shared hosted sessions vs dedicated desktops are where the Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) is installed. All “XenApp” really means now is that the VDA is installed on an RDSH host, physical or virtual. That’s it! Otherwise, Machine Creation Services (MCS) performance is getting closer to Provisioning Services (PVS) and catalogs/ delivery groups have never been easier to manage.
Support for Dell EqualLogic PS6210 series
Dell EqualLogic has begun shipping the new and improved PS6210 series which most notably provides the DWD Tier 1 iSCSI hybrid array: PS6210XS. Not only are the Base-T and SFP controller ports doubled but so is the performance! We have literally seen a 100% performance improvement on the PS6210XS hosting VDI desktops which will stretch your shared storage dollar and users per rack unit even further.
Dell Wyse Cloud Client updates
DWD E2E solutions provide everything required to design, implement and manage industry leading VDI infrastructures. This of course includes one of the most important aspects which is how the end user actually interfaces with the environment: the client. DWD for Citrix XenDesktop includes Citrix Ready clients to meet any organization need. ThinOS, Windows Embedded, Linux, dual/quad core, BYOD, HDMI, tablet and Chromebook. 
One of the most exciting new clients from Dell Wyse is the Cloud Connect. The Cloud Connect turns any HDMI-enabled TV or monitor into a thin client through which to access your VDI desktop. Portable and high performing!
High performance SAN-less blade offering
New in DWD is a high-performance SAN-less blade offering that leverages Citrix MCS. This very simple but high performance design makes use of a pair of 800GB SSDs in each blade to host the mgmt or compute functions. Gold images are stored on each compute blade with a corresponding non-persistent pool spun up on each blade by the Delivery Controller. This configuration is capable of supporting the maximum possible compute host density based on our standard CPU and RAM recommendations. HA is provided as an option for the mgmt layer through the introduction of shared Tier 2 and clustering with a second mgmt blade.
Support for LoginVSI 4
Login Consultants Login VSI is the industry standard VDI load generation tool to simulate actual workloads. Moving from version 3.7 to 4 introduces some changes in the load generated and consequently the densities we see on our VDI solution infrastructures. Mostly notably, version 4 reduces the amount of read/write IO generated but increases the CPU utilization. All of our test results have been updated using the new tool.
High IOPS persistent desktops using Atlantis ILIO
Partnering with Atlantis Computing, we have collaborated on a solution to deliver high IOPS for persistent desktops where disk is typically at a premium. ILIO is a software solution that fits seamlessly into the existing Local Tier 1 model for DWD that makes use of compute host RAM to store and execute desktop VMs. No server medium is faster than RAM and with ILIO’s deduplication ability, only a fraction of the storage that would otherwise be required is necessary. This solution fits easily with the highly reliable and economical 1Gb EqualLogic PS6100E that provides hosting to the mgmt VMs, user data, and persistent desktop data.
Citrix vGPU support for graphical acceleration
Fleshing out the DWD virtualized graphics offerings, we are proud to include the new Citrix vGPU technology which utilizes the NVIDIA Grid boards. For XenDesktop, we offer vDGA (pass-through) and vSGA (shared) graphics on vSphere and now vGPU on Citrix XenServer. vGPU enables a hybrid variety of graphic acceleration by sharing the on-board GPUs while also enabling OpenGL capabilities by running graphics drivers in the VMs themselves. This is done through vGPU profiles that are targeted to specific use cases and maximum Grid board capabilities. The higher the resources consumed with higher resolutions = fewer users per Grid board.
High level vGPU architecture:
Stay tuned for more exciting VDI products from Dell coming late this spring. Citrix Synergy is right around the corner. In the meantime please check out our RAs and thanks for stopping by!
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