VMware vSphere

VMware vSphere provides a flexible and secure foundation for business agility, with the following benefits for VDI applications:

• Improved appliance management—The vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface provides CPU and memory statistics, network and database statistics, disk space usage, and health data. This reduces reliance on a command-line interface for simple monitoring and operational tasks.
• VMware vCenter Server native high availability—This solution for vCenter Server Appliance consists of active, passive, and witness nodes that are cloned from the existing vCenter Server instance. You can enable, disable, or destroy the vCenter HA cluster at any time. Maintenance mode prevents planned maintenance from causing an unwanted failover. The vCenter Server database uses native PostgreSQL synchronous replication, while key data outside the database uses separate asynchronous file system replication.
• Backup and restore—Native backup and restore for vCenter Server Appliance enables users to back up vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller appliances directly from the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface or API. The backup consists of a set of files that is streamed to a selected storage device using the SCP, HTTP(S), or FTP(S) protocol. This backup fully supports vCenter Server Appliance instances with both embedded and external Platform Services Controller instances.
• VMware vSphere HA support for NVIDIA vGPU-configured VMs—vSphere HA protects VMs with the NVIDIA vGPU shared pass-through device. In the event of a failure, vSphere HA tries to restart the VMs on another host that has an identical NVIDIA vGPU profile. If no available healthy host meets this criterion, the VM fails to power on.
• VMware vSAN Enterprise Edition—Includes all-flash space-efficiency features (deduplication, compression, and erasure coding), software-defined, data-at-rest encryption, and stretched clusters for cost-efficient performance and greater hardware choice.
• VMware Log Insight—Provides log management, actionable dashboards, and refined analytics, which enable deep operational visibility and faster troubleshooting.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops

The architecture described here is based on Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, which provides a complete end-to-end solution that delivers Microsoft Windows virtual desktops to users on a wide variety of endpoint devices. Virtual desktops are dynamically assembled on demand, providing pristine, yet personalized, desktops each time a user logs in.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops provides a complete virtual desktop delivery system by integrating several distributed components with advanced configuration tools that simplify the creation and real-time management of the VDI.

The core Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops components include:

• Studio—Studio is the management console that enables you to configure and manage your deployment, eliminating the need for separate management consoles for managing delivery of applications and desktops. Studio provides various wizards to guide you through the process of setting up your environment, creating your workloads to host applications and desktops, and assigning applications and desktops to users.
• Delivery Controller (DC)—Installed on servers in the data center, the DC authenticates users, manages the assembly of users' virtual desktop environments, and brokers connections between users and their virtual desktops. DC also manages the state of desktops, starting and stopping them based on demand and administrative configuration.
• Database—At least one Microsoft SQL Server database is required for every virtual application or desktop Site to store configuration and session information. The DC must have a persistent connection to the database as it stores data that the Controller services collect and manage.
• Director—Director is a web-based tool that enables IT support teams to monitor an environment, troubleshoot issues before they become system-critical, and perform support tasks for users. You can also view and interact with a user's sessions using Microsoft Remote Assistance. Starting in version 7.12, Director includes detailed descriptions for connection and computer failures, one-month historical data (Enterprise edition), custom reporting, and notifications using SNMP traps.
• Citrix Workspace app—The Citrix Workspace app is installed on user devices, and provides users with quick, secure, self- service access to documents, applications, and desktops from any of the user's devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs. The app provides on-demand access to Windows, web, and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. For devices that cannot install the app software, the Citrix Workspace app for HTML5 provides connectivity through a HTML5-compatible web browser.
• StoreFront—StoreFront authenticates users to sites hosting resources and manages stores of desktops and applications that users access. StoreFront version 3.8 (released with XenDesktop 7.12) and later includes the ability to create and use multiple IIS websites each having its own domain name.
• License Server—The Citrix License Server is an essential component of any Citrix-based solution. Every Citrix product environment must have at least one shared or dedicated license server. License servers are computers that are either partly or completely dedicated to storing and managing licenses. Citrix products request licenses from a license server when users try to connect.
• Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA)—A transparent plug-in that is installed on every virtual desktop or application host (RDSH). VDA enables the direct connection between the virtual desktop and users' endpoint devices. Windows and Linux VDAs are available.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops offers the following methods for cloning desktops:

• Machine Creation Services (MCS)—A collection of services that work together to create virtual servers and desktops on demand from a gold image, optimizing storage utilization, and providing a pristine virtual machine to users every time they log in. MCS is fully integrated and administered in Citrix Studio. This is the cloning technology that is recommended and referenced in this document.
• Citrix Provisioning (PVS)—Software streaming technology that delivers patches, updates, and other configuration information to multiple virtual desktop endpoints through a shared desktop image. It centralizes virtual machine management while reducing the operational and storage costs of a virtualized desktop environment.

vSAN software-defined storage

vSAN is available in hybrid or all-flash configurations depending on the platform.

After vSAN is enabled on a cluster, all disk devices that are presented to the hosts are pooled to create a shared data store that is accessible by all hosts in the VMware vSAN cluster. You can then create VMs with storage policies assigned to them. The storage policy determines availability, performance, and sizing.

vSAN provides these configuration options:

• All-flash configuration—Uses flash for both the cache tier and capacity tier to deliver enterprise performance and a resilient storage platform. In this configuration, the cache tier is fully dedicated to writes, allowing all reads to come directly from the capacity tier. This model allows the cache device to protect the endurance of the capacity tier. All-flash configured solutions enable data deduplication features to extend the capacity tier.
• Hybrid configuration—Uses flash-based devices for the cache tier and magnetic disks for the capacity tier. Hybrid configurations are ideal for clients looking for higher volume in the capacity tier. The performance of SSD and magnetic spinning disks is comparable in VDI applications.

NVIDIA vGPU

NVIDIA vGPU is the industry's most advanced technology for virtualizing true GPU hardware acceleration to share GPUs between multiple virtual desktops or aggregate and assign them to a single virtual desktop, without compromising the graphics experience. NVIDIA vGPU offers three software variants to enable graphics for different virtualization techniques:

• NVIDIA Virtual Applications (vApps)—Delivers graphics accelerated applications using Remote Desktop Service Host (RDSH).
• NVIDIA Virtual PC (vPC)—Provides full virtual desktops with up to dual 4K monitor support or single 5K monitor support.
• NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation (vWS)—Provides workstation-grade performance in a virtual environment with support for up to four Quad 4K or 5K monitors or up to two 8K monitors.