The testing methodology used in the Virtual Data Center Workstation Application Sizing Guide for Esri ArcGIS Pro used two of the available GPU schedulers:

• Fixed
• Best Effort

The Fixed scheduler GPU policy was primarily chosen to provide a consistent GPU resource utilization to reduce variability while performing benchmarking analysis.

The Best Effort scheduler GPU policy better represents real world user configurations and the typical user experience, but it does not necessarily provide the utilization consistency required for setting benchmarks. Proving results of both GPU scheduling policies provides a more holistic analysis.

When reviewing both the CPU and GPU utilization data in the sizing guide, consider the relevant GPU scheduling policy. The GPU scheduler can cause CPU utilization to vary because the GPU accelerator handles graphics offloading.

Both the VxRail and PowerEdge virtual workstation hosts in this document are based on Intel Xeon Gold 6254 CPUs (18 cores @ 3.1 GHz base, Max Turbo @ 4.00 GHz).

It is recommended that you test and validate the appropriate configuration options to meet the needs of your users.