For this testing, the VDI Solutions team focused on collecting performance data for VMware Horizon-based VDI environments on the PowerEdge T560 and T550 using vSphere 8. The team deployed two industry benchmarks, Login Enterprise(formerly Login VSI) and nVector, both with a knowledge worker workload.
A knowledge worker represents an individual VM user who works with Office 365 applications like Microsoft Edge, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and Excel. This workload is well-aligned with typical tower server customer use cases. The Appendix includes descriptions of the different Login Enterprise workloads.
The T550 and T560 had the following configuration for both Login Enterprise and nVector benchmarking:
Component | Details |
Network | S5248-ON Switch |
Hypervisor | VMware ESXi 8 |
Login Enterprise | Login Enterprise 5.2.2. |
Each VM configuration for Login Enterprise and nVector were also identical on the T550 and T560:
Workload | VM profiles | ||||
vCPUs | RAM | RAM reserved | Desktop video resolution | Operating system | |
Knowledge Worker | 4 | 8 GB | 4 GB | 1920 x 1080 | Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit |
The purpose of this test is to determine the user density at a reasonable system load, so the thresholds reflect a system that is highly used and not near failure. The target threshold for system resources in this testing is in the Appendix.