
When it comes to VDI hardware planning, IT pros should avoid the temptation to base their planning on the estimates they read online. Predicting other VDI hardware requirements
Requirements for vmware vdi solution software#
Features like N+1 redundancy, automatic failover, load balancing, desktop provisioning and desktop image management are all handled through software tools. Since packages like the DVS rely on standard servers, there is no custom or specialized circuitry to differentiate the "appliance" from a conventional server.

Other VDI appliances are also available, including VMware's Horizon Turnkey Appliance (formerly Rapid Desktop Appliance) based on VMware Horizon View, the Vertex VDI appliances from Tangent and the vSTAC VDI appliance from Pivot3, among others. The appliance is reported to host up to 129 users on each appliance, and additional appliances can easily be deployed to support more users. The Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) package is based on Dell's standard PowerEdge R720 or T620 servers bundled with Citrix XenServer or Microsoft Hyper-V and VDI management tools. One example is Dell's DVS Simplified Appliance. There are server systems commercially available built to meet VDI hardware requirements, though these should be considered more along the lines of pre-configured "packages" than specially designed systems. An enterprise with 5,000 users would need roughly 50 such physical servers with the added costs of hypervisor and VDI platform licensing. This may seem like a lot of instances, but consider that an enterprise large enough to justify a VDI initiative may employ 1,000 people or more - this means at least 10 such servers would be required for the deployment, along with additional servers to support growth and failover. A server like the example above might be expected to host anywhere from 80 to 130 instances, though the exact number of VDI instances on any server depends on other details such as the size and complexity of the base image, the level of personalization, the number of virtualized applications, user and application activity across the LAN and so on. Larger and more powerful servers can support more VDI instances on the same box, while older or less-capable servers will support fewer instances. But to avoid storage and VDI traffic on the same LAN, a SAN should use a separate network (such as Fibre Channel or a physically separate LAN) or use local storage on each VDI server to load and protect VDI instances - this means the VDI server will need physical space for perhaps 16 high-performance 10-15k RPM SAS 6 Gbps hard drives (meaning a 2U or 3U rack unit).

In terms of storage, it is certainly possible to use centralized SAN storage for VDI instances. It's important to note that there is no single list of VDI hardware requirements.Īs an example, a typical "transparent box" server for enterprise-class VDI deployment might include dual eight-core processors and at least 192 GB of fast DDR3 memory.
