1. EUC1987
VMware View PC-over-IP
Performance and Best Practices
Lawrence Spracklen, VMware, Inc.
Banit Agrawal, VMware, Inc.
Warren Ponder, VMware, Inc.

2. Disclaimer
 This session may contain product features that are
currently under development.
 This session/overview of the new technology represents
no commitment from VMware to deliver these features in
any generally available product.
 Features are subject to change, and must not be included in
contracts, purchase orders, or sales agreements of any kind.
 Technical feasibility and market demand will affect final delivery.
 Pricing and packaging for any new technologies or features
discussed or presented have not been determined.
2

3. Session Outline
 End User Computing Trends
 What’s new with VMware View 5.0
 View 5 with PCoIP protocol improvements
 Performance results
 Best practices
 Conclusion
3

4. Session Outline
 End user computing trends
 What’s new with VMware View 5.0
 View 5.0 with PCoIP protocol improvements
 Performance results
 Best practices
 Conclusion
4

5. End of the “Windows-only” & “PC-only” Era
 New device proliferation
 Anywhere, anytime
 Multiple devices per person
 Personal devices at work
5

6. Rich Application Diversity via SaaS
 Social
 Mobile
 On-Demand
 Under the radar
6

7. Windows Apps remain part of the Mix
• Hard to convert apps
• Custom apps
• Old apps
• Multi-tier apps
• Browser specific apps
Installed base of enterprise applications (Gartner)
“Forecast Analysis: PC OS Market, Worldwide, 2008-2015, 2011 Update”
Estimate of application distribution in a typical organization. Does not include mobile applications
7

8. End User Computing Vision
PC Only Era Any Device Era
While maintaining control
8

9. View Media Services for 3D Graphics
Enabling richer graphics and applications for end users
Overview
 Non-hardware accelerated 3D graphics
 Support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.1
 Support for Aero and Office 2010
 Acceptable WAN performance up to 100ms
Benefits
 No client side dependencies
 No physical server/client GPUs
requirements
 Easily enable 3D apps for users
 Enable additional use cases
9

10. View Media Services for Unified Communications
Integrated and scalable UC and virtual desktop solution
Overview
 UC integration via View APIs
 Moves Voice/Video encoding and
decoding to the client
 Application UI remains in virtual desktop
 Direct point to point call connection
 Integrated call control within desktop
Benefits
 Scalable, high performance solution
 Leverage existing investments
 QoS for high quality VoIP
 Seamless end user experience
 Follow me desktop and communications
10

11. VMware View End User Experience Monitoring
Gain insight for troubleshooting and issue resolution
Overview
 Per session statistics to monitor protocol
performance and network impact
 Over 30 individual statistics available
 Supports WMI based tools
 VMware vCenter Operations integration
Benefits
 Enable performance monitoring
 Proactively troubleshoot issues
 Quick issue resolution
 Easily integrates with existing tools
11

12. VMware View with PCoIP Continuity Services
Automatically reconnect user sessions
Overview
 Auto detects loss in connectivity
 Auto reconnects session within 30 seconds
Benefits
 Seamless user experience
 Reduce user disruption
 Improve user experience
12

13. VMware View with PCoIP Performance Optimizations
Gain control of user experience performance requirements
Overview
 Lossless CODEC optimizations
 New configurable protocol settings
 Client Side Caching
 Build to lossless
 Settings configurable via GPO
Benefits
 Reduced bandwidth usage
 Increased scalability of WAN links
 Higher user density on WAN links
13

14. Session Outline
 End user computing trends
 What’s new with VMware View 5.0
 PCoIP protocol improvements
 Performance results
 Best practices
 Conclusion
14

15. VMware View with PCoIP overview
PCoIP Decoder PCoIP Encoder
Virtual Desktop
With View Agent
LAN/WAN
Client device
with View Client
vSphere 4.1 / 5.0
15

16. VMware View with PCoIP explained
 PCoIP captures host’s AV output and delivering it to the remote client
device
 Handles a wide gamut of applications ranging from simple text to rich
graphics including video
 Uses both lossy and lossless compression
• Multi-codec protocol with rich desktop imaging algorithms
 Dynamically monitors available bandwidth and adapts to ensure optimal
user experience for given resource constraints
 Presentation focuses on upcoming enhancements to PCoIP
16

17. VMware View with PCoIP is dynamic
 Dynamically ensures the optimal codecs are applied to the right pixels
 Dynamically ensures best user experience for any network condition,
LAN or WAN
icons
graphics
motion video
text
photos
17

18. VMware View with PCoIP CPU Optimizations
PCoIP Decoder PCoIP Encoder
Virtual Desktop
With View Agent
LAN/WAN
Client device
with View Client
vSphere 4.1 / 5.0
Optimizing CPU
usage of PCoIP
encoder
18

19. View 5.0 CPU performance optimization benefits
Significant optimization to minimize PCoIP encoder overhead
Idle Desktop CPU Active Desktop CPU New compression libraries
Optimizations Optimizations
• New compression with reduced
• Algorithmic optimizations CPU overhead
• 50+% reduction in BW usage
• Re-optimization of core functions
• Negligible CPU usage when idle
• Leverage new SSE4 instructions
Significant increased performance compared to previous versions
Benefits of optimizations
• Increased consolidation ratios
• Improved response times
19

20. VMware View with PCoIP bandwidth optimizations
PCoIP Decoder PCoIP Encoder
Virtual Desktop
With View Agent
LAN/WAN
Client device
with View Client
vSphere 4.1 / 5.0
Optimizing bandwidth
usage
20

21. Typical WAN Use Cases
VMware View over the WAN is commonplace
• Significant focus on WAN performance in View 5.0
Corporate WAN
• High BW
• Low(ish) latency
Teleworker
• Cable data rate
• Moderate latency Branch Office
• T1 data rates
• Moderate latency
• Modest sharing Overseas call center
• Modest BW (~300Kbps)
• High latency (200ms+)
• Highly shared (100+ users)
21

22. View 5.0 with PCoIP bandwidth optimizations
Significant out of the box bandwidth improvement in View 5.0
Improved Lossless Client side image caching
Compression
• Improved compression algorithm • Client maintains image cache
• 2x better font compression • Host transmits cache index
rather than image blocks
• 30-40% bandwidth improvement
• 30% bandwidth improvement
Cumulative out of the box performance benefits
Benefits of Improvements
• 60% bandwidth improvement
• Improved response times
• Increased number of users per network connection
22

23. PCoIP Image Quality Tunables
 By default images build to a lossless state
 Now provide ability to disable use of build to lossless (BTL)
• When disabled, images build to “perceptually lossless”
• Additional 30% BW savings
View 5.0 delivers up to 75% BW reduction
Lossless
View 5
no BTL
23

24. PCoIP Enhancements -- Summary
 Many enhancements to PCoIP debuting with View 5.0
 Significant focus on streamlining PCoIP and reducing overheads
• Frequently appreciably lower than competing protocols
 Significant bandwidth reductions
• 2.5X BW reduction with out-of-box configuration
• 4X BW reduction when build to lossless disabled
 Improved responsiveness, consolidation ratios, and WAN
scalability
 Now look at how PCoIP compares with other protocols
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25. Session Outline
 End user computing trends
 What’s new with VMware View 5.0
 PCoIP protocol improvements
 Performance results
• Comparing View 5.0 and View 4.5
• Comparing display protocols
• Multi-VM runs
 Best practices
 Conclusion
25

26. Experimental Setup: Single-VM run
32-bit WinXP SP3 32-bit Win7 desktop
1-VCPU, 768 MB 1-VCPU,
1152x864 resolution 1GB RAM
1152x864 resolution
PCoIP (BTL off)
Network Bandwidth and vSphere 4.1 / 5.0
conditions Round-trip latency
LAN 100Mbps with 1ms
latency
WAN 2Mbps connection with
100ms latency IBM Blade HS21
Extreme WAN 300kbps connection 2.53 GHz Harpertown
with 100ms latency
32 GB RAM
Connected to NFS array
26

27. Workload: VMware View Planner
 View Planner – Typical office user workload EUC 3163
Office VMware View
2007 Performance and
Best Practices
Other
Apps
S. Satnur,
 Workload generator and sizing tool
B. Agrawal,
• Platform characterization (CPU, memory, storage)
R. Bidarkar
• Evaluate user experience
• Understand scaling issues and identify bottlenecks
Tuesday, August
 Workload parameters
30th 4:30
• All applications selected (PowerPoint, Excel, Word,
Wednesday, August
Outlook, Web album, Video, Firefox, Adobe, 7Zip, IE9)
31st 4:00
• Thinktime of 20 seconds
27

28. Performance Metrics
 Useful metrics we all care about
Response time Bandwidth Usage CPU Usage
Metrics
Maximize Reduce resources Response BW CPU
user consumption time
experience
28

29. Performance Improvements in View 5.0
Improved
User
Experience
Lower
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• Response time in LAN/WAN in view 5.0 is slightly better
• More noticeable difference in extreme WAN conditions
29

30. Performance Improvements in View 5.0
Improved
User
Experience
Lower
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• Up to 75% bandwidth reduction in LAN/WAN conditions
• In View 5.0, less than 50 kbps usage per desktop on average
30

31. Performance Improvements in View 5.0
Improved
User
Experience
Lower
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• About 5-10% guest CPU usage improvement
• better host consolidation
31

32. Experimental Setup – display protocols comparison
32-bit WinXP SP3 32-bit Win7 desktop
1-VCPU, 768 MB 1-VCPU,
1152x864 resolution 1GB RAM
1152x864 resolution
Remote display protocols
Protocols Configurations vSphere 5.0
PCoIP View 5.0 Internal build
Progressive build –
BTL off
PortICA Citrix XenDesktop 5.0 IBM Blade HS21
Progressive build
default 2.67 GHz Harpertown
RDP 7.0 Network conditions set 32 GB RAM
accordingly
Connected to NFS array
32

33. Performance Comparison with Other Protocols
Improved
User
Experience
Better
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• PCoIP provides better user experience in all network conditions
• RDP7 doesn’t perform well in extreme WAN
33

34. Performance Comparison with Other Protocols
Improved
User
Experience
Better
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• PCoIP consumes lower or at-par compared to PortICA and RDP7
• RDP7 cripples the video and web-album – bandwidth could have
been more
34

35. Performance Comparison with Other Protocols
Improved
User
Experience
Better
Bandwidth
Usage
Lower Guest
CPU
Usage
• PortICA consumption is higher across all network conditions
• PCoIP is lower, RDP is lower in extreme WAN because of excessive
crippling
35

36. Experimental Setup: Multi-VM runs
32-bit Win7 desktop
1-VCPU,
32-bit WinXP SP3 1GB RAM
1-VCPU, 768 MB View Planner
PCoIP
vSphere 4.1 / 5.0 vSphere 4.1 / 5.0
2.53 GHz Nehalem 2.53 GHz Nehalem
96 GB RAM 96 GB RAM
36

37. Server Consolidation : Increasing VMs/core
 Response time with increasing number of VMs per core
• Better host consolidation because of new CPU improvements
• 14.5 Win7 VMs per core
37

38. Session Outline
 End user computing trends
 What’s new with VMware View 5.0
 PCoIP protocol improvements
 Performance results
 Best practices
 Conclusion
38

39. Best Practices Recommendations
Setting Default Recommendation Description
Caches image content on
Client Side Caching On Leave Default
client to reduce retransmission
Enables the ability to enable
Build to lossless On Turn Off
or disable build to lossless
Reduces BW usage of audio
Session Audio BW limit 500Kbps 50 - 100Kbps
with usable quality
In WAN conditions, this will be
Change to 10-15 based
Maximum frame rate 30 helpful for video playback and
on network settings
fast graphics operations
Set it as per network Good for better bandwidth
Maximum link rate -
conditions estimation
39

40. Network Sizing and Optimizations
VDI Hosts
VDI Datacenter VDI Branch
Appliance Appliance
User/Network
Management
+ No deep UDP buffering + VPN over UDP
+ PCoIP user configurations
+ Better Queuing + View 4.6 PSG
+ PCoIP device permissions
+ PCoIP traffic prioritization + De-crypted de-duplication
+ PCoIP bandwidth control
+ PCoIP sub-channel QoS
+ PCoIP monitoring/diagnostics
More details in performance papers on vmware.com
40

41. Conclusion
 View 5.0 introduces significant
PCoIP optimizations
• Bandwidth reductions by up to 75%
• Improved consolidation ratios
 View 5.0 introduces key new
features
• 3D support
• End User Experience Monitoring
• Session Resilience
41

43. EUC1987
VMware View PC-over-IP
Performance and Best Practices