Citrix Reference Architecture on Microsoft Azure Loay Shbeilat
Citrix Reference Architecture on Microsoft Azure Loay Shbeilat Senior Solution Architect 7/14/2015 v 2 March © 2015 Citrix
• Why Azure • Azure Concepts Agenda • Architectural discussion • Building the environment • Economics © 2015 Citrix
You can build Xen. App/Xen. Desktop 7. 6 in Azure today Apps, Sessions and server VDI are available © 2015 Citrix
Demo My virtual desktop in Azure © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Desktop & App Virtualization Choice On-premises XD/XA Cloud XD/XA CWC On Iaa. S Hosted any infrastructure Customer IT Partner Customer or Partner Updates Managed by IT Managed by Partner Managed by Citrix Model Single Tenant Multi-Tenant Single or Multi-Tenant Perpetual Subscription Private cloud Public (Azure, AWS) Partner Cloud Private, Partner, Public (Azure), Government* On-premises Provisioning Licensing Cloud Available today (User/month) Available preview * Azure Government Cloud © 2015 Citrix
Why Azure? © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Microsoft will support you !!! Big Time !! © 2015 Citrix
Why? Other reasons… • CAPEX vs OPEX • Disaster Recovery site • Geo-dispersed sites • Burst Capacity • Reduce time to ROI © 2015 Citrix
Terminology / Definitions - Summery © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Azure building blocks Cloud service Container for virtual machines Security boundary for endpoints and ACLs Virtual machine Availability set Group of VMs within a datacenter that are located on different racks Virtual Network Storage account © 2015 Citrix
Azure infrastructure services hierarchy VMs are hosted in a cloud service VMs can be a member of an availability set VMs can be located on subnets Subnets are part of a virtual network A virtual network is part of an affinity group Subnet Virtual Network © 2015 Citrix
Demo Environment Walkthrough © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Architecture © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Simple Citrix deployment on Azure Delivery Controller Storefront XA Session Host Netscaler Gateway Connect Via cloudapp. net port 443 endpoint to Netscaler Gateway AD Controller License Server SQL Server VDI Single Subnet Virtual Network © 2015 Citrix
Simple hybrid deployment AD Controller Delivery Controller Storefront XA Session Host Netscaler Gateway Connect Via cloudapp. net port 443 endpoint to Netscaler Gateway Site-to-Site VPN AD Controller License Server SQL Server Company resources and Applications Data Server VDI Single Subnet Virtual Network © 2015 Citrix On-Premise Network
How about we go beyond the Po. C! Scalable and highly available © 2015 Citrix
Framework 2 1 Understand performance benchmarks Get customer requirements Understand Azure limits Xen. App on Azure Architecture © 2015 Citrix 3
Framework 2 1 Understand performance benchmarks Get customer requirements Understand Azure limits Xen. App on Azure Architecture © 2015 Citrix 3
Customer Requirements Citrixonazure. com • Company Profile – 1000 users workforce is evenly split between New York and California – 800 are office workers and will require shared hosted desktops (400 per site) – 200 are power users and will require a server VDI desktop (100 per site) • User’s Profile © 2015 Citrix Office Worker Power User 10 IOPS 100 IOPS 300 kbps 500 kbps
Framework 2 1 Understand performance benchmarks Get customer requirements Understand Azure limits Xen. App on Azure Architecture © 2015 Citrix 3
Instance types evaluated by Citrix Instance types Virtual cores A 0 A 1 A 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6 A 7 © 2015 Citrix Shared 1 2 4 8 RAM 768 MB 1. 75 GB 3. 5 GB 7 GB 14 GB 28 GB 56 GB Instance types Virtual cores D 1 D 2 D 3 D 4 D 11 D 12 D 13 D 14 1 2 4 8 16 RAM 3. 5 GB 7 GB 14 GB 28 GB 56 GB 112 GB
Scale numbers by Azure instance type Users per "A" instance 60 51 50 44 Users 40 31 30 27 27 20 18 20 13 10 27 13 9 6 9 4 0 A 1 A 2 A 3 Light Workload © 2015 Citrix A 4 Medium Workload A 5 A 6 A 7
Scale numbers by Azure instance type Users per “D” instance 60 52 50 50 45 45 41 41 Users 40 30 26 26 22 22 21 21 20 11 10 6 5 13 10 12 12 9 4 0 D 1 D 2 D 3 D 4 Task. Worker * D instance type validation is still in progress and these are not final numbers © 2015 Citrix Office. Worker D 11 Knowledge. Worker D 12 D 13 D 14 (In Progress)
Summary of scale • For server sessions (Xen. App) – Users per A 3 instance – IOPS per A 3 instance 18 for medium workload < 300 for medium workload • For server VDI – Most appropriate instance types – IOPS per second for single user on VM © 2015 Citrix A 1 ~ 100 IOPS
Framework 2 1 Understand performance benchmarks Get customer requirements Understand Azure limits Xen. App on Azure Architecture © 2015 Citrix 3
Azure limits and constraints • http: //azure. microsoft. com/en-us/documentation/articles/azure-subscriptionservice-limits/ • Virtual machines per cloud service 50 • Max IOPS for disk (standard) 500 • Max IOPS for disk (basic) 300 • Max IOPS per storage account 20, 000 • Cloud services per subscription 200 • Storage accounts per subscription 100 © 2015 Citrix
Framework 2 1 Understand performance benchmarks Get customer requirements Understand Azure limits Xen. App on Azure Architecture © 2015 Citrix 3
Therefore, for a site, we need… Infrastructure servers • • • Net. Scaler (2) Xen. Desktop Controller (2) Storefront (2) License Server (1) SQL Server (2) DC (1) 1 Cloud Service 1 Storage Account 1 Load Balancer © 2015 Citrix Xen. App session hosts • 400 users / 18 users per server ~ 23 servers Server VDI hosts • 100 servers x 100 IOPS per server = 10000 IOPS • 23 servers x 300 IOPS = 6900 IOPS 1 Cloud Service 1 Storage Account 2 Cloud Services 1 Storage Account
Single Subnet West. Citrix. Cloud. App. net Netscaler Storefront Delivery Controller. SQL Server AD Controller Netscaler Storefront Delivery Controller. SQL Server License Server 443 XD VDI Host (50 hosts) XA Session Host (23 hosts) Single Subnet 443 East. Citrix. Cloud. App. net 443 © 2015 Citrix Netscaler Storefront Delivery Controller. SQL Server AD Controller Netscaler Storefront Delivery Controller. SQL Server License Server 443 XD VDI Host (50 hosts) XA Session Host (23 hosts) Virtual Network Citrix. trafficmanager. net CNAME: citrixonazure. com 443 Virtual Network 443
How do I do this? © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Configure your Azure topology • Create virtual network – virtual network address space • Create virtual network – DNS server © 2015 Citrix
Configure your Azure topology (continued) • Create storage accounts • Create cloud services © 2015 Citrix
Configure your Azure topology (continued) • Create VMs – preferably set to static IPs © 2015 Citrix
Provisioning script used to create infrastructure VMs © 2015 Citrix
Provisioning script (continued) © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Install software components • Domain controller : Windows 2012 R 2 • SQL server : SQL 2012 SP 1 • Desktop controller : XD 7. 6 on Windows 2012 R 2 • Xen. App workers : XD 7. 6 VDA on Windows 2012 R 2 • Server VDI : XD 7. 6 VDA on Windows 2012 R 2 • Netscaler Gateway : 10. 5. 51. e © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Prepare – Xen. App worker server • Create server image – Create a new Windows Server 2012 R 2 VM – Prep server golden image with all required software – Install the Citrix virtual delivery agent (VDA) via the user interface • Sysprep image – sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown © 2015 Citrix
Prepare – Server VDI • Create server image – – Create a new Windows Server 2012 R 2 VM Prep server golden image with all required software Install Desktop Experience Install Citrix VDA via command line Xen. Desktop. Vda. Setup. exe /quiet /servervdi – Create string value Listof. DDCs and point it at the appropriate DDCs under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARECitrixVirtual. Desktop. Agent • Sysprep image – sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown © 2015 Citrix
Capture Image in Azure © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Clone Golden Image • Use Azure portal to manually create virtual machines based of golden image • Alternatively use the powershell script provided to create multiple VMs based of golden image © 2015 Citrix
Provisioning input XML © 2015 Citrix
Provisioning input XML (continued) © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Netscaler in Azure Now • Deploy Netscaler for the new Azure portal marketplace © 2015 Citrix
Netscaler Configuration in Azure (continued) • Configure Netscaler Gateway component • Single IP support. • Map port 443 to point to the Netscaler VM in the Azure. © 2015 Citrix
Recipe for success • Configure your Azure topology. • Install Xen. Desktop infrastructure components. • Prepare and capture your golden image. • Create Xen. App server VMs based on golden image. • Add XA VMs to Machine Catalog and create Delivery Group. • Install and configure Netscaler Gateway. • Configure Storefront. © 2015 Citrix
Economics © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Instance types evaluated by Citrix Instance types Virtual cores A 0 A 1 A 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6 A 7 © 2015 Citrix Shared 1 2 4 8 RAM 768 MB 1. 75 GB 3. 5 GB 7 GB 14 GB 28 GB 56 GB Instance types Virtual cores D 1 D 2 D 3 D 4 D 11 D 12 D 13 D 14 1 2 4 8 16 RAM 3. 5 GB 7 GB 14 GB 28 GB 56 GB 112 GB
Scale numbers by Azure instance type Users per "A" instance 60 51 50 44 Users 40 31 30 27 27 20 18 20 13 10 27 13 9 6 9 4 0 A 1 A 2 A 3 Light Workload © 2015 Citrix A 4 Medium Workload A 5 A 6 A 7
Scale numbers by Azure instance type Users per “D” instance 60 52 50 50 45 45 41 41 Users 40 30 26 26 22 22 21 21 20 11 10 6 5 13 10 12 12 9 4 0 D 1 D 2 D 3 D 4 Task. Worker * D instance type validation is still in progress and these are not final numbers © 2015 Citrix Office. Worker D 11 Knowledge. Worker D 12 D 13 D 14 (In Progress)
Instance types - cost Instance types Price per hour A 0 A 1 A 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6 A 7 0. 02 0. 09 0. 18 0. 36 0. 72 0. 33 0. 66 1. 32 © 2015 Citrix Instance types Price per hour D 1 D 2 D 3 D 4 D 11 D 12 D 13 D 14 0. 171 0. 342 0. 684 1. 368 0. 403 0. 806 1. 451 2. 611
Instance types - cost Instance types Price per hour * A 0 0. 02 Instance types A 1 0. 09 D 1 0. 171 A 2 0. 18 D 2 0. 342 A 3 0. 36 D 3 0. 684 A 4 0. 72 0. 33 0. 66 1. 32 D 4 1. 368 0. 403 0. 806 1. 451 2. 611 A 5 A 6 A 7 * These prices are for Standard instances in US West region as of 1/27/2015 Source http: //azure. microsoft. com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/ © 2015 Citrix D 11 D 12 D 13 D 14 Price per hour *
Cost model* by Azure instance type (1) Price per user per hour $ 0. 045 $ 0. 043 $ 0. 040 $ 0. 037 $ 0. 033 $ 0. 035 $ 0. 030 $ 0. 025 $ 0. 027 $ 0. 023 $ 0. 020 $ 0. 015 $ 0. 025 $ 0. 014 $ 0. 026 $ 0. 020 $ 0. 013 $ 0. 016 $ 0. 010 $ 0. 005 $A 1 A 2 A 3 Light Workload A 4 A 5 Medium Workload * This price reflects the total Azure infrastructure costs (no Citrix/Microsoft licensing included) © 2015 Citrix A 6 A 7
Cost model* by Azure instance type (2) Price per user per hour $ 0. 045 $ 0. 043 $ 0. 040 $ 0. 035 $ 0. 030 $ 0. 038 $ 0. 034 $ 0. 031 $ 0. 029 $ 0. 037 $ 0. 033 $ 0. 031 $ 0. 030 $ 0. 034 $ 0. 031 $ 0. 032 $ 0. 028 $ 0. 027 $ 0. 026 $ 0. 035 $ 0. 034 $ 0. 025 $ 0. 020 $ 0. 015 $ 0. 010 $ 0. 005 $D 1 D 2 D 3 Task. Worker D 4 Office. Worker D 11 Knowledge. Worker * This price reflects the total Azure infrastructure costs (no Citrix/Microsoft licensing included) © 2015 Citrix D 12 D 13
Demo Excel Calculator © 2015 Citrix | Confidential
Useful References Description Link Citrix & Azure solutions http: //www. microsoftandcitrix. com/Solutions/Azure. Cloud. aspx Azure scale paper http: //www. microsoftandcitrix. com/Documents/Citrix%20 Xen. App%207. 5 %20 on%20 Azure. pdf Cost Calculator http: //microsoftandcitrix. com/Documents/XA_XD_Azure_Calculator%20(v ersion%206%20 Customer%20 Release). xlsm Citrix Workspace Cloud http: //www. citrix. com/products/workspace-cloud/overview. html Citrix Service Provider http: //www. citrix. com/partner-programs/service-provider. html Private cloud solutions http: //www. citrix. com/go/xendesktop-for-the-private-cloud. html Netscaler in Azure http: //support. citrix. com/proddocs/topic/netscaler-vpx-10 -5/nsvpxazure. html © 2015 Citrix
Work better. Live better. © 2015 Citrix
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