High Power Graphics And Virtualization - Testing The Protocols

Alternative title:  How to Turn Water from Blue to Red

 

J. Gorzas

An excellent session on the vagaries of video protocols in a virtual environments.  Essentially the premise is the creation of a test environment that compares the various protocols against each other by capturing the results as a set of 4 videos playing next to each other.  Fascinating stuff that reveals that the answer to the question "which technology is best for remote high power graphics" is "it depends".  And it depends on many factors, not least of which is the applications you expect your users to be accessing most frequently.

 

Originally client side rendering was thought to perform best where all the info is sent to the client and the client needs to be able to interpret and render all possible formats, which was a problem for many Linux clients. 

Sender side rendering is when the rendering happens in the server (CPU or GPU, but always CPU in the early days) and the client only needs display the pixels.  This eases compatibility, but if there are many users then the CPU is quickly overwhelmed.

Historically VMware View prefers server side rendering, Citrix client side.  Now there is much more a blending of the 2, dependent on the format of the graphics, as pretty much all clients have at least H264 rendering capability.

 

Gorzas has built a testing protocol and rig to ensure testing consistency across different approaches. This has become what the industry relies upon and there is now a concern that the vendors are tuning their solutions to exceed in the tests rather than the real World.

 

Test rig:  Client is connected to server using an Apposite Link WAN simulator which allows the latency to be dialled up and down.  The client has Epiphian recording software installed and a very fast HDD is attached to the client via DVI or HDMI to capture the playback performance on the cleint device.  The outputs are then collated into a 4 image side-by-side comparison in one video capture to allow for the results to be compared.  Only production releases of software are used (no beta versions!).  A range of combinations of latency and packet loss are tested, up to 300ms / 1% packet loss. Example output:

The following types of GPU options are (or soon will be in the case of vDGA) be available for vSphere:

Throughout the discussion the terms VMware / PCoIP were interchanged freely, as were Microsoft / RDP and Citrix / HDX, with each solution being aligned to one vendor.

First to note is that RDP7 did not perform well under any circumstances other than a LAN.

For current formats (including RDP8), the results are VERY DEPENDENT ON THE PROTOCOLS AND CONNECTIVITY in use.  It's not really possible to say "x is better than y" because it very much depends on the application protocols in use.  Note that versions of protocols are important too. For example the latest version of HDX produces much better synchronisation between voice and video, but to achieve this it freezes occasionally to allow the catch up - so the video only element is now not as smooth as the previous version. 

On a LAN all the protocols will take as much bandwidth as they can get access to. (e.g. up to 80Mbps for PCoIP, but RDP more efficient at 50Mbps). 



As an example of the problems that can be encountered:

 

For a 2Mbps link with 50ms latency playing a QuickTime video:

- RDP7 is completely ineffective

- RDP8 is better

- HDX is smoother than PCoIP

 

For a 8Mbps WAN with 50ms latency playing Flash video:

- RDP7 fails completely

- RDP8 works reasonably

- HDX is better than PCoIP

 

For a 2Mbps WAN with 50ms latency playing Flash video:

- only HDX works, but only when the client has a Flash player

 

For a 2Mbps WAN with 50ms latency playing WPF:

- PCoIP steps in a controlled way

- HDX / RDP stutters

 

For a 2Mbps WAN with 50ms latency playing Fishbowl:

- PCoIP steps

- HDS is smooth

- RDP8 is very slow

- All formats change the water from blue to red:

 

For 2Mbps WAN with 50ms latency and running PowerPoint animation:

- PCoIP and HDX are good

- RDP8 is OK but not smooth

- RDP7 is very poor

 

For 2Mbps WAN with 50ms latency and delivering HD Video, best to worst peformance:

- HDX

- PCoIP

- RDP8

- RDP7

 

nVidia Cards:

Kepler K2 is 2 x high performance GPUs on one card - 1536 cpres per GPU

Kepler K1 is 4 x lower performance GPUs on one card

 

Recommendations:

- Designers and engineers need a dedicated GPU with pass through (vGDA)

- Power Users and Knowedge Users can use a shared virtualized GPU with API Intercept (vSGA)

- Task Users can use GPU emulation in CPU (sVGA)





 

 

Discussion:  Lync video testing - nothing to done to date, but looking into it.  Simulating users "is hard".

VCloud Hybrid Service

Claiming this is a big a change as esx was. Essentially VMware is now a cloud service provider. Using co-lo facilities.
Deploying a VM is now straightforward, but adding the network, storage, firewall etc creates delay.
Extract, pool, automate is the mantra of the week
VMware services in 3 US data centres
UK available in Q1 2014
Focussing on virtual private cloud
5GHz CPU
20GB RAM
$2 per hour
10Mbps standard connection over secure tunnel or 1Gbps for virtual private cloud 10Gbps for dedicated cloud are available as dedicated lines
Data protection is an add-on service
DR as a service is available
Portal to make services available to business, including dynamic, status reports.
Shopping cart approach to purchase- multiple different pricing models
Data migration at start up is normally via physical NAS transfer.
For the hosting only you can manage using a browser. If you have existing comprehensive internal VMware environment then it is claimed to be easy to migrate vms to VMware vCloud Hybrid Services.
Thoughts: I remember asking VMware folks if they would be providing their own cloud services when they announced vCD - they said no as all the service providers would be buying vCD - this could be VMware's recognition that the service providers have largely chosen other routes?

High End Graphics VDI

Horizon 5.3 announced today delivers sVGA dedicated access to nVidia graphics cards.
nVidia GRID delivers gaming experience in the cloud.
Nvidia seem to be recommending pass thru for high end users.
SVGA allows sharing of the card across multiple users. Also available the RemoteFX. Limited by the generic vmware hypervisor graphics driver.
VGPU nVidia available soon for XenServer only.  Exposes the nVidia card to the OS so the standard driver can be used.

Opening General Session

Main message is IT as a Service and serving the Global workforce.
More interestingly, compared to the messaging when VCD was released VMware's messaging has changed from multiple VMware clouds to just managing multiple clouds (but this isn't reflected in the creation of VMware Hybrid Cloud Services).

Sanjay Poonan on EUC
Claiming that VMware will reduce TCO.
VMware acquires Desktone to and portal management layer - mainly targetting service providers offering DaaS
Software Defined Data Center
Vitualize everything, not just servers
Automate processes
Compatible Hybrid Cloud
Bring program ability and policy-based approach to all of IT
Align storage to apps requirements
Virtualize network for agility and speed

CEO AtoS Thierry Breton
AtoS have adopted the SDDC
Manage largest number of DCs in EU
Intend to eradicate internal emails
Focus is now moving from cost reduction to value add in as and data. Infrastructure should just be a given.
Big Data will form a key part of value add.
TB now a member of EU Cloud advisory group helping Europe to bring standards to cloud services.

vsphere 5.5
More of everything - cores, memory, storage
GA at the end of this week
Leader in delivery of cloud foundry
Emphasising apps moving to scale out with less dependency on infrastructure resilience.
Software Defined Storage
VSAN distributed shared storage across servers for resilience and performance, simple mgmt
New backup capability - vshphere data protection advanced 5.5 much more compression and quicker recovery
Flash cache now available. Virt so now included in 5.5 functionality

Network
Programmatic provisioning
NSX released to GA today
Martine Casado VMware Networking
Networking follows compute
Equivalent to ESX on the network

Summary of Dell Annoucements At VMWORLD US 2013

Great summary of the announcements Dell made at the US event this year:

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/b/techcenter/archive/2013/08/27/huge-dell-announcements-at-vmworld-2013-r6000-new-vmware-integration-plug-ins-and-more.aspx

Courtesy of the Dell press release:

At VMworld 2013, Dell announced new cloud and virtualization solutions to help customers deliver increased performance, agility and efficiency. The new end-to-end offerings demonstrate the breadth of the Dell and VMware integrations and strength of the partnership.

“Customers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to procuring cloud and virtualization solutions and Dell is on target with its new offerings as the company is both innovating and partnering to give customers exactly the solutions that will best fit their business needs,” said Wayne Pauley, Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “Dell’s new offerings should help customers boost IT performance and better enable business agility. When you include VMware’s virtualization technology with Dell’s solutions, customers will want to take a close look at how they can further enhance and quickly optimize their businesses with these joint solutions.”

Data Center SolutionsDell Networking today expanded its S-series portfolio with the new S6000, the industry’s highest-density
1RU 10/40GbE switching platform(1) for highly-virtualized data centers. A fixed form factor design, the S6000 offers up to twice the density and throughput while consuming up to 50 percent less power than previous generation top-of-rack switches. Built-in advanced virtualization and automation features help customers scale larger virtual deployments in a smaller physical footprint, and helps solve the challenge of bridging virtualized and non-virtualized aspects of the infrastructure.

• S6000 supports advanced network virtualization and software-defined networking features including hardware-accelerated L2 Gateway functionality for use with VMware NSX™, bridging traffic between virtualized and non-virtualized environments.
• Dell is also previewing enhanced functionality with Active Fabric Manager (AFM) 2.0 specifically for VMware environments. Active Fabric Manager provides simplified configuration, management and monitoring of Dell Active Fabric leaf and spine elements. With AFM 2.0, Dell will be introducing command line interface functionality for VMware vSphere® Distributed Switch allowing customers to now configure both physical and virtual fabric switches with common design templates and industry-standard command line syntax.

Dell also introduced:

• Fault Resilient Memory: A unique technology developed by Dell and VMware, this innovation allows Dell PowerEdge 12th generation server customers using VMware vSphere 5.5 to maximize available server memory while increasing protection for the hypervisor against memory faults, providing a stable virtualization platform for mission critical applications.
• Dell Storage integrations with VMware vSphere 5.5: New software releases, Dell Compellent vSphere Client Plug-in 2.0 and Dell EqualLogic Virtual Storage Manager for VMware 4.0, provide seamless integration with vSphere 5.5, enabling users to manage and provision storage, and easily protect and recover VMs using snapshot and replication schedules with the management of multiple storage arrays from a single VMware vSphere Web Client interface.
• OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter: With support for VMware vSphere 5.5 in version 2.0, this solution enables both vSphere Web and Standard Clients, while maintaining agent-free integration of iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller to simplify monitoring, automate cluster-level firmware updates and speed bare-metal deployment through the vCenter management console.

Cloud Client Computing SolutionsDell Cloud Client Computing introduced a broad range of innovative technologies in the DVS Enterprise for VMware Horizon View solution to help customers enhance their corporate IT environments. DVS Enterprise for VMware View updates include:

• Broader array of pre-integrated solutions and reference architectures: New support for VMware Horizon View™ workloads with Dell Active System Manager, a new technical whitepaper for VMware Horizon View with PowerEdge VRTX, and new Branch Office Desktop and Business Process Desktop reference architectures, helps organizations accelerate the deployment and configuration of virtual desktop infrastructure, maximize efficiency and deliver predictable and reliable desktop experience to end users.
• Enhanced user experience: With support for virtualized high performance 3D graphics leveraging VMware View vSGA and vDGA and NVIDIA GRID K1/K2 GPUs, unified collaboration and VoIP with Microsoft Lync 2013, customers can access rich media and graphic applications from any location and on virtually any device, while providing IT departments with the ability to centrally host and manage sensitive user data and resources.
• Extended end point devices for VMware Horizon View with PCoIP: The Dell Wyse P25 and P45 zero clients and Dell Wyse D10DP virus-immune thin client developed exclusively to support PCoIP. Built on the latest AMD dual-core APU (accelerated processor unit) and auto-management technology, the D10DP delivers outstanding graphics performance, zero maintenance required and boots up in less than 10 seconds. PCoIP support is now offered on a powerful dual core thin client based on the virus-immune ThinOS firmware base.
• Enhanced strategic go-to-market partnership, technology partner ecosystem and channel commitment: With new joint channel sales processes, certified technology partners, incentives and dedicated technical and engineering resources, Dell is extending its commitment to serve partners who sell joint Dell-VMware solutions.

Dell also updated its cloud-based virtual desktop solution, Dell Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) On Demand with new features from Desktone’s secure multi-tenant VDI platform, delivering session-based desktops, published applications, persistent or non-persistent Windows 7 or XP desktops, RSA secure authentication, among others. With these updates and Dell’s rapid pilot program, one of the world’s largest Media and Entertainment Services companies is implementing this solution. Dell has also extended DaaS On Demand to Channel Partners for the first time and is offering a free trial so customers can quickly and easily experience the benefits of delivering secure, fully-featured virtual desktops to users without any upfront capital cost.

SoftwareHelping businesses of all sizes streamline virtualization, storage and cloud computing initiatives, Dell Software recently introduced the next generation of its Foglight® Virtualization Operations Management suite to help businesses address a number of data center transformation challenges – from virtual environment optimization to solving storage performance challenges and creating energy savings. The trio of products accelerate IT staff efficiency and can cut operational costs by reducing infrastructure complexity with end-to-end visibility and best practice advice built on years of virtualization management experience.

• Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise 7.0 is a highly scalable and cost effective product that now includes support for VMware vSphere 5.5 and vCloud Director to help virtual administrators monitor and ensure end-to-end visibility into the overall health of the virtualized environment.
• Foglight for Virtualization, Standard 7.0 is specifically designed for the small-to-medium size environment and includes new capacity management and planning functionality that helps to drive data center sustainability and reduce power consumption to decrease operating costs and capital expenditures, while improving workload performance.
• Foglight for Storage Management 3.0 helps IT staff better identify and recommend fixes to storage performance problems before they have an adverse effect on the physical or virtual infrastructure.

Availability:

• Data Center Solutions: Dell expects the S6000 will be available worldwide in its third fiscal quarter; Dell Fault Resilient Memory is available now in all regions for customers running Dell PowerEdge 12G servers and VMware vSphere 5.5; Dell Compellent vSphere Client Plug-in 2.0 is available worldwide today and Dell EqualLogic Virtual Storage Manager for VMware 4.0 will be available in Q4.
• Cloud Client Computing Solutions: Dell DVS Enterprise updates will be available before the end of August in the U.S. and select countries in EMEA (other regions are supported via channel partners and custom deployments); Dell Wyse P25 and P45 zero clients are currently available and the Dell Wyse D10DP thin client with PCoIP will be available late September 2013; Dell DaaS on Demand is available in North America through the channel in late July 2013 and in EMEA in mid-August 2013.
• Software: Foglight for Virtualization will be available on August 31 in English-only and available worldwide.

To learn more about these solutions, please visit www.dell.com/vmware.

Supporting Quotes“Virtualization and cloud computing are pushing customers to find solutions that are fast to deploy, easy to manage and optimized for performance,” said Russ Fujioka, vice president, Global Alliances, Partners and Marketing Innovation, Dell. “With Dell’s new customer-inspired solutions unveiled today, Dell is demonstrating how we’re at the forefront of delivering innovative cloud and virtualization solutions that combine leading solutions from VMware and Dell.”

“Dell and VMware share the goal of helping customers optimize their cloud and virtualization solutions for agility, dynamic response and value,” said Sanjay Katyal, vice president, Global Alliances and OEMs, VMware. “Today’s announcements by Dell demonstrate how we’re partnering together to build mature, tightly integrated joint solutions to help customers reach their full potential.”

About DellDell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

Dell and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

(1) Based on July 2013 internal Dell analysis comparing Dell S6000 to comparable systems.