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Environment
11 Dell EMC PowerVault ME4024 and VMware Horizon View with 1,300 Persistent VDI Users | 3919-RA-VDI
3.2.5 Microsoft Windows Server 2016
For all Windows Server based functions, Windows Server 2016 was used, with all current patches. The VM
hardware configuration varied based on the roles and is documented in the appendices.
3.3 Hardware
A fully functional VDI environment for 1,300 virtual machines requires a large amount of hardware with
significant compute and memory resources. The act of virtualizing realizes great efficiencies but cannot
eliminate the requirement to process data. The act of virtualizing collapses the environment into dense
clusters of resources.
3.3.1 Hardware components
The hardware used to host the environment consisted of the following:
• PowerEdge blade servers for VDI workload
• PowerEdge M1000e blade enclosures
• Dell EMC Networking MXL Ethernet blade switches
• Dell EMC Networking S5000 top-of-rack (ToR) Ethernet switch
• Brocade
®
M5424 Fibre Channel (FC) blade modules
• Brocade 6505 FC ToR switches
• PowerVault ME4024 storage array
There are many sizing tools used to gauge the processor and memory requirements for virtual machines.
They are outside the scope of this document.
3.3.2 Storage
The storage used was a PowerVault ME4024 array with read-intensive solid-state drives. The read-intensive
drives provide excellent performance with a very attractive price point. They are also low-power devices
relative to spinning drives and generate far less heat. The storage density is also very good.
Technical highlights of the ME4024 array hardware include the following:
• Up to 3.0 PB capacity
• 24 x 2.5-inch drive bays
• Up to 276 drives
• Intel
®
Xeon
®
dual-core, 2.2 GHz processors
• Multi-protocols: SAS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel
• Single/dual controller
• 12 Gb SAS back end
• All premium software features included