Architecture Planning

Table Of Contents
Table 411. Example of a LAN-Based View Pod Constructed of 5 Building Blocks (Continued)
Item Number
View Connection Servers 7 (5 for connections from inside the corporate network and 2 for
connections from outside)
vLANs See Table 4-10.
10Gb Ethernet module 1
Modular networking switch 1
Each vCenter Server can support up to 10,000 virtual machines. This support enables you to have building
blocks that contain more than 2,000 virtual machine desktops. However, the actual block size is also subject
to other View-specific limitations.
For both examples described here, a network core can load balance incoming requests across View
Connection Server instances. Support for a redundancy and failover mechanism, usually at the network
level, can prevent the load balancer from becoming a single point of failure. For example, the Virtual Router
Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) can communicate with a load balancer to add redundancy and failover
capability.
If a View Connection Server instance fails or becomes unresponsive during an active session, users do not
lose data. Desktop states are preserved in the virtual machine desktop so that users can connect to a
different View Connection Server instance and their desktop session resumes from where it was when the
failure occurred.
Figure 42. Pod Diagram for 10,000 Virtual Machine Desktops
switched
networks
View Connection
Servers
View building
blocks
load balancing
network core
Each switched network connects to each View Connection Server
Pod Example Using One vCenter Server
In the previous section, the View pod consisted of multiple building blocks. Each building block supported
2,000 virtual machines with a single vCenter Server. VMware has received many requests from both
customers and partners to use a single vCenter Server to manage a View pod. This request arises from the
fact that a single instance of vCenter Server can support 10,000 virtual machines. With View 5.2 and later,
customers have the ability to use a single vCenter Server to manage a 10,000-desktop environment. This
topic illustrates an architecture based on using a single vCenter Serverto manage 10,000 desktops
Although using one vCenter Server and one View Composer for 10,000 desktops is possible, doing so
creates a situation where there is a single point of failure. The loss of that single vCenter Server renders the
entire desktop deployment unavailable for power, provisioning, and refit operations. For this reason, choose
a deployment architecture that meets your requirements for overall component resiliency.
For this example, a 10,000-user pod consists of physical servers, a vSphere infrastructure, View servers,
shared storage, and 5 clusters of 2,000 virtual desktops per cluster.
Chapter 4 Architecture Design Elements and Planning Guidelines for Remote Desktop Deployments
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