Thursday, January 2, 2014

VMware View & NetApp Performance Assessment using LoginVSI - Part 1 – Setup

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In this blog post I will share the details to setup LoginVSI which will be used to test performance and scalability of VMware View on NetApp Storage. For this task I am using LoginVSI 4.0, VMware View 5.2 and NetApp FAS3240 with Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2.


In my lab setup I have used the following to complete the Login VSI setup for VMware View


  • Login VSI executable (LoginVSI40.exe)
  • Login VSI License file (LoginVSI.lic)
  • Active Directory setup for Login VSI – You can use the PowerShell script to create user accounts in AD.
  • Windows 2008 R2 VM (VSISHARE) – Use this VM to complete the Database Server setup.
  • Windows 2008 R2 VM (Launcher) – No software installation is required on this VM. This is used as a Launcher and hostname of this VM is used to add to the Management Console. Note that you can launch a maximum of 50 sessions from one launcher VM so if you need more user sessions you would need to increase the number of Luncher VMs.
  • Windows 7 VM (Target) – The desktop VM with applications installed.


To setup LoginVSI I have used the below sequence:


  1. Download Login VSI application and license file
To use LoginVSI you need a valid license. You can use Login VSI Express which is a 30 day FREE trial license if you want to evaluate this product. Note that not all features are available in Login VSI Express (I want to highlight this in case you are used to using vSphere Evaluation license which has all features). Login VSI Pro is a full version available at certain cost. The application is available for download at http://www.loginvsi.com/download.


  1. Setup VSISHARE
When the installer is extracted, you will find the following contents:

 


On the Windows 2008 R2 (VSISHARE) VM create a shared folder which should be accessible by user accounts that are created by Login VSI. The LoginVSI{x} and Launcher-v4 user accounts and LoginVSI user group should have Read/Write access to this folder. If this is a setup setup you may choose to give Full Control to Everyone.


The installation instructions are available at following link http://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Installation#VSIshare


Once VSISHARE is setup, launch the Management Console which is available at VSIShare\_VSI_ManagementConsole and browse the license file. We will use various tabs to complete the setup in the next few steps.

            


  1. Setup Active Directory
Login VSI initiates user sessions to the desktops configured in VMware View. To accomplish this you have to make sure that you have


          Sufficient user accounts to initiate RDP sessions.User accounts have the privilege  
          to connect using RDP. 
          User accounts can access the shared folder "VSISHARE" 
          VMware View Desktops can access the shared folder "VSISHARE"


I used the instructions available at the following link to create a PowerShell script to complete this setup http://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Installation#Microsoft_Active_Directory_preparation_.28optional.29


I have used the PowerShell script and it worked fine. However if you need to make any changes you can edit the following fields in the PowerShell script


##################################################
# Login VSI Active Directory setup script
# v0.6
##################################################
$baseOU = "DC=vmw,DC=cloud,DC=com"
$numUsers = "20"
$userName = "LoginVSI"
$passWord = "XXXXXXX"
$userDomain = "vmw.cloud.com"
$VSIshare = "\\VSIShare\VSIShare"
$FormatLength = "1"
$LauncherAccount = "Launcher-v4"
$LauncherPassword = "XXXXXXX"


This setup creates two types of user accounts:
LoginVSI1-20 - This account is used to login to the desktops using View Client.
Launcher-v4 – This user account is used to login to the Windows 2008 R2 (Launcher) VM.


  1. Setup Windows 7 VM
In this step you have to setup the Windows 7 desktop VM or master image. For this test I have used Windows 7 32 bit VM and followed the steps available at http://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Installation#Target_Setup to complete the setup.


  1. Adding Data Servers & Web Servers
In this setup you provide the location of you VSISHARE, for Data Server make sure that the UNC Path has the network path and not the local path for e.g. C:\VSISHARE should NOT be used.


  1. Adding Launchers
In this step you have to add the Windows 2008 R2 (Launcher) to the Management Console. Click on Add Launchers from the Management Console and follow the instructions are available in the following link http://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Installation#Adding_launchers


IMPORTANT: Make sure that the Launcher-v4 user account is a part of the Remote Desktop Users Group on the Launcher VM. Also ensure that the VSISHARE can be accessed using the Launcher-v4 user account. Right click on the Launcher and click on MSTSC or Ping to check the connection.


  1. Workload Settings & Scenarios
I have used the instructions available at the following link to complete this step http://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Installation#Basic_workload_settings


Stay tuned, I will discuss the Test Setup and Connection details in the next blog.


NOTE: Through this blog post I am not trying to duplicate the contents available at www.loginvsi.com/documentation/ but I am trying to highlight certain points that you should keep in mind while setting up Login VSI for VMware View. You can follow the Login VSI documentation for detailed information and use this blog post for your reference.