Recommendations
for
Customer Name
Prepared by: System Professional Ltd
vdi@Sys-pro.co.uk
Confidential
Version: 3 (Release)
Contents
Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Revision History .......................................................................................................................... 2
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... 3
Background Information ............................................................................................................................. 3
Business Drivers .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Summary of Findings ................................................................................................................... 4
VDI Assessment Scope ................................................................................................................................ 5
VDI Assessment Locations in Scope ............................................................................................................ 5
VDI FIT™ ...................................................................................................................................................... 6
End-User Computer Assessment ............................................................................................... 10
PC Hardware ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Desktop Age .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Operating Systems .................................................................................................................................... 11
Hardware Configuration............................................................................................................................ 12
Hardware Utilisation ................................................................................................................................. 14
Application Assessment Summary ............................................................................................. 16
Top 20 Applications Used .......................................................................................................................... 16
Top 10 Applications – User CPU Utilisation .............................................................................................. 17
Top 10 Applications – Memory Consumption........................................................................................... 17
Top 10 Applications – Network I/O ........................................................................................................... 18
Application Inventory ................................................................................................................................ 18
Application Virtualisation Candidates ....................................................................................................... 19
Access Infrastructure and Network........................................................................................................... 21
Network Latency ....................................................................................................................................... 21
Application Server Response Time............................................................................................................ 22
Combined Network Latency and Application Server Response ................................................................ 22
Assessment Conclusions............................................................................................................ 23
Next Steps ................................................................................................................................................. 24
Background Information
This engagement examined the following aspects of the Client environment:
• Business Drivers • Access Infrastructure and Network
• Desktop Virtualisation Criteria • End-User Computers
• Users and Locations • End-User Applications
• Breakdown by Department and
Function
Business Drivers
Client is the market leading manufacturer of Widgets. Although Client enjoyed a market
advantage for several years, rivals have appeared making similar products thus eroding profit
margins and highlighting a need for improved customer service. A study in 1H08 showed that
calls to the Client call centres had an average hold time of five minutes, up from just one minute
the prior year. The average call is eight minutes.
Calls into the Call Centre are necessary when customers need to add features to their widgets,
which by nature is within six months of purchase. Customer data shows that once a customer
successfully upgrades their widget they become a loyal customer of two years or more; whereas
when a customer does not add features they tend to switch brands or simply stop using their
widgets.
A root-cause analysis of the hold and average call times revealed that the call centre PCs are
slow and unreliable. The Widget Activation Process (WAP) is data intensive, and the links to the
call centre PCs are just 100MB Ethernet, resulting in slow data loads and lengthening customer
wait times. Furthermore the call centre PCs are prone to outages; with high turnover in the
department and frequent releases of WAP upgrades these PCs are offline 30% of the time,
resulting in fewer reps available to answer phones.
IT is investigating the use of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to improve the service levels
of the call centres.
• The network bandwidth and latency of all links where in-scope users are located are
within acceptable limits for reliable and effective performance, though the Manchester
link is at the upper range of the acceptable limit. Service Provider recommends IT
carefully monitor this link to ascertain if average utilisation and latency peaks are
increasing in frequency, as an upgrade may be required to maintain adequate
performance.
• There is ample existing disk storage available to support the deployment of all the in-
scope users, assuming that IT leverages a solution that includes the use of linked
clones/differencing disks, and there is no rapid increase in disk consumption before the
VDI deployment begins.
• Of the 73 applications found on user PCs within scope of this assessment, all but three
applications may be potential candidates for application virtualisation. Leveraging
application virtualisation will significantly reduce application conflicts and maintenance
intervals while also reducing the complexity of the VDI environment by requiring fewer
unique virtual desktop pools.
Parameter Value
Assessment Start Date: Feb 3, 2012
Assessment End Date: Mar 5, 2012
Assessment Duration (in days): 32
Total Number of Desktops Assessed: 72
Total Number of Users Assessed: 65
Table 1 – VDI Assessment Scope
Good 57
Fair 6
Poor 2
Table 3 – VDI FIT™, All Users
Good 14
Fair 0
Poor 0
Table 5 – VDI FIT™, Finance Users
Good 23
Fair 0
Poor 0
Table 6 – VDI FIT™, Call Centre Users
Good 15
Fair 5
Poor 1
Table 7 – VDI FIT™, IT Users
PC Hardware
The PC hardware in the London, and Birmingham offices are relatively new PCs replaced within
the last 12 months. The following table lists the characteristics of the PCs in these locations.
Attribute Value
CPU 3.0Ghz Intel
Monitor 17” flat panel VGA connector
RAM 2GB (minimum)
Disk 100GB
NIC 1GBE
The PC hardware in the Manchester offices is slightly older since it is midway through its refresh
cycle. The following table lists the characteristics of the PCs in these locations.
Attribute Value
CPU 2.0GHz Intel
Monitor 17” flat panel VGA connector
RAM 1GB (minimum)
Disk 50GB
NIC 1GBE
Desktop Age
The following information represents the desktop age of the systems analysed.
Operating Systems
Client has standardised on Windows XP, so most desktops of the users in the identified scope
are all running Windows XP Service Pack 3. 7 desktops are still running Windows XP Professional
SP2, while 5 desktops (all of which reside in IT) are running Windows 7. There are also 2
desktops running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, also residing in IT.
Operating system patches are maintained using Microsoft Windows Server Update Services
(WSUS). System policies are enforced using Group Policy Objects (GPOs) applied to the
Organisational Units (OUs) where the desktop machine accounts are created.
The standard machine policy includes redirection of user’s My Documents folder to their home
(H:\) drive, and the current IT security policy prohibits the storage of company sensitive or
valuable files on the local hard drive. Call centre users do not have permission to save files to
the local file system. IT users tend to store files on the local file system, but these files are not
considered as mission critical.
Licensing
All desktop licenses are covered under an Enterprise Agreement, and Software Assurance is
current on all desktops.
CPU Configuration
Memory Configuration
Multi-Monitor Configuration
CPU Utilisation
Dates: 3/2/2012 – 10/2/2012 Duration: 1 Week, Average Time: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Memory Utilisation
Dates: 3/2/2012 – 10/2/2012 Duration: 1 Week, Average Time: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM
Application Inventory
Application analysis was achieved through an application inventory that includes details about
application services, drivers, and overall complexity. The chart below represents an overview of
the application landscape for the in-scope View users only.
Attribute Value
Total Applications 75
Core Line-of-Business Applications (e.g., Office, Project, and Visio) 10
Communication Applications (e.g., Firebox, FileZilla, eFax Messenger, and 10
Trillian)
Miscellaneous Applications (e.g., WinZip, Windows Media Player, Mind Map, 20
and Adobe Acrobat and Reader)
Proprietary (e.g, WAP) 25
Misc (e.g, Color Picker, DropBox) 10
Attribute Value
High Priority 15
Med Priority 20
Low Priority 40
Excluded 3
Applications Total 73
Load Balancing
There are presently no physical load balancing devices in the network.
Network Latency
Figure 10 shows the hourly trend of the Network Latency (NRT) for the last 24 hours, contrasted
to the average network latency as observed for that hour of the day for the previous 30 days.
Overall Client is well suited to a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment. There were no
critical impediments observed during this assessment. There were certain observations made
during the assessment that should be addressed as requirements or prerequisites to a VDI
deployment.