Giving continuity to my VMware View Limits and Maximums series (VMware View 4.0 | VMware View 5.0) I am now releasing an updated version for Horizon View 5.2.
As an administrator or architect you should always make sure that your design sizing’s are within the product’s Maximums and Limits in order to be entitled to VMware Support.
Horizon View 5.2 introduced many new features and improvements, including a more scalable architecture that now supports 10,000 desktops using a single vCenter Server (I’ll soon post an article about ups and down for single vCenter architecture).
The scalability improvements introduced in Horizon View 5.2 come from four very important features: Multi-Network Support, Accelerated View Admin Performance, Space Efficient Disk Utilization and support for 32 host clusters when using NFS or VMFS. Read more about the new Horizon View 5.2 features in What’s New in Horizon View 5.2 (beyond Marketing).
Limits
The limits may vary according to the releases in use. The limits in this post are specific to Horizon View 5.2 and vCenter Server 5.1. The comparisons are against limits published with VMware View 5.1
· 32 Hosts per Cluster when used with VMFS – changed from 8 Hosts per Cluster
· 32 Hosts per Cluster when used with NFS – did not change
· 16 VM’s per CPU core – did not change
· 1,000 VMs per View Composer desktop pool or replica – did not change
· 140 VMs per LUN with VAAI support – did not change
Without VAAI support the recommended number is still 64 VMs per LUN. This limit comes from the number of SCSI LUN reservations caused by VM metadata updates. With VAAI the reservation happens at the VMDK level.
· 10,000 VMs per vCenter – changed from 2,000 VMs per vCenter
VMware is now officially supporting 10,000 virtual desktops per vCenter Server, installable or appliance. This is a major architectural change and should drastically reduce View pod footprint and enables easier backup and DR for the entire solution.
· 1000 VMs per host – did not change
This limit is established by vSphere 5, not VMware View.
Maximum Number of Connections
· 1 Connection Server with Direct connection, RDP, Tunneled or PCoIP, 2,000 – did not change
· 7 Connection Servers (5+2 spares) Direct connection, RDP or PCoIP, 10,000 – did not change
· 1 Connection Server with PCoIP Secure Gateway, 2,000 – did not change
· Total HTML 5 connections per pod, 256 (To be Confirmed) – New Limit
This is a new limit for connections coming via HTML5 protocol.
History
I find amusing to identify how and when each component of the overall solution was improved or upgraded. The table below demonstrate when each component was upgraded and what is the new limit.
This article was first published by Andre Leibovici (@andreleibovici) at myvirtualcloud.net.
15 comments
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Jaime Taylor
02/20/2013 at 10:41 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Did VMware change their officially supported number of desktops to 10,000 after publishing the “What’s New” PDF? It states that vCenter now supports 6,000 desktops.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/view/VMware-Horizon-View-Whats-New.pdf
Michael Stanclift (@vmstan)
02/20/2013 at 1:44 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Andre,
In your post you mention that the maximum desktops per pool is unchanged at 1,000 but in the spreadsheet you have it as 2,000. Just curious as to which is correct.
Andre Leibovici
02/20/2013 at 2:07 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Jamie, this seems to be a miss-communication between areas. I’ll follow up on that internally. The official number is 10,000 desktops AFAIK.
Thanks
Andre Leibovici
02/20/2013 at 2:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Good catch. What is being supported is 2,000 desktops per pool with Single vCenter Pod, or 1,000 desktops per pool when multiple vCenters are in use. I know it doesn’t make sense but these numbers are the validated numbers by QE.
Andre
Marc Pituley
02/20/2013 at 2:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Will View 5.2 be compatible with vCenter 5.0?
Andre Leibovici
02/21/2013 at 6:57 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yes, but some of the new limits and maximums will only apply when you use Horizon View 5.2 and vCenter 5.1.
Andre
sfayyaz
02/21/2013 at 1:53 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
can you elaborate on the 256 HTML5 connection limit per pod pls?
Andre Leibovici
02/21/2013 at 5:15 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I am still trying to confirm this number. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible and update this blog post.
Andre
Constey
02/22/2013 at 2:14 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Is Vmware View replaced by Vmware Horizon View ?
Here it’s called Horizon View: http://www.vmware.com/products/view/features.html
But here its still called Vmware View, and as release 5.1 – not 5.2: https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_view/5_1
Sven Huisman
02/25/2013 at 11:57 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have two questions about the number of VMs per VMFS datastore limit:
“Without VAAI support the recommended number is still 64 VMs per LUN.”
I cannot find an official statement from VMware about this limit. The only limit is the one I find in this document: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r51/vsphere-51-configuration-maximums.pdf
Powered?on virtual machines per VMFS volume = 2048
- Do you have a link to an official statement from VMware about this recommended number of VMs (64) per VMFS volume?
- Does this recommendation also apply to local storage, using a Fusion-IO card for linked clones for example?
Andre Leibovici
02/28/2013 at 10:00 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Sven,
The numbers provided by VMware are officially tested and values. There are so many possible combinations that it is impossible to validate all of them. Despite not officially supported, you may go beyond tested values if you feel confident that you have the right infrastructure set to support the new values.
The same apply for PCIe Storage Class devices, you may populate with more VMs as long you can drive enough IO and throughput to support operations at peak time, specially refresh and re-compose.
Andre
mn
03/07/2013 at 10:48 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hi Andre,
I’d like to know the requirements for vCenter and SQL server which support 10,000 desktops.
Andre Leibovici
03/08/2013 at 9:38 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
mn,
vCenter – 64b Win Server 2K8 R2 Enterprise, 10GB RAM, 4vCPU, 50GB Disk
SQL – should not really change.
Andre
Sachin
05/14/2013 at 7:29 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great post Andre! I have a couple of questions.
I know 32 hosts is a new max, but was that per instance of View or vCenter?
Also, I understand that the max number of desktops has increased from about 2,000 to 10,000 with View 5.2. I know that sometimes one should not get close to a max because performance can suffer or it is in practice just not wise. So, I’m wondering if VMware really suggests getting close to the new 10,000 max.
We’re trying to maximize the number of desktops we can support in a single instance of vCenter.
Andre Leibovici
05/16/2013 at 8:25 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Sachin,
32 hosts is the maximum number of hosts per vCenter Cluster. You may have more than 32 hosts in a View environment.
10,000 desktops per vCenter is supported but I would recommend not going close to the limit due to the size of the failure domain and also because of the reduction in concurrent operations.
-Andre