XenDesktop Calculator

Hi, welcome to the XenDesktop VDI calculator.

This calculator is targeted for XenDesktop designs using MCS (Machine Creation Services) – PVS soon!
For VMware View designs please use the VMware View VDI calculator.

Please leave your comments or questions below.

  

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Permanent link to this article: http://myvirtualcloud.net/?page_id=2303

23 comments

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  1. Andre Leibovici

    09/25/2011 at 5:43 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Release 1.0
    - Included suport for XenDesktop 5.5 MCS on vSphere

  2. Saikrishnan

    10/05/2011 at 8:48 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    I want calculate with Xen Server. Is there any version coming for using on Xen Server 6

  3. Andre Leibovici

    10/05/2011 at 8:53 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Saikrishnan,

    Unfortunately I don’t intend to support XenServer for my calculators.

  4. Sachin

    10/05/2011 at 9:08 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Hi,

    Thanks for adding this. Any plans of adding HyperV in the calculations? also delivery methods like Hosted Shared desktops (HSD) ?

    Best regards,

    Sachin

  5. Andre Leibovici

    10/17/2011 at 3:17 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @Sachin
    Unfortunately no plans to include HyperV. I don’t have enough exposure to the hypervizor, nor has the product documentation widely avaiable to develop the sort of calculations and mathematical models I would have to.

  6. Derek

    10/20/2011 at 8:29 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    You need to include a parameter that will cap physical RAM per server. For example, if your spreadsheet calculates I need 216GB per server of pRAM, that does me no good if the server maxes out at 144GB. Otherwise, great work!!!!

  7. Jason

    10/21/2011 at 7:05 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Do you have any documentation on what these fields mean? I’m confused by the naming of some of these and not really sure how to fill them out. For example, what’s a “concurrent VM”? And what is “Average vCPU MHz” – is this an average of allocated speed, actual speed, under a certain load, etc? Thanks!

  8. Andre Leibovici

    10/21/2011 at 9:32 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @Jason
    I haven’t yet created dodumentation specific for the XenDesktop Calculator. However, there is a manual for teh View Calculator. Most os the content is the same and you should use it. Here is the link.

    http://myvirtualcloud.net/?p=1927

  9. John

    11/01/2011 at 9:28 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    The storage parameters here seem to assume the use of block storage. For example, there seems to be some sort of limit on the number of VMs per datastore. Any chance of asking “NAS” or “SAN” storage and adjusting appropriately?

  10. Brandon

    11/16/2011 at 7:56 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    hello – great calc, thanks for sharing… i don’t understand what Hosts Core Mhz is however? Could you please explain? And what the implications of a high/low Hosts Core Mhz is? Am i correct in assuming that the calc is based around the VM to core ratio? rather than memory? It would be nice if you could put the server into the equation, and work backwards of sorts. EG, we are looking at the new 4 x 16core AMD (we want all VDI’s to be dual vCPU and very low VM to core ratio) and 256gb RAM.

  11. Ger

    01/24/2012 at 9:16 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    When will you release your PVS Calculator for Xendesktop 5/5.5? It would be great to see that! Thanks for helping out everyone who’s been looking for calculators!

  12. Matt

    01/30/2012 at 1:41 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Well done Andre great job.
    Would be great if you could combine a mixture of Pooled and Dedicated Desktops on the same cluster.

  13. Nagaraj

    02/01/2012 at 5:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    The Tool looks Great, But still I have some confusions, I have installed 2 Xenservers with Intellicache with Thin provsioning, and created Xenserver pool and assinged one lun iSCSI shared storage (1.8 TB) for Xenserverpool and Xendesktops, I have created one win7 master image size as 24 GB and created 4 pool based catalogs thru machine creation services, each catalogs have 10 Desktops. my confusion is my storage size status showing 1.4 TB utilized out of 1.8 TB. Aprart from Xendeskop pools, I have created 2 VMS in Xenserver( Xendeskop Controller (40 GB), Webinterface (24 GB) .

    As per Xendesktop Calculator it showing for 4 catalogs, 1 snapshot, 1 master image – 0.35 TB but my storage size showing 1.4 TB utilized out of 1.8 TB, Kindly help me out for exact calculations.

    Thanks & Regards,
    Nagaraj

  14. Matt

    02/06/2012 at 8:03 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Could you explain the snapshot growth using Pooled please

  15. Andre Leibovici

    02/08/2012 at 5:44 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @John
    The calculator does not make distinction between VMFS or NFS.
    There are some recommended practices around fabric protocol but they are not part of the calculations as you are able to set your own limits.

    Andre

  16. Yvan Scigala

    04/10/2012 at 10:52 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    As Tina would say it, you’re simply the best !
    Excellent job. I subscribe to get informed for the PVS version.
    Any chance to get the calculator extended with values like the ones provided by the Raid Calculator (http://www.eprich.com/tools/simple-raid-group-calculator) ?
    Keep on rockin’ that way ;-)
    Yvan

  17. CY Smith

    04/28/2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Please review the following site – http://itzikr.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/citrix-xendesktop-5-poc-on-a-vblock-300-the-results-are-in/#comment-172. The findings through the testing peformed negates several calcs I’ve used. Curious what your take is on it.

  18. Andre Leibovici

    06/24/2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @Yvan Scigala
    Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I have not been working on an update for the XenDesktop calculator. All my efforts are being put on the View Calculator. You can still use the View Calculator to size your XenDesktop calculator as most of the metrics and inputs are the same.

    Andre

  19. Jonathan

    09/27/2012 at 6:36 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    Can you make the XenDesktop calculator printable like the View calculator is?

  20. Andre Leibovici

    09/27/2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @Jonathan
    Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I have not been working on an update for the XenDesktop calculator. All my efforts are being put on the View Calculator. You can still use the View Calculator to size your XenDesktop calculator as most of the metrics and inputs are the same.

    Andre

  21. Scott

    11/16/2012 at 5:13 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    I have used your tool several times for View and XenDesktop calculations. On the XenDesktop, version 5.6 has personal vDisk capability. What is the best way to calculate vDisk storage and IOPs requirements? Also, do you have plans to be able to calculate a mixed environment of pooled and dedicated desktops?

    Scott

  22. Andre Leibovici

    11/16/2012 at 5:08 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    @Scott
    I am not supporting the XenDesktop calculator anymore. Please utilize the Persistent Disk (UDD) option in the VMware View calculator to get the number for Citrix XenDesktop. The calculations are exactly the same from a storage IO perspective.

    Andre

  23. chris pagel

    12/26/2012 at 3:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment

    I recommend you check out the free Sizing and Archtiecture tool available at project.citrix.com

    - chris

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