HPE Reference Architecture for VMware Cloud Foundation on ...€¦ · • The value of combining...

HPE Reference Architecture for VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy with GPU acceleration for Horizon 7 client virtualization

Reference Architecture

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Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Solution overview ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Solution components ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 7

Hardware ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Software ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 Application software ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16

Best practices and configuration guidance for the solution ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16 HPE Synergy solution configuration............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 16 VCF deployment in HPE Synergy .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 17 VCF bring-up ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 18 Networking pre-requisite ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 19 Workload Domain Creation – VDI .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 21 NSX Configuration ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 21 Configuration of Smart Policies powered by VMware Horizon 7 ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 22

Capacity and sizing ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 22 Analysis and recommendations ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25 HPE Synergy Deployment Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 25 VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment on HPE Synergy ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Spectre/Melt down ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 VMware OS Optimization Tool ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26 LoginVSI testing analysis ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27

Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Appendix A: Bill of materials ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 28 Appendix B: Create a VDI Workload Domain ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 31 Appendix C: NSX Deployment Steps ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 36 Appendix D: Implementing VMware Horizon Smart Policies ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 41 Resources and additional links ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 47

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Executive summary In today’s world, businesses need to turn ideas into services faster, respond quickly to new customer demands, and innovate by building new services with technology to stay competitive. To meet these business demands IT is increasingly adopting new cloud technologies, moving away from expensive purpose built hardware to a software-defined model, and running VMs in the public cloud, while keeping the majority of its workloads on premises. Enterprises need an ideal Hybrid IT model that supports both traditional and a new breed of cloud native applications. Therefore, businesses are embracing a journey to digital transformation and software-defined data center (SDDC) to balance the needs of the business and the needs of IT to support this change.

To address this challenge, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and VMware® have collaborated to help customers accelerate the journey to SDDC, bringing the promise of the software-defined data center to life. The combination of HPE’s composable infrastructure with VMware’s SDDC solution dramatically improves both the value and business outcomes our customers experience. HPE Synergy combined with VMware Cloud Foundation™, delivers a simplified and secure private cloud based on the VMware software-defined data center stack on composable infrastructure that is software-defined, simple, and flexible.

When it comes to delivering desktop and application virtualization solutions at scale, customers have traditionally faced challenges due to the complexity of managing and controlling all software and infrastructure layers required. Today’s end user expects a fully integrated and seamless experience that integrates mobile and desktops with applications and connectivity to quickly perform specific business tasks. VMware Cloud Foundation delivers hosted desktops and applications through a single Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platform with VMware Horizon. VMware Horizon is integrated with Cloud Foundation and automates the deployment of all the required components for a VDI workload domain. HPE Synergy offers a unique design for running VMware private clouds for VDI deployments and providing the right hybrid cloud platform that matches VMware Cloud Foundation characteristics, to bring simplicity and security to desktop and application virtualization initiatives. It combines composable power with a software-defined infrastructure for compute, storage, networking and security with the market-leading capabilities of Horizon, to deliver a complete, secure, and easy-to-operate VDI solution.

This Reference Architecture provides architectural guidance for deploying and managing VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy with GPU acceleration for Horizon 7 Client Virtualization. It demonstrates the following benefits:

• The value of combining HPE Synergy with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from a deployment and lifecycle perspective in a cost-effective and simplified management manner, for faster time to value.

• An easy-to-operate VDI solution and delivery of an end-user computing experience to meet customer’s growing expectations.

• A tested and tuned solution architecture that offers optimal performance for deploying VCF and the ability to run graphics intensive multi-media workloads with linear scaling across the worker nodes.

• Flexible access to compute, storage, and fabric resources that allows for use and repurposing.

• The linking of multiple HPE Synergy Frames for efficiently scaling the infrastructure with a dedicated single view of the entire management network.

• Successfully run multimedia workloads as defined by Login VSI, in order to showcase an SDDC solution with the latest advancements in HPE composable infrastructure and client virtualization technologies.

• Faster VDI deployment reducing deployment cycle from days to hours.

– VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy took ~7 hours to have the physical servers ready for virtual desktop deployment. This included imaging the physical servers, deploying SDDC Manager and the initial four node Management domain with all infrastructure VMs configured and the four node VDI workload domain ready to deploy virtual desktops.

Target audience: This document is intended for system engineers, system administrators, architects, and installers responsible for installing and maintaining VMWare Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy composable infrastructure. The reader should have a solid understanding of end-user computing, familiarity with VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Horizon suite, and an understanding of sizing/characterization concepts and limitations in client virtualization environments.

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Document purpose: The purpose of this document is to demonstrate the value of combining VMware’s Cloud Foundation suite and VMware’s Horizon Enterprise end-user computing suite of software with HPE composable infrastructure capabilities offered by HPE Synergy to create a highly manageable, highly available, and performant solution that meet the needs of the business, IT personnel, and the user community.

This Reference Architecture describes solution testing performed in September 2018.

Introduction Deploying compute at a rapid pace, aligned to the changing business needs of the organization, has become mandatory. Hewlett Packard Enterprise has invented a groundbreaking composable infrastructure platform, HPE Synergy. HPE Synergy is a powerful software-defined solution that lets you manage your infrastructure as code, deploying IT resources quickly and for any workload. HPE Synergy, the first composable infrastructure, empowers IT to create and deliver new value instantly and continuously. Through a single interface, HPE Synergy composes compute, storage, and fabric pools into any configuration for any application. HPE OneView is the infrastructure automation engine built with software intelligence. It streamlines provisioning and lifecycle management across compute, storage and fabric resources in the Synergy System.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is a fully automated, hyper-converged software stack that includes compute, storage, networking and cloud management. VCF combines the core SDDC building blocks of compute (vSphere), storage (vSAN), and network virtualization (NSX) into an engineered solution. VCF leverages the automation capabilities of the VMware SDDC Manager, which provides automation from the initial deployment of the software stack, to configuring and provisioning the private cloud capacity and host user workloads, to tracking and applying software updates, thereby simplifying day-to-day management and operations.

HPE Synergy with VCF brings the power of cloud on the composable platform with matching characteristics – automated, software-driven, and flexible to meet changing workload demands. In this Reference Architecture, we showcase how HPE Synergy combined with VCF delivers a secure enterprise-ready private cloud that is flexible and cost-efficient.

Solution overview The fundamental building blocks of this Reference Architecture are a suite of core Hewlett Packard Enterprise technologies with VMware software layered on in order to create the foundation for a robust solution. The solution includes HPE Synergy, a single intelligent composable infrastructure, that transforms rigid physical systems to flexible virtual resource pools so all resources are instantly available to run the VDI infrastructure. HPE Synergy lets IT administrators and developers use infrastructure as code to deploy and manage their data center environments. HPE Synergy Composer that houses HPE OneView provides precise composed logical infrastructures enabling administrators to provision, control, and manage software-defined data center components. HPE OneView is the infrastructure automation engine built with software intelligence which streamlines provisioning and lifecycle management across compute, storage and fabric resources in the Synergy System. This new approach for composable infrastructure combines true stateless computing with rapid deployment and updates. As customers leverage VCF to provide integrated software-defined data center (SDDC) and cloud management services for running enterprise applications, it becomes critical to rely on an underlying platform that allows quick deployment of IT resources at scale and one that provides fluid pools of compute, storage and fabric resources to build a virtualized data center.

HPE Synergy combined with VCF delivers a secure enterprise-ready private cloud that is flexible, simple to deploy and cost efficient. These capabilities become the differentiating factor when it comes to high-end graphics VDI deployments, which can become expensive. Modern applications demand an unprecedented level of graphics performance to meet the requirements of today’s enterprise users. One of the key drivers in the client virtualization market is end-user productivity. Today’s end user expect a fully integrated and seamless experience that integrates mobile and desktops with applications and connectivity to quickly perform specific business tasks. VMware Cloud Foundation delivers hosted desktops and applications through a single Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) platform with VMware Horizon. VMware Horizon is bundled with Cloud Foundation and automates the deployment of all the required components for VDI workload domain.

The challenge for desktop and application virtualization has been to enable rich user experiences with graphics capabilities in a cost-effective manner. A decade ago, high-end applications with intensive graphics requirements were not compatible with virtualized environments. They were expensive to develop and implement. In addition, the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) resources could not be virtualized and had to be dedicated to users or applications needing direct access to the GPU, making the solution expensive and difficult to scale. This is no longer true with HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 compute module with the HPE Synergy 480 Multi MXM Expansion Module with up to six (6) NVIDIA® GPU modules.

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The Reference Architecture demonstrates an architecture that showcase the value of combining HPE Synergy with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) from a deployment and lifecycle perspective in a cost-effective and highly manageable fashion. The purpose of this Reference Architecture is to deliver an experience to the broadest spectrum of end-user types with a minimal set of compromises. Flexible access to compute, storage, and fabric resources allows for use and repurposing. Linking multiple HPE Synergy Frames efficiently scales the infrastructure with a dedicated single view of the entire management network.

What makes this Reference Architecture particularly interesting, however, is deploying VCF with Horizon 7 on HPE Synergy platform which not only brings security to desktop virtualization but is an easy-to-operate VDI solution that delivers an end-user computing experience to meet customer’s growing expectations.

HPE Synergy Frames, server modules, HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Module, and the HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy reduce complexity by using intelligent auto-discovery to find all available resources to accelerate workload deployments to provide the resilient and integrated infrastructure that meets the reliability, performance, and security needs of end-user computing architects. This drives IT efficiency as the business grows and delivers balanced performance across resources to increase solution effectiveness.

Graphics accelerators, such as NVIDIA GRID technology, within a client virtualization have become a common solution component to address mid-range user workloads such as 3D engineering and design. As addressing this class of end user can represent a significant infrastructure investment, many organizations inquire how best to maximize utilization to obtain the full value of their hardware. One of the key HPE Synergy solution capabilities is to provide a fast and easy means to repurpose hardware as needed to address both virtualization and analytics workloads.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has fully tested this solution with the integration of NVIDIA graphics hosted server desktops. The Reference Architecture successfully ran multimedia workload as defined by Login VSI in order to showcase an integrated solution with the latest advancements in HPE composable infrastructure and client virtualization technologies.

In this architecture, VCF consists of four (4) nodes for VCF Management workload domain and four (4) nodes for hosting Horizon virtual desktops (VDI) VMs. These are independent vSAN clusters with NSX providing network virtualization and security for both infrastructure VMs and for VDI desktops. VMware SDDC Manager deploys both the Management and VDI workload domain and creates all the infrastructure VMs required for virtual desktops. All these infrastructure VMs, including Horizon infrastructure VMs, are placed in the Management workload domain. This allows the VDI workload domain to be dedicated for hosting virtual desktops for end-users, providing maximum scalability and performance benefits.

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Figure 1 illustrates a high-level view of HPE Synergy with VCF for private cloud deployment with GPU acceleration for Horizon 7 client virtualization.

Figure 1. High level architecture for HPE Synergy with VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Horizon

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Solution components Hardware HPE Synergy is uniquely architected as composable infrastructure (CI) to match the powerful 'infrastructure-as-code' capabilities of the HPE intelligent software architecture. Figure 2 shows the composable infrastructure of HPE Synergy. The combination of hardware flexibility with embedded intelligence enables auto-discovery of all available resources for quick deployment and use. Management of hardware by profiles defined in software allows fast re-purposing of compute, storage and fabric resources to meet workload demands.

The Reference Architecture focuses on deploying VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy to showcase the consolidation of private cloud onto a single composable infrastructure. The hardware is viewed as “blocks” of functionality and technology segmentation. This Reference Architecture can be viewed as a series of building blocks which are summarized below.

Figure 2. Composable infrastructure of HPE Synergy

HPE Synergy Composer HPE Synergy Composer provides enterprise-level management to compose and deploy system resources to application needs. This management appliance uses software-defined intelligence with embedded HPE OneView to aggregate compute, storage and fabric resources in a manner that scales to application needs, instead of being restricted to the fixed ratios of traditional resource offerings. HPE OneView server profiles and profile templates capture the entire server configuration in one place, enabling administrators to replicate new server profiles and to modify them as needed to reflect changes in the data center. Resources can be updated, expanded, flexed, and redeployed without service interruptions. With HPE OneView Rest API and automation tools, the entire process of server personality definition and configuration can be automated.

HPE Synergy 12000 Frame The HPE Synergy 12000 Frame is a key element of HPE Synergy, providing the base for an intelligent infrastructure with embedded management and scalable links for expansion as business demand requires. The HPE Synergy 12000 Frame is the base infrastructure that pools resources of compute, storage, fabric, cooling, power and scalability. With an embedded management solution combining the HPE Synergy Composer and HPE Synergy Frame Link Modules, IT can manage, assemble and scale resources on demand. The HPE Synergy 12000 Frame is designed for needs now and in the future with expanded compute and fabric bandwidths. HPE Synergy 12000 Frame specifications can be found here.

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https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/synergy/synergy-infrastructure/pip.hpe-synergy-12000-frame.1008615198.html


The Synergy 12000 features a fully automated and managed composer module. HPE OneView handles all the setup, provisioning, and management both at the physical and logical level. HPE Synergy 12000 Frame specifications can be found here.

For more information on HPE Synergy architecture and components, visit the HPE Synergy website.

HPE Synergy 480 Gen 10 Compute Module The HPE Synergy 480 Compute Module delivers superior capacity, efficiency, and flexibility in a two-socket, half-height, single-wide form factor to support demanding workloads. Powered by Intel® Xeon® Scalable Family of processors, up to 3TB DDR4, more storage capacity and controllers and a variety of GPU options within a composable architecture. HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Module is the ideal platform for general-purpose enterprise workload performance now and in the future.

• The most secure server with exclusive HPE Silicon Root of Trust. Protect your applications and assets against downtime associated with hacks and viruses.

• More customer choice for greater performance and flexibility with Intel Xeon Scalable Family of processors on the Synergy 480 Gen10 architecture.

• Intelligent System Tuning with processor smoothing and workloads matching to improve processor throughput/overall performance up to 8% over previous generation.

• Max memory 3TB for large in-memory database and analytic applications.

• New hybrid Smart Array for both RAID and HBA zoning in a single controller; internal M.2 storage options that add boot flexibility and additional local storage capacity.

More information on HPE Synergy 480 Compute Modules can be found at the HPE Synergy Compute Module website.

HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Module The HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Module holds up to 40 Small Form Factor (SFF) hard drives or SSDs and is designed for use in HPE Synergy 12000 Frames. Through the HPE Synergy 12Gb SAS Connection Module, the HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Module provides composable direct attached storage for up to 10 HPE Synergy 480 Compute Modules in a single HPE Synergy 12000 Frame. HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Module is optimized for use as either a direct attached storage array or as software defined storage using VMware vSAN or similar solutions. Visit the HPE Synergy Storage website for more information. HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy The HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module, master module based on composable fabric, is designed for composable infrastructure. Its disaggregated, rack-scale design uses a Master/Satellite architecture to consolidate data center network connections, reduce hardware and scales network bandwidth across multiple HPE Synergy 12000 Frames. The HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy eliminates network sprawl at the edge with one device that converges traffic inside the HPE Synergy 12000 Frames, and directly connects to external LANs.

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https://www.hpe.com/info/Synergy

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/synergy/synergy-compute.hits-12.html

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/product-catalog/synergy/synergy-storage.hits-12.html


HPE Synergy 20Gb Interconnect Link Module The HPE Synergy 20Gb Interconnect Link Module (satellite module) is designed for composable infrastructure. Based on a disaggregated, rack-scale design, it uses a Master/Satellite architecture to consolidate data center network connections, reduce hardware and scale network bandwidth across multiple HPE Synergy 12000 Frames. Below, figure 3 shows the Rack-scale fabric architecture of HPE Synergy.

Figure 3. HPE Synergy: Rack-scale fabric architecture

Table 1 below describes the Synergy components used in the creation of this Reference Architecture.

Table 1. HPE Synergy components utilized in this Reference Architecture

Component Quantity

HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Module 8 Nodes

HPE Synergy 12Gb SAS Connection Module 6

HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy 2

HPE Synergy 20Gb Interconnect Link Module 4

HPE Synergy 12000 Frame 3 Frames

HPE Synergy Composer 2

HPE Synergy Storage Module D3940 3

HPE Synergy Network Options - Synergy 3820C 10/20Gb CNA 9

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NVIDIA Tesla P6 GPU The HPE Synergy 480 graphics Gen10 accelerator Options deliver data center deployments of graphics workstations to improve the user experience for designers and geophysicists with 3D visualization requirements or high-density task, knowledge-worker and multimedia worker deployments of VDI and virtualized application supporting over a thousand user sessions per rack.

NVIDIA Virtual GPU (vGPU™) software shares the power of P6 Tesla card to multiple virtual machines and enables multiple virtual machines (VMs) to have simultaneous, direct access to a single physical GPU, using the NVIDIA graphics drivers. By doing this, NVIDIA vGPU provides VMs with unparalleled graphics performance and application compatibility, together with the cost-effectiveness and scalability brought about by sharing a GPU among multiple workloads.

Software VMware Cloud Foundation VMware Cloud Foundation delivers an enterprise-ready cloud infrastructure by combining VMware’s highly scalable hyper-converged software, comprised of vSphere and vSAN, with the network management efficiency of NSX, augmented by the VMware SDDC Manager, as shown in figure 4 below.

Figure 4. A complete SDDC Stack for desktop and application virtualization

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Cloud Foundation orchestrates, provisions, and deploys a software-defined data center (SDDC). It maps a converged view of physical resources (e.g., CPU, memory, storage, and network) to a logical abstraction. In addition to the SDDC software stack, Cloud Foundation includes SDDC Manager which automates the entire bring up, deployment, configuration, provisioning, and lifecycle management of the entire SDDC stack, as shown in figure 5 below.

Figure 5. Simplified operations with lifecycle automation

VCF workload domains A workload domain is a policy-based resource container with separate capacity, availability, performance and security policies that combines compute (vSphere), storage (vSAN) and networking (NSX) into a single consumable entity.

Three types of workload domains:

• Management workload domain

• Virtual Infrastructure (VI) workload domain

• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) workload domain

Multiple workload domains can run in parallel; each with dedicated vCenter Server, NSX Manager and NXS Controller Cluster.

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Management workload domain Management workload domain gets created during bring-up of VCF. The management workload domain is comprised of four HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 management host servers running ESXi 6.5 which provides a management software layer that manages the entire solution. The management stack runs infrastructure components like SDDC Manager, NSX Manager, PSCs, vCenter Server, Horizon.

Figure 6. VMware Cloud Foundation Management workload domain

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VDI workload domain While deploying a VDI workload domain, SDDC Manager reserves the necessary hardware capacity and deploys the VMware software stack appropriate to provision the necessary components for a VDI environment. SDDC Manager first runs the VDI workload domain creation workflow, to create a virtual infrastructure (VI) environment. Then using that base VI environment, the creation workflow deploys and configures the additional VMware software needed for a VDI environment. The additional VMware software that supports the VDI environment on top of the base virtual infrastructure includes View Connection Server, View Agent, View Administrator, View Composer, and the various client applications used for accessing the virtual desktops. Figure 7 shows VCF VDI workload domain components and network architecture.

Figure 7. VMware Cloud Foundation VDI workload domain

VMware NSX for vSphere VMware NSX for vSphere is a virtualized networking component in the software-defined data center (SDDC) architecture, which programmatically creates, snapshots, deletes, and restores software-based virtual networks. With network virtualization, the functional equivalent of a network hypervisor, NSX reproduces the complete set of Layer 2 to Layer 7 networking services (e.g., switching, routing, firewalling, and load balancing) in software. It allows these services to be programmatically assembled in any arbitrary combination to produce unique, isolated virtual networks in a matter of seconds. NSX also provides a platform for various security services both network and endpoint based. NSX provides various built-in services, including L2-L4 firewall and activity monitoring. Additionally, security vendors can leverage its guest introspection and network introspection frameworks to deliver service chained next-generation firewall, IDS/IPS, agentless AV, file integrity monitoring, and vulnerability management capabilities.

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In this deployment, NSX is configured for both Management and VDI domains to provide security of infrastructure VMs and VDI desktops. The NSX components shown in figure 8 are deployed in our environment.

Figure 8. VMware NSX for vSphere components

VMware NSX Manager NSX Manager is a centralized network management component of NSX. It is installed as virtual appliance on ESXi hosts in vCenter. There’s a one to one mapping between an NSX Manager and vCenter Server. It provides a management UI and integrated with vCenter via a vSphere Web Client plugin. It is leveraged to install and configure VXLANs, Distributed Routing, Firewall kernel modules and agents on ESXi hosts. It also deploys NSX controllers and Edge Appliances.

VMware NSX Controller NSX Controller is an advanced distributed state management system that provides control plane functions for NSX logical switching and routing functions. It is the central control point for all logical switches within a network and maintains information about all hosts, logical switches (VXLANs), and distributed logical routers. The controller cluster is responsible for managing the distributed switching and routing modules in the hypervisors. The controller does not have any dataplane traffic passing through it. Controller nodes are deployed in a cluster of three members to enable high-availability and scale. Any failure of the controller nodes does not impact any data-plane traffic.

VMware NSX Edge NSX Edge can be deployed as an Edge Services Gateway (ESG) or as a Distributed Logical Router (DLR). The ESG gives you access to all NSX Edge services such as firewall, NAT, DHCP, VPN, load balancing, and high availability. ESG has uplink interfaces that connect to uplink port

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groups which have access to a shared corporate network or a service that provides access layer networking. Multiple external IP addresses can be configured for load balancer, site-to-site VPN, and NAT services. The internal interfaces of an ESG connect to secured port groups and act as the gateway for all protected virtual machines in the port group. On the other hand, DLR provides East-West distributed routing with tenant IP address space and data path isolation. It has uplink interface which connects to an ESG, with an intervening Layer 2 logical transit switch between the DLR and the ESG. An internal interface on a DLR peers with a virtual machine hosted on an ESX hypervisor with an intervening logical switch between the virtual machine and the DLR.

Figure 9 below depicts NSX network configuration designed in this solution.

Figure 9. NSX configuration for the solution

VMware vSAN VMware vSAN is VMware’s software-defined storage solution for hyper-converged infrastructure, a software-driven architecture that delivers tightly integrated compute, networking, and shared storage from a single virtualized x86 server. Seamless integration with vSphere and the VMware ecosystem makes it the ideal storage platform for business-critical applications, disaster recovery sites, test and development environments, management clusters, security zones, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

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In this Reference Architecture, both management and VDI workload domains are built with four (4) node vSAN clusters. Each vSAN Cluster is designed with two disk group per host consisting of one (1) cache tier SSD and three (3) capacity tier SSDs.

VMware Horizon VMware Horizon® 7 delivers virtualized or hosted desktops and applications through a single platform to end users. With VMware Horizon 7, virtualized or hosted desktops and applications can be delivered to end users with all of the resources they want, at the speed they expect, with the efficiency business demands. However, desktop and application virtualization requires a number of data center infrastructure layers—from storage and hypervisor to desktop broker—that must work together seamlessly, and be managed throughout their lifecycle. To simplify Horizon 7 deployments, VMware Cloud Foundation delivers an enterprise cloud platform with integrated virtual desktop and application services. It combines software-defined infrastructure for compute, storage, networking, and security with the market-leading capabilities of VMware Horizon 7 for a complete, secure, and easy-to-operate desktop and application virtualization solution.

Application software Login VSI features a suite of applications utilized during testing.

Best practices and configuration guidance for the solution This section highlights the configuration of the solution at a high level, provides guidance for decision making by providing details about hardware and software pre-requisites and points to further resources as needed.

HPE Synergy solution configuration HPE Synergy hardware for this Reference Architecture was set up following HPE Synergy Configuration and Compatibility Guide. This section describes the setup of components specific to this solution.

For this Reference Architecture, three HPE Synergy 12000 Frames are configured with redundant HPE Synergy Composers and HPE Synergy D3940 Storage Modules. Each HPE Synergy 12000 Frame has three HPE Synergy 480 Compute Modules, among which, one HPE Synergy 480 Compute Modules per HPE Synergy 12000 Frames acts as a VCF Management workload domain. The remaining HPE Synergy 480 compute modules in each HPE Synergy 12000 Frame includes the HPE Synergy 480 Multi MXM Expansion Module with 6 NVIDIA Tesla P6 GPUs. Among these, four compute modules are used to create the VDI workload domain in this solution.

Figure 10. Tested configuration with a fully populated enclosure with graphics in three HPE Synergy 12000 Frames

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HPE Synergy supports both traditional single frame-based networking as well as multi-frame, single switch architecture. The multi-frame architecture is referred to as a Master/Satellite fabric. In a Master/Satellite fabric configuration, there is a single fabric switch or HPE Virtual Connect module (Master) whose ports span across multiple HPE Synergy 12000 Frames through (Satellite) interconnect modules. Logically, all compute modules in a multi-frame Master/Satellite configuration are directly connected to the master switch or master HPE Virtual Connect module. The three-frame in this Reference Architecture is in a Master/Satellite configuration. The master module contains intelligent networking capabilities that extend connectivity to satellite frames through Interconnect Link Modules. The result being elimination of the need for top of rack (ToR) switches as new satellite frames are connected to the master module instead of a ToR switch. This substantially reduces cost, facilitates simplified infrastructure management, increases flexibility and reduces infrastructure complexity. The reduction in components also simplifies fabric management at scale while consuming fewer ports at the data center aggregation layer.

VCF deployment in HPE Synergy The pre-requisites for hardware and software has been detailed out at VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Certification on HPE Synergy. Configuration of required OneView attributes and parameters are also covered in detail in the above linked document.

Prepare Infrastructure - HPE OneView Configuration through HPE Synergy Composer HPE OneView manages the infrastructure and is used to define the network and infrastructure related components.

Below are the key steps for preparing HPE Synergy for VCF install, details of which are covered elaborately in VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Certification on HPE Synergy.

The VLANs are configured on HPE OneView, which are consumed by Server Profiles and Interconnect. The following VLANs, described in table 2, are required to bring up VCF on HPE Synergy.

Table 2. VLANs used in our environment for VCF bringup on HPE Synergy

VLAN VLAN ID

VCF build-network for Initial imaging and deployment 90

VCF-Internal Management Network 2100

vSAN Network 2101

vMotion Network 2102

VXLAN Transport 2103

Datacenter Network 2105

VDI Desktop (VXLAN) 10000 (VXLAN ID)

An additional VDIVSAN VLAN that has been added to OneView (not defined to switch) which is internal to VCF.

1. Place all configured VCF networks into HPE OneView Network Sets. Networks Sets allow multiple VLANs to be carried on the same physical server interface and are used by server profiles.

2. Create HPE OneView Logical Interconnect Groups with proper uplink sets and create HPE Logical Enclosure Group.

3. Apply Logical Enclosure Groups with correct SPP to create Logical Enclosure.

4. Create HPE OneView Server Profile templates, selecting appropriate hardware type and Enclosure Group created in the previous steps.

a. Select the appropriate firmware baseline consistent with vSAN requirements.

b. Select two NICs each with the Network Sets.

c. Configure storage with appropriate vSAN sized cache and capacity tiers

5. Apply HPE OneView Server Profiles for each servers used for VCF. VCF needs 4 hosts for “management” and a minimum of 3 for a “workload” domain. However, in this solution we have used 4 hosts for “management” workload and 4 hosts for “VDI” workload domain.

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http://h22208.www2.hpe.com/eginfolib/synergy/VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation%20Certification%20on%20HPE%20Synergy.pdf




Deploying the VMware Cloud Foundation Imaging Appliance and Imaging Hosts While VCF will deploy its own internal vCenter in order to stage all the components for install, an “imaging station” needs to be created. To image servers to be used for vCloud Foundation, VMware provides the “VIA OVF” imaging appliance as well as the Cloud Foundation software bundle.

Detailed steps of ‘Deploying the Jump VM’ and ‘Configuring VCF Imaging Server’ is elaborated at VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Certification on HPE Synergy.

VCF bring-up The SDDC Manager BringUP Wizard is used to configure the VLANs and IP network for solution. The Management infrastructure is deployed first followed by VI/VDI workload domain. Once the BringUP UI discovers the installed components, time synchronization and Power On System Validation completes for all the servers, select 4 hosts to create “Management domain” as shown in the below figure.

Figure 11. Selecting hosts for VCF Management domain

Once the deployment is initiated, the wizard walks the admin through the initial configuration which is briefed below and elaborated in details at VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Certification on HPE Synergy:

• EULA and CEIP enrollment

• Setting a “super-user” account for the solution

• Entering Rack details specific to the environment

• Set up of VCF Networks by providing the vlan and IP information of the following networks:

• Management Network

– vMotion Network

– VSAN Network

– VXLAN network

– Datacenter network

• DNS is delegated to a DNS server running on the SDDC Manager VM

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VCF Management domain is now deployed. Additional servers can be imaged at this point using “VIA Imager”.

The additional imaged hosts are then imported to VCF’s inventory and can be viewed in the Dashboard, as shown in Figure 12, once the discovery finishes.

Figure 12. Dashboard view after the additional hosts are imaged and added to VCF’s inventory

Networking pre-requisite The following three (3) screenshots show how to determine the vSAN VLAN ID:

1. Login to SDDC Manager Controller and issue the below commend to determine the vsan vlan id:

root@sddc-manager-controller [ ~ ] # cd /home/vrack/bin

root@sddc-manager-controller [[/home/vrack/bin ] # ./next-vsanvlan 3001

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2. Update the VDIVSAN VLAN ID field in HPE OneView.

Figure 13. HPE OneView Configuration for VDIVSAN

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3. Update the Uplinkset.

Figure 14. Updating the Uplinkset in HPE OneView

Workload Domain Creation – VDI Once the management workload domain is deployed, the user can create a VDI workload domain using SDDC Manager Dashboard. When you create and deploy a VDI workload domain, SDDC Manager reserves the necessary hardware capacity and deploys the VMware software stack appropriate to provision the necessary components for a VDI environment. Brief elaboration of the steps followed for VDI Workload domain creation can be found in Appendix B: Create a VDI Workload Domain.

NSX Configuration After deployment of VDI workload domain, specific network configuration had been done for the workload domain. Details and steps are illustrated in Appendix C: NSX Deployment Steps.

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Configuration of Smart Policies powered by VMware Horizon 7 The below use cases cover policies configured using VMware User Environment Manager (UEM), which is included with VMware Horizon 7. With Smart Policies, we can define what devices are allowed in the VDI desktop based on dynamic conditions. Following policies were implemented and functionally tested in this environment.

Table 3. VMware Horizon Smart Policies

Smart Policy Description

Client Drive Redirection Controls whether drives and folders on the client system are shared with the remote desktop and, if so, whether they are readable only or readable and writeable

HTML Access File Transfer Controls whether you can upload files from the client system to the remote desktop, download files from the remote desktop to the client system, or both, or neither, when you are using the web client to access the remote desktop

Bandwidth Profile Prevents the agent (remote desktop) from attempting to transmit data at a higher rate than the link capacity

The above Smart Policies are illustrated in details in Appendix D: Implementing VMware Horizon Smart Policies.

Capacity and sizing This document shows the flexibility that HPE channel partners and customers can have in taking advantage of VCF VDI Solution, resulting in a more fully functional solution that scales well on HPE Synergy. To demonstrate the validity of the solution, HPE used Login VSI to run user simulations against a fully configured environment.

Figure 15 shows the ESXi host level settings of NVIDIA Tesla P6 GPUs assigned to Windows 2010 VMs for multimedia workload that were configured by editing the Graphics devices and selecting the GPU’s as Shared direct devices.

Figure 15. ESXi host level settings of NVIDIA Tesla P6 GPUs assigned to Windows 10 VMs for multimedia workload

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Login VSI Login VSI is a load generating test tool designed to test remote computing solutions via a variety of different protocols. HPE maintains an infrastructure dedicated to running Login VSI against a variety of solutions from VMware. The test software works by starting a series of launchers which are best thought of as virtual end-user access devices. These launchers connect to the end-user computing infrastructure under test via a connection protocol, then a series of scripts executed on the compute resources simulate the load of actual users. The test suite utilizes a series of desktop applications running via automated scripts within the context of the VMware Cloud Foundation VDI virtual environment. A standardized set of applications are installed within every virtual machine and actions are taken against the installed applications. The set of applications HPE tested with are listed in the table below, with versions shown where applicable.

Table 4. Standard Login VSI worker software specifications

Software Version

Windows client Microsoft® Windows® 2010 Enterprise, x64

Adobe® Acrobat® 11.1

Adobe Flash Player 11

Adobe Shockwave Player 11

Microsoft Office® Professional 2013 Professional x64 with SP1

Microsoft Internet Explorer® 11

New to Login VSI is the ability to look at users with multimedia requirements via a Multimedia workload. The Multimedia workload is a type of workload designed to really stress the CPU by using software that benefits from graphics acceleration. When a GPU is added, the most compute intensive sections of an application are offloaded to the GPU while the CPU processes the remaining code. From a user perspective, this means users will experience an improvement in their perception of the environment. From an IT administrator perspective, it means that the resources will be utilized in a more efficient fashion and that more users may fit onto any given resource. The multimedia workload uses the applications shown in Table 8 for its GPU/CPU-intensive operations.

Table 5. Standard Login VSI Multimedia worker software specifications

Software Version

Windows client Microsoft Windows 2010 Enterprise x64

Adobe Acrobat 11.0

Google® Chrome browser 59.0

Microsoft Office Professional 2013 Professional x64 with SP1

Google Earth mapping service 7.1.8.3036

Microsoft Internet Explorer 11

Response times are measured for a variety of actions within each session. When response times climb above a certain level on average, the test is finalized and a score, called VSImax, is created. VSImax represents the number of users at or below the average response time threshold. A detailed explanation can be found on the Login VSI website at https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Login_VSI_VSImax.

For purposes of showing a solution functions as intended, Hewlett Packard Enterprise does not drive load to a saturation point in order to achieve a VSImax score. Rather, the goal is to show that the environment behaves as expected and that all paths work and users receive an experience as expected under a given load.

http://www.hpe.com

https://www.loginvsi.com/documentation/index.php?title=Login_VSI_VSImax


Testing strategy The VMware Cloud Foundation VDI solution on HPE Synergy was tested via the Login VSI Multimedia workload with NVIDIA Tesla P6 GPU’s.

Benchmarks versus field implementation Login VSI provides a set of tests that can be used to compare platforms and solutions within a fairly close range, provided that all underlying variables remain the same including CPU, memory, disk, software versions, system tunings, VM tunings, networks, and Login VSI version. The test uses a standardized set of workloads to create those comparison points. In the real world, it is highly unlikely that a customer will be running the exact set of applications featured in the test. As with most test tools, Login VSI results should be used in conjunction with results from actual system performance data from the field or via proof-of-concept (POC), or production implementations. Login VSI presents response times from various tasks and applications that could be used as a primitive baseline in a controlled environment with limited applications and resource assignments. Although these metrics are useful when comparing systems with similar resource attributes, they can be misleading when used to simulate real-world implementations. As a result, the numbers in this document are guidelines only.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise recommends a complete analysis of the specific user requirements prior to any VDI implementations and not sizing implementations based solely on benchmark results. Customers, new or inexperienced with VDI, should undergo a deeper assessment of their environment prior to implementing VDI to make sure they attain the results they desire. If such an assessment interests you, please engage with your Hewlett Packard Enterprise account team or find further information on our HPE Mobility and Workplace Services web page, https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting/mobility-workplace.html.

Single node Instant Clones for multimedia worker results Table 6 shows the Instant clone Desktops use case of multimedia worker that was tested on HPE Synergy with an HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Module in an HPE Synergy 12000 Frame in a single-node configuration with a server pool of Instant clones with Windows 2010 with 1GB vGPU configured.

Table 6 below shows the configuration and workload results for the multimedia worker user type and summarizes the Login VSI score for the platform.

Table 6. Test results for single-node configuration of Windows Server 2010 VDI workloads, with NVIDIA Tesla P6 graphics card

User type VM type Microsoft Office version

Microsoft Windows Server version

Number of users (VSImax)

VM vCPU

VM memory

Multimedia worker Instant clones 2013 2010 94 4 4GB

Figure 16 shows a single-server Login VSI score of 94 multimedia workers using VMware VDI Instant clones with locally installed applications on a single-node configuration of HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Modules with NVIDIA GPUs in expansion modules.

Figure 16. Multimedia Workload test result on a single-node HPE Synergy 480 Compute Module with NVIDIA Tesla P6 graphics card

http://www.hpe.com

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting/mobility-workplace.html


Multiple nodes Instant clones with NVIDIA GPUs for multimedia worker results Table 7 shows the VMware VDI Instant clones with NVIDIA GPUs use case of multimedia worker that was tested on HPE Synergy with HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Modules with NVIDIA GPUs in expansion modules in multiple HPE Synergy 12000 Frames across a 4-node configuration with a server pool of Instant clones with Windows 10.

Table 7 shows the configuration and workload results for the multimedia worker user type and summarizes the Login VSI score for the platform.

Table 7. Test results for 4-node configuration of Windows Server 2010 VDI workloads, with NVIDIA Tesla P6 graphics card

User type VM type Microsoft Office version

Microsoft Windows Server version

Number of users (VSImax)

VM vCPU

VM memory Number of compute modules

Multimedia worker

Instant clones

2013 2010 376 4 4GB 4

Figure 17 shows a multiple-server Login VSI score of 376 multimedia workers using VMware VDI Instant clones with locally installed applications on a 4-node configuration of HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Compute Modules with NVIDIA GPUs in expansion modules.

Figure 17. Multimedia Workload test result on a 4-node configuration of HPE Synergy 480 Compute Modules, with NVIDIA GPUs

Login VSI Max was not reached due to the limits on user counts imposed by the vGPUs. The results vary based on your environment and the number of GPU’s that are available for the server and the type of vGPU profile that will be assigned for the VM’s.

Analysis and recommendations HPE Synergy Deployment Analysis HPE Synergy Composer powered by HPE OneView can initialize the HPE Synergy Infrastructure ground up in a span of less than an hour. Using HPE OneView, the logical infrastructure can be created in the following manner that includes creation of Network, Network Sets, Logical Interconnect Groups, Enclosure Group and Logical Enclosure, the entire process takes less than an hour that is also inclusive of applying the latest HPE Synergy firmware baseline across all three frames.

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VMware Cloud Foundation Deployment on HPE Synergy Below is the table relaying the initial deployment time for VCF environment.

Table 8. Estimated time needed for VCF deployment in HPE test environment

Deployment operation Estimated time taken in our test environment

VIA imaging and validation 90-120 mins

SDDC Bring Up 2 hours 40 mins

VDI Workload domain BringUp 1 hour 46 mins for 4 worker nodes

Spectre/Melt down Windows 10 had been patched to the latest available updates inclusive of Spectre/Meltdown patches. Refer to the Resources and Additional Links section for more information.

Table 9. Spectre/Meltdown patch details

Category Impacted

Platform &

Version

Patch Available

Meltdown

(CVE-2017-5754)

Patch Available

Spectre Variant

1 (CVE-2017-5753)

Patch Available

Spectre Variant

2 (CVE-2017-5715)

Patch Details

Server/Desktop Operating System

Windows 10 Yes Yes Yes x64 version 1507 – KB4056893

x64 version 1511 – KB4056888

x64 version 1607 – KB4056890

x64 version 1703 – KB4056891

x64 version 1709 – KB4056892

x64 version 1507 – KB4074596

32-bit version 1511 – KB4074591

32-bit version 1607 – KB4074590

32-bit version 1703 – KB4074592

VMware OS Optimization Tool The VMware OS Optimization Tool (OSOT) provides the easiest and most efficient way to optimize your Windows desktop and server master images. It offers many advantages over traditional scripts, including the ability to roll back changes, selectively edit optimization values, and view detailed audit information before applying optimizations. The OSOT includes customizable built-in templates to enable or disable Windows features and system services across multiple platforms. You use the OSOT to improve Windows performance, as per VMware recommendations and best practices. Some of the best practices to be followed while using OSOT are:

• Use the OSOT on a base image. Apply the tool to an unused system that has been built to match the configuration that you will deploy for virtual desktops or RDSH servers

• Disable as many unnecessary Windows OS components as possible. Consider disabling everything and then performing user-acceptance testing (UAT) to see if there are problems. Re-enable any components that cause a problem when disabled

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LoginVSI testing analysis The data presented in the prior sections suggests that HPE Synergy deployed with VMware Cloud Foundation and NVIDIA GPU’s is a flexible platform for running multimedia enabled end-user computing workloads. The platform offers demonstrated performance, simplified management, and cost effective, linear scaling for end-user computing solutions.

Key takeaways:

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise provides industry leading compute, storage, and networking infrastructure that you can use to deploy VCF solution in your environment.

• This HPE Reference Architecture is a tested and tuned solution architecture that offers optimal performance to deploy VCF 2.3 and run graphics intensive multi-media workloads with linear scaling across the worker nodes

• Faster VDI cloud deployment with VMware Cloud Foundation and HPE Synergy. Reduced deployment cycle from days to hours. VMware Cloud Foundation on HPE Synergy took ~7 hours from imaging, to bringing up the four VDI worker nodes.

Summary With VCF on HPE Synergy, HPE and VMware introduces the first ever composable infrastructure and modular design for running Cloud Foundation deployments. HPE Synergy, now being certified platform for Cloud Foundation, acts as a VCF ReadyNode from VCF 2.3.1 release onwards. This Reference Architecture serves as a proof point as to how HPE Synergy combined with VCF delivers an ideal platform for secure enterprise-ready private cloud.

HPE Synergy not only offers the only modular design for running Cloud Foundation deployments but also proves to be one of the best platform to run VCF by presenting the following facts:

• Reduces infrastructure complexity and cost: The HPE Synergy composable infrastructure allows to cut data center cost and slashes time to spin up new applications. As HPE Synergy combines storage, compute and network equipment in one chassis, along with management software, auto-integrating makes scaling simple and automated at rack/row scale. Composable fabric makes rack scale multi-fabric connectivity which eliminates standalone TOR switches. HPE Synergy composable compute provides the performance, scalability, density optimization, storage simplicity, and configuration flexibility. The Composer powered by OneView integrated software-defined intelligence to self-discover, auto-integrate and scale from racks to row.

• Simplified infrastructure management and increased flexibility: HPE OneView helps to automate the deployment of infrastructure by using Template-based provisioning, thereby simplifying the lifecycle operations. It also lets you offer your infrastructure as a service to organizations across your business, because it provides more flexibility in how you configure and set up your data center.

• Consolidated traditional data center applications private cloud on shared infrastructure: HPE Synergy composable fabric’s disaggregated, rack-scale design uses a master/satellite architecture to consolidate data center network connections, reduce hardware and management complexity, and scale network bandwidth across multiple frames. The master module contains intelligent networking capabilities that extend connectivity to satellite frames through the HPE Synergy Fabric Interconnect Link Module, which eliminates the need for a top-of-rack (ToR) switch and substantially reduces cost. The reduction in components also simplifies fabric management at scale while consuming fewer ports at the data center aggregation layer.

• Disaggregates storage and compute: With traditional rack servers, compute and storage do not generally scale independently, but with HPE Synergy, both storage and compute can scale separately. There is no fixed ratio between storage and compute resources. HPE Synergy creates a pool of flexible storage capacity using multiple storage options that can be configured almost instantly to rapidly provision infrastructure for a broad range of applications and workloads. By eliminating the complexity and limitations of siloed resources and administration, the various options including software-defined storage solutions as well as fully composable storage for HPE Synergy deliver a new level of simplicity, density, and flexibility.

For customers looking to build SDDC and cloud management services, HPE Synergy combined with VCF provides a great platform to build a secure private cloud based on the VMware SDDC stack on HPE Synergy composable infrastructure. The combination has many benefits which customers have been excited about; among which some of them are mentioned below:

• Simplified infrastructure management: The Simplified infrastructure management with HPE OneView and VMware SDDC Manager to provision and manage physical and virtual infrastructure respectively is one of the biggest advantage of this combination. The workflow is to leverage OneView to create server profile templates with all physical compute, storage and networking attributes configured. This template is

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used to instantiate individual server profiles, assembling ratios of compute, storage and fabric. On the other hand, VCF’s VMware Imaging Appliance (VIA) is used to install and configure the initial ESXi hosts and SDDC manager. SDDC Manager then brings up the management domain with four (4) nodes fully configured with vSphere, vSAN, NSX and vRealize Suite, and the subsequent workload domains.

• Modular infrastructure: Modular infrastructure to run VCF deployment not only reduces hardware complexity but also increases flexibility. Onboarding new workload has proved to be so much faster with this modular infrastructure.

• Platform consolidation: VCF provides built-in workload domains that automates deployment of workloads such as Virtualized Infrastructure (VI) and VDI. With HPE Synergy’s composable infrastructure, provisioning of physical resources can be mapped to run different workloads. For example, you can now dynamically provision (and re-provision) varying resource requirements of different VDI user types (task workers, power users, Graphics heavy developers) by leveraging OneView Server profiles and then consuming the physical hosts within VCF workload domain.

• Data center modernization: With VCF and HPE Synergy, you can expand and contract both physical and virtual infrastructure to meet the changing business needs. This allows you to transform your data center by delivering quick results to line of businesses deploying a wide range of applications providing future proofing for any application – traditional or cloud-native.

Appendix A: Bill of materials

Note Part numbers are at time of publication/testing and subject to change. The bill of materials does not include complete support options or other rack and power requirements. If you have questions regarding ordering, please consult with your HPE Reseller or HPE Sales Representative for more details. hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting.html

Table 10. Bill of materials

Qty Part number Description

Rack and Network Infrastructure

1 P9K10A HPE 42U 600mmx1200mm G2 Kitted Advanced Shock Rack with Side Panels and Baying

1 P9K10A 001 HPE Factory Express Base Racking Service

1 797740-B21 HPE Synergy 12000 Configure-to-order Frame with 1x Frame Link Module 10x Fans

2 835386-B21 HPE Synergy D3940 12Gb SAS CTO Drive Enclosure with 40 SFF (2.5in) Drive Bays

3 871940-B21 HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Configure-to-order Compute Module

3 872138-L21 HPE Synergy 480/660 Gen10 Intel Xeon-Gold 6142 (2.6GHz/16-core/150W) FIO Processor Kit

3 872138-B21 HPE Synergy 480/660 Gen10 Intel Xeon-Gold 6142 (2.6GHz/16-core/150W) Processor Kit

24 815100-B21 HPE 32GB (1x32GB) Dual Rank x4 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Registered Smart Memory Kit


3 P01367-B21 HPE 96W Smart Storage Battery (up to 20 Devices) with 260mm Cable Kit

3 804424-B21 HPE Smart Array P204i-c SR Gen10 (4 Internal Lanes/1GB Cache) 12G SAS Modular Controller

3 777430-B21 HPE Synergy 3820C 10/20Gb Converged Network Adapter

3 741279-B21 HPE Dual 8GB microSD Enterprise Midline USB Kit

3 872627-B21 HPE Synergy 480 Gen10 Multi MXM FIO Expansion Module

3 804428-B21 HPE Smart Array P416ie-m SR Gen10 (8 Int 8 Ext Lanes/2GB Cache) 12G SAS Mezzanine Controller

9 880709-B21 HPE Synergy 480 NVIDIA Tesla P6 Multi MXM Option Kit

2 755985-B21 HPE Synergy 12Gb SAS Connection Module with 12 Internal Ports

1 779218-B21 HPE Synergy 20Gb Interconnect Link Module

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http://www.hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting.html



1 794502-B23 HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy

1 798096-B21 HPE 6x 2650W Performance Hot Plug Titanium Plus FIO Power Supply Kit

1 804353-B21 HPE Synergy Composer

1 804938-B21 HPE Synergy Frame Rack Rail Kit

1 804942-B21 HPE Synergy Frame Link Module

1 804943-B21 HPE Synergy Frame 4x Lift Handles

1 859493-B21 HPE Synergy Multi Frame Master1 FIO

8 804101-B21 HPE Synergy Interconnect Link 3m Active Optical Cable

2 720199-B21 HPE BladeSystem c-Class 40G QSFP+ to QSFP+ 3m Direct Attach Copper Cable

2 861412-B21 HPE Synergy Frame Link Module CAT6A 1.2m Cable

















1 794502-B23 HPE Virtual Connect SE 40Gb F8 Module for Synergy


1 804353-B21 HPE Synergy Composer



1 859494-B22 HPE Synergy Multi Frame Master2 FIO







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1 861413-B21 HPE Synergy Frame Link Module CAT6A 3m Cable

4 AF533A HPE Intelligent Modular 3Ph 14.4kVA/CS8365C 40A/208V Outlets (6) C19/Horizontal NA/JP PDU

1 H6J85A HPE Rack Hardware Kit

1 BW932A HPE 600mm Rack Stabilizer Kit

27 873355-B21 HPE 800GB SAS 12G Write Intensive SFF (2.5in) SC 3yr Wty Digitally Signed Firmware SSD

81 875478-B21 HPE 1.92TB SATA MU SFF SC DS SSD

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Appendix B: Create a VDI Workload Domain 1. From the SDDC manager dashboard, select “Add Workload Domain” and the “Configure VDI”. We are first reminded of the pre-requisites for

creating this workload domain and then prompted for the General Configuration Information for the VDI Workload Domain, as here seen in figure 18.

Figure 18. Details for VDI environment configuration

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2. Specify the Microsoft Active Directory, and SQL for the VDI Environment.

Customers can choose to use an existing Active Directory environment and SQL server, or can deploy a new one.

3. Specify whether the App Volumes will be deployed as a part of VDI domain.

4. Input sizing information for the new domain by indicating the number and size of the virtual desktops.

Figure 19. Sizing information for VDI environment configuration

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5. Enter the host selection for the VDI domain.

The Server Selection page displays hosts available for VDI workload domains. To select hosts to be used for the VDI domain, select VC1 in the VC drop-down for the appropriate hosts.

Figure 20. Host selection for the VDI domain configuration

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6. Configure the Data Center networks that will be used for the actual desktop pools to which end users connect.

Figure 21. Network configuration for the VDI workload domain

7. Specify the Windows Images for the VDI Environment.

This step is to upload the Microsoft Windows Server ISO image and license key for use by the VDI environment’s server components. Since we chose to “Deploy Desktops” as part of the workflow, we upload Microsoft Windows OVA templates with latest VMware Tools installed in it for the parent virtual machine.

8. At the “Review” step of the creation wizard, review the details and start the creation workflow.

The SDDC Manager will deploy a Horizon 7 Enterprise environment based on VMware Reference Architecture. This includes the deployment of all the infrastructure required including vSphere, NSX and vSAN along with NSX Firewall rules that are necessary for micro segmentation, and all the required Horizon components such as Connection Servers, Unified Access Gateways, UEM, AD and SQL connectivity and pool of desktops.

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9. When the VDI workload domain is created, the Dashboard page refreshes to indicate the new domain exists, as shown in figure 22.

Figure 22. SDDC Dashboard showing 2 Workload Domains – Management and VDI Workload domain

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Appendix C: NSX Deployment Steps 1. Create Logical switches for VDI and Transit Network. For detailed steps, please refer NSX Installation Guide.

Figure 23. Create Logical Switch

2. Deploy and configure the Distributed Logical Router (DLR) as mentioned in the below steps:

d. Configure the DLR interface.

Figure 24. Configure DLR interface

e. Add DLR routing configuration.

Figure 25. Add DLR routing configuration

http://www.hpe.com

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-for-vSphere/6.3/com.vmware.nsx.install.doc/GUID-DD31D6BC-2E56-4E91-B45F-FCA3E80FF786.html


f. Add neighbors for the BGP routing.

Figure 26. Add neighbors for BGP routing

g. Create a Route Redistribution for BGP.

Figure 27. Create a Route Redistribution for BGP

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3. Deploy and Configure Edge Services Gateway (ESG).

a. Configure the ESG interface.

Figure 28. Configure ESG interface

b. Configure routing on ESG.

Figure 29. Configure ESG interface

http://www.hpe.com

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-for-vSphere/6.3/com.vmware.nsx.install.doc/GUID-B9A97F20-4996-4E16-822C-0B98DDE70571.html


c. Add neighbors for BGP routing.

Figure 30. Add neighbors for BGP routing

d. Create route redistribution for BGP.

Figure 31. Create route redistribution for BGP

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4. Configure NSX Edge DHCP as mentioned in the below steps. For details, please refer to NSX Administration guide.

a. Create the DHCP IP Pool by navigating to ESG > Manage > Pools > ADD

Figure 32. Create DHCP IP Pool

b. Configure the DHCP Relay on the DLR to relay DHCP request to DHCP server on edge.

Figure 33. Configure DHCP Relay

Edge Internal Interface

Interface connects to Logical Switch

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https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-for-vSphere/6.3/com.vmware.nsx.admin.doc/GUID-778D917C-0D70-40EE-8D57-556DE6A0442B.html


Appendix D: Implementing VMware Horizon Smart Policies Policy 1: Client Driver Redirection When you deploy Horizon Client and Horizon Agent with client drive redirection, folders and files are sent across the network with encryption. Client Drive redirection connections between clients and the View Secure Gateway and connections from the View Secure Gateway to desktop machines are secure. If VMware Blast is enabled, files and folders are transferred across a virtual channel with encryption.

To share folders and drives on the local client system with remote desktops and applications using Horizon Client, following steps are executed.

Figure 34. VMware Horizon Client to share folder/drive

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1. From the UEM Management Console, you can create policy to Disable, Allow all, or Read-only access to shared drives and folders from client.

Figure 35. VMware User Environment Manager console to create policy

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2. You can set conditions based on User Group for the policy to be in effect.

Figure 36. Setting condition for the policy for a User Group

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3. After defining the conditions with a specified user group, the policy will be in effect after logging in to the desktop with the said user group. The shared drive/folder from the client will be accessible via the desktop, as shown below in figure 37.

Figure 37. Shared drive from client accessible in desktop

Policy 2: HTML Access file transfer With the file transfer feature, you can transfer (upload and download) files between the client and a remote desktop. The Horizon administrator can configure the ability to allow, disallow, or allow in one direction only, the transfer of files by modifying the Configure file transfer group policy setting for the VMware Blast protocol.

VMware Blast HTML Access File Transfer depends on the VMware Blast Configure clipboard redirection policy setting. To have download functionality enabled, the “Configure clipboard redirection policy” must be set to "Enabled in both directions" or "Enabled server to client only" (please refer the "VMware Blast Policy Settings" section in the Setting Up Desktop and Application Pools in View guide for more information).

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https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/7.0/view-70-setting-up-desktops.pdf


HTML Access File Transfer also depends on the Horizon Smart Policy "Clipboard" setting as shown in the figure below. If this setting is configured to prevent copying from agent to client, download functionality is disabled.

Figure 38. VMware User Environment Manager console to create policy

Using Horizon, HTML client can use file transfer panel to transfer file to/from client to/from desktop.

Figure 39: Transfer file to/from client to/from desktop

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Policy 3: Bandwidth Profile With Smart policies, you can use the Bandwidth profile policy setting to configure a bandwidth profile for PCoIP and Blast sessions on the remote desktop. You can select a predefined bandwidth profile, for example, LAN. Selecting a predefined bandwidth profile prevents the agent from attempting to transmit at a higher rate than the link capacity. If you select the default profile, the maximum bandwidth is 90000 kilobits per second.

For more information, see Bandwidth Profile Reference.

Figure 40.VMware User Environment Manager console to create policy

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© Copyright 2018 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. Microsoft, Windows, Office, and Internet Explorer are registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Intel and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. NVIDIA is a registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Adobe and Acrobat are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Google and the Google Logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.

a00061616enw, December 2018

Resources and additional links HPE Reference Architectures, hpe.com/info/ra

HPE Servers, hpe.com/servers

HPE Storage, hpe.com/storage

HPE Networking, hpe.com/networking

HPE Technology Consulting Services, hpe.com/us/en/services/consulting.html

HPE Synergy, hpe.com/synergy

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Certification on HPE Synergy, http://h22208.www2.hpe.com/eginfolib/synergy/VMware%20Cloud%20Foundation%20Certification%20on%20HPE%20Synergy.pdf

VMware NSX, https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmw-nsx-network-virtualization-design-guide.pdf

VMware Horizon, https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/index.html

vGPU user guide, https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/grid-vgpu-user-guide/index.html

NVIDIA Telsa P6 profiles, https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/grid-vgpu-user-guide/index.html#vgpu-types-tesla-p6

Spectre and Meltdown

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52337

https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4073757/protect-your-windows-devices-against-spectre-meltdown

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-a00039267en_us

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https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmw-nsx-network-virtualization-design-guide.pdf

https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmw-nsx-network-virtualization-design-guide.pdf

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon-7/index.html

https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/grid-vgpu-user-guide/index.html

https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/grid-vgpu-user-guide/index.html#vgpu-types-tesla-p

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52337

https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4073757/protect-your-windows-devices-against-spectre-meltdown

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-a00039267en_us

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