By Jack McMichael, Solutions Consultant

In the last few years it seems the number of customers asking for assistance in re-evaluating their “VDI 1.0” infrastructure is increasing at a faster rate than ever. It makes sense when you consider that in the rush to achieve datacenter consolidation many administrators were under pressure to just “make it happen.” Many of those administrators and architects didn’t have time to design their virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution to scale and accommodate things our customers and users have grown accustomed to using every day, such as YouTube HD, Skype, and other resource-intensive applications.

Last year, VMware released their very popular internal tool View Planner for use to the general public for free. While it’s flown under the radar for a lot of customers, it can be an invaluable tool for judging where your VDI solution stands, and identifying where the stress cracks in your VDI infrastructure may be forming—or are already wide open.

The View Planner appliance is simple to install and fairly straightforward to set up for local tests. It’s capable of local-only load testing, as well as passive/remote connections with the VMware Horizon® Client.

Deploying View Planner

After deploying an Open Virtual Appliance in VMware vSphere®, configure your View Planner integrations in the Config tab of the administrator page. The AD and View integrations are optional, but can be used if you wish View Planner to deploy desktops and/or create and delete users.

Note that for best results, I recommend using IP addresses instead of hostnames. Create a service account for your credentials, and give it administrator privileges in both AD and in VMware vCenter™.

In this screenshot, you can see all three connectors configured. You can use the Test buttons to ensure the configuration works, but click Save first.

Environment Preparation

For my simple test, I created a linked clone pool with the name VPDesktop-{n:fixed=3} in VMware Horizon View™. On this master snapshot, I added the View Planner Desktop Agent that you can download from the View Planner portal on the Packages tab.

Make sure you reboot your desktop before creating your snapshot. Once you reboot, you will likely see the desktop auto-login. If so, run the View Planner Agent as seen in this screenshot.

Configuring Run Profiles

There are three test modes available: Local, Passive and Remote. Typically, Local mode will be used for load testing since it doesn’t require actual Horizon Client connections, but has the disadvantage of not replicating PCoIP performance impact. Passive mode will add PCoIP connections that are shared amongst client servers that host more than one client connection at a time. Remote mode will create a 1:1 relationship between clients and desktops, thus creating the most overall resource impact.

To configure a Run Profile for a simple load test, I recommend using Local as it doesn’t require the use of the Horizon Client, and is also easy to set up. Simply add the Workload profile you want to run into the Run Profile by clicking Add Group, and click Save to save the Run Profile. You can add multiple workload profiles if you desire, but for a simple test only one is required.

The most important thing to remember is that desktop names (and client names if you choose Passive or Remote) are case-sensitive. In this example, VPDesktop– is valid for VPDesktop-001, but not vpdesktop-001 or VPDesktop001.

Running a Test

Simply click the Run button to start a test. If you run into trouble, View Planner will show you right away; by clicking the link on the appropriate box, you’ll see the exact error or success message.

Once completed, you can view the results in the Per Stats column; they will look something like the example below.

Summary

Overall, I found the View Planner tool to be great for simple and quick tests of a VDI environment. It shows you where resource contention exists, or singles out how an app may be creating resource gaps in your VMware ESXi™ hosts. The free downloadable version includes several standard templates that cover a variety of normal user application workloads. If you require more flexibility in your tests, a paid VMware Professional Services engagement offers a more feature-rich version to create customizable workload profiles and other goodies. Contact VMware Professional Services or a VMware Partner for an on-site evaluation.

Jack McMichael is a Solutions Consultant for the VMware Professional Services Engineering Global Technical and Professional Services team. Follow him on Twitter @jackwmc4 !