Dell Networking S6000 Test Report page 10

Another R710 server, the Management Host, housed the Horizon View Connection Server, the
vCenter Server with View Composer, the SQL server, and a server that stored user profiles for
virtual desktops.
The other R710, the Infrastructure Host, housed non-VMware servers needed to run Horizon
View: the Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller and the Stratusphere UX desktop
monitoring tool from Liquidware Labs, Inc.
VMware View Composer reduces storage requirements for virtual desktop machines by up to
90% and enables organizations to manage desktop images more effectively. With View
Composer, a single parent virtual image can be created and pushed out to multiple users across
the enterprise in minutes. It also allows updating, patching or rolling out hundreds of desktops
from a single master virtual image and refreshing desktop images while retaining user settings
during updates and patches.
The heart of the test bed was a leaf/spine fabric composed of Dell top-of-rack 10/40 GbE
switches. The S6000 switches are connected by VLT, a proprietary link aggregation protocol
available in Dell data center- and enterprise-class switches.
VLT offers servers connected to different access switches a redundant, load-balancing
connection to the network core in a loop-free environment. Because all physical links are active,
the need for Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) as well as advanced and proprietary versions,
is eliminated.
STP creates a spanning tree within a network of connected Layer 2 bridges, which typically are
Ethernet switches. Links that are not part of the spanning tree are redundant, leaving a single
active path between any two network nodes. Redundant links remain blocked until an active link
is disrupted.
The existence of inactive, redundant links, plus the inherent complexity of designing and
implementing STP, makes VLT an attractive alternative for Layer 2 redundancy.
Both leaf switches in the test bed were Dell S5000s, which were connected via VLT. Also, the
S5000 switches were connected to each vSphere (R720) and spine (S6000) server.
A 1G, Layer 3 management switch was connected to a S6000 server and all three Horizon View
servers (Client Host, Management Host and Infrastructure Host). It provided a management
VLAN for all end nodes housing the servers.
To begin the QoE testing, 16 guest operating systems residing on the two stacked R710 servers
functioning as the Horizon View client were launched. Each guest OS had the Login VSI load
testing tool. Each Login VSI generated multiple Horizon View clients.
After a Horizon View client signed in to the virtual desktop on the vSphere ESXi hypervisor,
Login VSI generated a pre-configured script that imitated realistic user activities, such as
accessing the Internet, using Microsoft Outlook, writing and editing documents in Microsoft Word,
playing video and playing audio (music).
The Login VSI screenshot in
impose stress on the test network and its hardware components, Login VSI repeated the script
for the duration of the test, which lasted about 15 minutes.
Dell Networking S6000 Switch
Copyright  2013 Miercom
Figure 2 on page 11 shows 190 virtual users are enabled. To
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