The document discusses ensuring peak performance of critical business applications in virtualized environments. It begins by outlining some common myths around virtualization and performance management. Specifically, it notes that virtualization does not inherently make performance management easier, resource reservations do not prevent VMs from interfering with each other, and that performance issues can originate from any IT layer. It then introduces eG Innovations as a company that provides full-stack performance visibility and automated root cause diagnosis across networks, storage, servers, virtualization and applications. This helps optimize environments, reduce troubleshooting time, and ensure projects are delivered on time and on budget. The document concludes by inviting the audience to a free trial of eG Innovations' monitoring services.

1. Citrix XenServer
Success
Assuring Peak Performance
of Critical Business
Applications
Presenters:
Mike Bursell (Citrix)
Bala Vaidhinathan (eG Innovations)

2. Introduction to XenServer
Mike Bursell
Senior Product Manager
Citrix
mike.bursell@citrix.com

3. XenServer Customers
Server Virtualization CloudDesktop
Server Virtualization Desktop Cloud

4. What is XenServer?
• Free XenServer impact
– >50% of Fortune 500 run XenServer
• Proven with leading vendors’ technology
– Trusted by demanding organizations to run the
most mission critical apps
• Optimized to run XenDesktop deployments
• Used by the largest clouds
• Validated by market thought leaders

5. 1,000,000+ Downloads

6. 150,000+ Unique
Organizations

7. XenServer Pedigree
• XenServer is based on the Xen hypervisor
– Mature: over 10 years old
– Recently became a Linux Foundation Collaboration Project
• The Xen ProjectTM Powers the largest clouds in production
• The Xen ProjectTM is the leading open source virtualization platform
that is powering some of the largest clouds in production today. Xen
powers Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Public Cloud and many
hosting services.
http://xenproject.org/

8. Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure
Source: Gartner (June 2012)
Vendor Landscape Report: Server Virtualization
Source: InfoTech (2012)
XenServer is OSS Server Virtualization Leader

9. XenServer:
The Best Platform for CloudPlatform and XenDesktop
• CloudPlatform: over
86% of all customers
using XS or XS and
another hypervisor.
• XenDesktop: XS the
hypervisor of choice
for over 50% of
deployments.
XenServer
71%
VMware
5%
KVM
3%
XenServer/Vmware
/KVM
4%
XenServer/KVM
3%
XenServer/VMware
11% KVM/Vmware
3%

10. Why Customers Virtualize with XenServer?
• 10 minutes to Xen
• Installs with only 4 megabytes of storage
• No single points of failure
• Centrally manage hundreds of virtual servers
• Enterprise-class features such as live migration,
disk snap shots, high availability, dynamic
memory control
• Enables you to optimize resources with zero-
downtime to users
• Industry-leading server virtualization, free!
• Extends your server consolidation savings into
capital equipment, space, power and cooling
costs
Affordable3
Performance2
Ease of Use1

11. Different Workloads, Different Markets
• Workloads
– Cloud
• Traditional
• Cloud workload
– Server virtualization
– Desktops (VDI)
• Markets
– Small/medium businesses
– Large enterprises
– Cloud

12. XenServer Meets All Virtualization Needs
Enterprise
Data Center
•High performance, resilient virtualization
platform
•Simple deployment and management model
•Host based licensing to control CAPEX
Desktop
Virtualization
•Optimized for high performance desktop
workloads
•Storage optimizations to control VDI CAPEX
Cloud
Infrastructure
•Platform for IaaS and Cloud Service Providers
•Powers the NetScaler SDX platform
•Fully supports Software Defined Networking

13. Hypervisor Tools
• Tools from Citrix
– XenCenter
• Management tool
• Some diagnostics and monitoring
– APIs
• Broad set of APIs
• Very expressive
• Absolutely not for everyone!

14. Different Workloads, Different Profiles
• Your workload’s profile will vary:
– Application type
– Time of day
– Failures
– Bottlenecks
• Affected hardware resources include:
– CPU
– Memory
– Storage
– Network

15. Scale Matters
• Characteristics vary between:
– A single host
– A pool of hosts
– Multiple singleton hosts
– Multiple pools
• The bottlenecks change
• The trouble-shooting changes
• The failure modes change

16. Environment Matters
• Is all your hardware the same?
– Network cards
– Storage arrays
– CPUs
– Memory
– Local disks
• Are you sure?
• Is this even a good idea?
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM

17. Not Just The Hardware
Heterogeneous Virtualization Platforms
Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N = 71
1% 3%
7%
31%
58%
How many server virtualization
vendors are you using?
5 4 3 2 1
41%
32%
9%
9%
4% 5%
What pair of vendors
are you using?
VMware/Citrix
VMware/Microsoft
VMware/Oracle
Microsoft/Oracle
Oracle/Red Hat
Microsoft/Red Hat
Many organizations leverage a combination of
VMware, for advanced management of critical
workloads and apps, and Citrix or Microsoft for
cost savings in non-critical systems.
The Benefits

18. Who Sees Which Layer?
• User – application
• DB & strorage admin - database/storage
• System admin – hypervisor/virtualisation
• Networking admin– networking
• Hardware admin – server
0
10000
20000
0:00:00
0:01:45
0:03:30
0:05:15
0:07:00
0:08:45
0:10:30
0:12:15
0:14:00
0:15:45
0:17:30
0:19:15
0:21:00
0:22:45
0:24:30
0:26:15
0:28:00
0:29:45
0:31:30
0:33:15
0:35:00
0:36:45
0:38:30
0:40:15
0:42:00
0:43:45
0:45:30
NFSOps
NFS Ops (Non-IC)
NFS Read Ops NFS Write Ops

19. Poll: Which IT Components Can You See?
• Desktop Layer
• Application Layer
• Hypervisor/virtualization Layer
• Storage/Database Layer
• Server/Networking Layer

20. You Need Cross-Layer Visibility
• The entire stack
– Application
– Virtual Machine Operating System
– Hypervisor platform
– Networking
– Storage
– Hypervisor hardware
• Complex interactions between layers

21. Typical Performance
Management Challenges
• User experience issues
• Lack of visibility across silos
• Complex and/or slow issue identification
• Proactive problem solving
• Chasing issues that originate in other IT
domains

22. Network Web on
Hyper-V
Active Directory
SQL
XenApp on
XenServerZDC on
VMware ESX
License Server
Profile Server
Enterprise
Apps
vCenterOracle
Client
SAN
Switch
Finding The Root Cause of
These Challenges is Critical

23. XenServer Provides the Platform
• But your infrastructure is more than the
hypervisor
– …different users
– …different workloads
– …different hardware
– …different layers
• Your infrastructure is complex, and so are the
challenges

24. Poll: What Are Your Biggest Performance
Management Challenges?
• User experience issues
• Lack of visibility across silos
• Complex and/or slow issue identification
• Proactive problem solving
• Chasing issues that originate in other IT domains

25. Bala Vaidhinathan
CTO
eG Innovations
Bala@eginnovations.com
Assuring Peak Performance of Critical
Business Applications

26. Myth #1 “Virtualization Makes
Performance Management Easier”
• Scope for performance management remains the same
• 10 servers, 30 guests => 300 virtual machines to monitor
• Higher complexity because of resource sharing across VMs
• Guests share CPU, memory, disk, network resources
• A single malfunctioning application in a guest can impact
performance of all other VMs
Physical Virtual

27. Myth #2 “Resource Reservation Ensures
That VMs Don’t Interfere With Each Other”
Streaming Media
App
Slow Database
Queries
Disk Reads
Excessive disk reads by the one VM slows down application within another VM
Shared
resources
become
bottlenecks:
• Network
• Storage
• Compute
• Apps
• Desktop

28. Myth #3 “Virtualization Is Just Another Silo
That Can Be Managed Independently From
Other Tiers”
FIREWALL WEB SERVER
USER
APP SERVER DB SERVER
A problem in one tier can affect all the other tiers.
Is it the network, database, app server, or virtualization tier?
“My
application
is slow!”

29. Myth #4 “Virtualization Platforms Already Include All
Tools and Metrics Needed for Performance
Management”
End User
LAN
Admin
Firewall
admin
Server admin
Virtualization
admin
Domain
admin
ERP Admin Sys admin Application
Admin
The server
is working
OK
No other
complaints
All lights
Are green
We don’t
see anything
wrong
Database
Admin
“My
application is
slow!”
VMs are lightly
loaded
Everything
Is OK
Not our
problem
Looks
fine Not mine
either
Talk to
the other
guys
IT Service
Manager

30. Myth #5 “The Hypervisor View of Virtual
Machines is Sufficient to Manage VMs”
• The Outside view shows the portion of physical
resources used by each VM (CPU, disk, memory)
• Provided by the virtualization hypervisor
• Useful for capacity planning and identifying certain VM
issues
• Does NOT show why a VM is consuming resources
ResourcesofthePhysical
Machine
0
100%
VM1 15%
VM2 25%
VM3 20%
VM4
32%
0
100%
ResourcesofthePhysicalMachine
VM1
15%60% 10%
VM2
25%
10
%
45
%
5
%
30%
VM3
20%25% 60%
VM4
32%
12%
20%
40%
Apps inside a VM
• The Inside view shows the portion of resources allocated to
a VM that are used by each application and each user of the
VM
• Provided by the guest OS (for Windows: WMI)
• Useful for user load balancing, identifying guest OS
issues, misbehaving applications, and unauthorized user
activities
• Does show why a VM is consuming resources, accelerates
fix

31. Myth #6 “VDI Performance Management Can
be Done Using Tools that Support Virtual Servers”
Citrix XenServerMicrosoft Hyper-V
Virtualization
Desktop
Brokers and
Support
Systems
VDI
A performance management
for VDI is extremely unique as
you need a solution that
combines multiple different
performance management
methodologies

32. Myth #7 “Scaling is Linear…More
Hardware Means More Performance”
It is critical to understand the overall performance at all
levels and identify the bottlenecks

33. What does this lead to?
• High business cost of downtime
• Slow applications impact productivity
• Poor user experience
User Frustration
& Low Productivity
• Wasted resources on manual,
complex, lengthy diagnosis
• Requires too many experts & too many tools
Rising
IT Support
Cost & Complexity
• Throwing costly hardware at problems
• Oversized & inefficient environment
Rising
Infrastructure Cost
• Delayed deployment & rollout
• Performance issues & fire drills
• Failed projects & initiatives
Project delays, cost
overruns, missed
objectives

34. How Does eG Innovations Help?

35. Network Web on
XenServer
Active Directory
SQL
ZDC on
VMware ESX
License Server
Profile Server
Enterprise
Apps
vCenterOracle
Client
SAN
Switch
Complete visibility – every layer, every tier!
“My
application is
slow!”
XenApp on
VMware ESX
How Does eG Enterprise Help?

36. Automated
Diagnosis
User
Experience
Management
Right-Sizing
& Capacity
Planning
Pre-emptive
Alerting
Total
Performance
Visibility
End User
Experience
Storage
Connection
Brokers
Profile Servers
Network
Applications
Virtualization
Infrastructure
& App Performance
Service
Performance
Online
Banking
Accounting
Trading
Patient
records
. . .
eG Enterprise
The eG Innovations Approach

37. Live Solution Tour

38. eG Innovations Unique Capabilities
• Complete 360o Cross-Domain Performance Visibility
Get total performance visibility of all components and how
they impact user experience across
desktop, application, virtualization, network, storage, server, et
c.
• Automatic Root-Cause Diagnosis
Automate and accelerate the discovery, diagnosis and
resolution of performance issues in complex environments – so
your highly skilled staff can be more productive.
• Pre-Emptive Problem Detection & Alerting
Pre-emptively monitor, detect and resolve performance issues
– before users are affected. Prevent downtime, ensure
exceptional performance and user satisfaction.
• Capacity & Performance Analytics
Right-size your virtualized IT infrastructure, maximize resource
utilization and reduce hardware/software cost.

39. eG Innovations Multi-Platform Support
Virtualization Platforms
Operating systems
VDI Technologies
Application Technologies
vSphere
Hyper—V
LPARs
Solaris Zones
and LDOMs
XenServer
XenDesktop View

40. eG Enterprise Architecture
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ADVANCED
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eG Plugins
Services, Systems, Applications and Networks
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eG Monitoring
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MONITORING

41. The ROI of eG Innovations
• Reduce downtime
• Increase application availability
• Boost user experience
Boost
User Satisfaction
& Productivity
• Simplify, automate & accelerate
diagnosis & troubleshooting
• Optimize staffing levels & reduce OPEX
Reduce
IT Support
Cost & Complexity
• Increase hardware utilization
• Leverage investment in software
• Right-size & optimize environment
Reduce
Infrastructure Cost &
Avoid Cost Overruns
• Accelerate deployments & rollout
• Reduce risk, deliver successful projects
& peace of mind
Deliver Projects
on Time, on Budget,
on Target

42. &

43. Visit eG Innovations
Booth 417
Become a
Citrix
Performance
Hero
Visit
eG Innovations
Booth 417

44. Free Trial Offer
FREE 30-day Trial
eG on Tap Monitoring Service
Contact eG Innovations to Sign Up
egontap@eginnovations.com
http://www.eginnovations.com
(866) 526 6700