Xendesktop Planning Guide User Bandwidth Requirements

XenDesktop Planning Guide: User Bandwidth Requirements
Written by Dennis van Dam

Monday, 09 August 2010 20:55 - Last Updated Monday, 09 August 2010 20:57
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XenDesktop Planning Guide:
User Bandwidth Requirements
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Overview
Regardless of the flavor of virtual desktop being implemented (hosted shared, hosted
VM-based VDI, local streamed, etc.), the network plays a critical role, especially for remote and
branch office users. If the network bandwidth is not planned properly, users will most likely
experience poor performance with their virtual desktop.
When planning a virtual desktop solution, one must
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XenDesktop Planning Guide:
User Bandwidth Requirements
Overview
Regardless of the flavor of virtual desktop being implemented (hosted shared, hosted
VM-based VDI, local streamed, etc.), the network plays a critical role, especially for remote and
branch office users. If the network bandwidth is not planned properly, users will most likely
experience poor performance with their virtual desktop.
When planning a virtual desktop solution, one must think about how the user’s workload will
evolve. The design must be able to support future activities, not just today’s. As can be
observed, the content users interact with is changing from textual-based to more
multimedia-based. Any solution and methodology must be able to account for these changes in
user behavior. Although there is no single answer to the question of how much bandwidth will a
user need, this planning guide provides recommendations on how to estimate the user network
requirements.
 This guide is used to provide bandwidth estimates during the planning and design phase.
Actual results may vary during implementation due to user habits, bandwidth utilization, and
infrastructure implementation.
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 This methodology provides an average bandwidth estimate. Different activities will result in a
burst of traffic (video and printing). It is assumed traffic bursts will be random between users
throughout the workday. If all users have network bursts at the same time, performance will
degrade as adequate bandwidth levels will not be available.
The bandwidth estimates were obtained through the testing procedures identified in the
CTX124457 – Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for Delivering XenDesktop to
Branch Offices white paper. Additional modifications, as explained in CTX125060 - Best
Practices for Optimizing HDX Technologies white paper, can be used to further reduce
bandwidth consumption at the cost of the user experience.
Guidelines
As one would expect, the user experience can degrade as the latency increases and the
bandwidth decreases. Proper network planning must be based on the type of work users are
performing and the overall network topology. The bandwidth requirements of delivering a full
Windows desktop will likely be higher than the bandwidth required for delivering few
applications using a solution like XenApp because a full Windows desktop provides a richer
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experience along with more multimedia and graphical content and is idle less often than when
a user is only accessing few applications.
Estimating network requirements needs planning and following best practices because Citrix
HDX technology tunes itself based on several factors including the servers, end points and the
amount of network bandwidth available. For example, if less bandwidth is available then more
compression is applied.
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Also, to better determine user bandwidth requirements, the user’s activity must be assessed.
Simply estimating bandwidth for Office-based applications will result in inadequate performance
if users also print and access multimedia content. The percentage of time a user spends
working with Office-based applications, browsing the Internet, accessing videos, and being idle
will help in determining the overall bandwidth required.
Planning
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Parameterthe
By calculating (medium workloads)
percentage of time a user is expected to be doing certain activities, a rough estimate
Native XenDesktop
XenDesktop with Branch Repeater
Office-based
43 kbps
31 kbps
Internet
85 kbps
38 kbps
Printing
555-593 kbps
155-180 kbps
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Flash Video
174 kbps
128 kbps
Standard WMV Video
464 kbps
148 kbps
High Definition WMV Video
1812 kbps
206 kbps
Idle
Based on active applications
Based on active applications
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Note
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: These are estimates. If a user watches a WMV HD video with a bit rate of 6.5 Mbps, that user
will require a network link with at least that much bandwidth. In addition to the WMV video, the
link must also be able to support the other user activities happening at the same time. When
the user group is small, it is easy for calculations based on averages to come out short of the
actual required pipe size.
An interesting point with regards to bandwidth usage is during idle time. If the user is idle but
the applications are still active, chances are that there is still a bandwidth element to consider.
Many applications (Outlook, Internet browsers, etc) continue to update the screen through
constant updates and synchronization. These will in turn impact the overall bandwidth usage.
Also, if multiple users are expected to be accessing the same type of content (videos, web
pages, documents, etc.), integrating the Branch Repeater into the architecture can drastically
reduce the amount of bandwidth consumed. However, the amount of benefit is based on the
level of repetition between users.
Note
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: Additional details on the bandwidth estimates can be gathered by referring to the following
Citrix white paper: CTX124457 – Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for
Delivering XenDesktop to Branch Offices.
By using this information, the following formula can be used to estimate the bandwidth
requirements for a group of active users with similar workloads:
Estimated Bandwith:
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Based on the formula, the following scenario is used to help calculate the average network
consumption for a typical 8AM to 5PM workday.
 Office-based: 4 hours
 Internet: 1 hour
 Printing: 15 minutes
 Flash Video: 30 minutes
 Standard WMV Video: 10 minutes
 HD WMV Video: 5 minutes
 Idle: 3 hours (one hour lunch and two, one hour meetings)
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1 The bandwidth usage for idle sessions is not being calculated as part of the formula. It is
often recommended to lock the desktop and enable a screen saver after a short period of idle
time. To conserve bandwidth, the selected screen saver is to blank the screen, thus not
consuming additional bandwidth.
2 Assuming the burst is coming from the user watching High-Definition WMV videos. For own
calculations, utilize the activity that has the largest bandwidth consumption.
For an Average
entire day, a particular user in this scenario would require roughly
Burst
Native XenDesktop
78 kbps
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1812 kbps2
XenDesktop with Branch Repeater
34 kbps
206 kbps
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1 The bandwidth usage for idle sessions is not being calculated as part of the formula. It is
often recommended to lock the desktop and enable a screen saver after a short period of idle
time. To conserve bandwidth, the selected screen saver is to blank the screen, thus not
consuming additional bandwidth.
2 Assuming the burst is coming from the user watching High-Definition WMV videos. For own
calculations, utilize the activity that has the largest bandwidth consumption.
Caution must be taken when using the average value. By averaging out the bandwidth
requirements across an entire day and across many users, there may be a lack of bandwidth if
a large percentage of users have a large burst in traffic at the same time. Based on the
expected user habits, it is advisable to include a bandwidth burst calculation for unexpected
bursts of traffic.
Note
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: Branch Repeater bandwidth estimates assume users are watching and accessing similar
content. If the content is different, the bandwidth savings will not be nearly as great.
For certain environments, additional modifications to XenDesktop and HDX can be

implemented to try and reduce the bandwidth requirements even further. Many of these
modifications reduce bandwidth by slightly degrading the user experience. The estimates used
in this document were based on mostly default configurations. By utilizing additional
functionality, like the following, the bandwidth requirements can be reduced further:
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* More aggressive HDX compression
* Bandwidth limitations on HDX virtual channels
* Reduction in the video rendering frame rates
A more complete list of bandwidth tuning tips can be found by leveraging the CTX125060 -
Best Practices for Optimizing HDX Technologies white paper.
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XenDesktop Planning Guide: User Bandwidth Requirements

Written by Dennis van Dam

Consulting Solutions | WHITE PAPER | Citrix XenDesktop