VDI Resource Calculator - v1.0
This may come in handy for those of you planning to deploy a VDI environment. I built this excel "calculator" so hopefully people can get a quick idea of the amount of hosts needed based on their own desktop requirements. I also built this as my group is being looked at to help others with their own VDI solutions.
Before I go into what should be modified, let me go over some assumptions I made and why.
- Disk is left out since most deployments I have seen are using a hybrid/all flash arrays.
- Also, MOST VDI installations I am seeing in the field are using Linked-Clones unless there is a specific business requirement to use Full-Clones. The FC pools are usually quite small.
- Your VDI management block is on completely separate hardware from your desktop block.
- All desktops are Windows 10 64-bit LTSB
When you download the excel sheet you'll notice a few things. In the top there is a large grey area where you can input your expected desktop counts for standard (task worker) and workstation (heavy graphical needs). The values I put in by default are what I use in our standard VDI desktops pools.
Sheet two is a very simple total resource calculator for our standard management block. The counts may seem odd to some, but when I post my architecture diagram it should make more sense.
Keep in mind this is v1.0 so there are many more improvements coming soon. Some of which are:
- Consolidated results.
- Ability to select "No GPU" - although as long as CPU/RAM capacity is less than GPU capacity results will be the same.
- Expanded vGPU selections.
Keep an eye out for v1.1, my take on VDI architecture, and why you should and shouldn't use View 7 Instant clones.
Stay tuned!