Sizing XenApp Azure VMs


When we size XenApp virtual machines for an on-premises deployment, we often talk about larger servers and NUMA. But what about sizing XenApp instances if we host in Azure? Azure has an extensive library of instances, with each instance providing different amounts of CPU, RAM, storage and GPU options. If we run the same scalability… Continue reading Sizing XenApp Azure VMs

Sizing Windows 2016, Windows 2012 and Windows 10 Virtual Machines


It has been almost one year since Windows Server 2016 was released at Microsoft Ignite. Are the virtual machine sizing recommendations for Windows Server 2012R2 applicable to Windows Server 2016? And since we are talking about sizing virtual machines for XenApp and XenDesktop, it might be a good time to revisit Windows 10. Let’s first… Continue reading Sizing Windows 2016, Windows 2012 and Windows 10 Virtual Machines

XenServer PVS Accelerator Cache Sizing


How large should we make our PVS Accelerator cache? Too large and we waste resources. Too small and we lose the performance. Let’s take a step back and recall our best practice for sizing the RAM on Provisioning Services.  We would typically say allocate 2GB of RAM for each vDisk image the server provides.  This… Continue reading XenServer PVS Accelerator Cache Sizing

Sizing XenApp Windows 2012R2 Virtual Machines


I guess I’m not done yet. Last week, I posted the latest recommendations on sizing Windows 10 and Windows 7 virtual machines for a XenDesktop environment.  I received a few replies from people asking for any updates regarding Windows 2012R2. Unfortunately, when we discuss Windows 2012R2 and XenApp, the recommendations are not as straightforward as… Continue reading Sizing XenApp Windows 2012R2 Virtual Machines

Sizing Windows 10 and Windows 7 Virtual Machines


After reviewing all of the scalability tests we conducted over the past few months, I thought it was time to revisit the recommendations for sizing Windows 10 virtual machines.  I also reached out to Nick Rintalan to see if this is in line with what is currently being recommended for production environments (if you disagree,… Continue reading Sizing Windows 10 and Windows 7 Virtual Machines

Sizing XenDesktop 7 App Edition VMs


In the Mobilizing Windows applications for 500 users design guide, we made the recommendation to allocate 8vCPUs for each virtual XenDesktop 7 App Edition host (formerly known as XenApp). Spreading this out across a server with two Intel Xeon E5-2690 @2.9GHz processors and 192 GB of RAM, we were yielding about 200 users per physical… Continue reading Sizing XenDesktop 7 App Edition VMs