Citrix DasS on Azure: FSLogix Profile Management

[Suman Kumar Saurabh1709163824]

I am going to deploy Citrix VDIs on Azure for 10,000 users.
One subscription support only 2500 VDIs so will be using 4 different subscriptions.
One Azure file share support up to 100 TB so it can handle around 2500 users with 40 GB disk each. So would need 4 or more file shares.

All the 10,000 VDIs will be in same OU, how can i define multiple file shares for the users?
I know one way to create 4 different OUs or 4 different GPOs and link to Computer group but i am looking for best way to do it. Please assist.

 

Also need to consider future expansion.

[CarlStalhood]

See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/configure-per-user-per-group-ht

[Suman Kumar Saurabh1709163824]

3 hours ago, Carl Stalhood1709151912 said:

See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/configure-per-user-per-group-ht

Thank you Carl for sharing this , however it seems still we need to manage multiple groups and have to make sure users are distributed.

FYI: I am using Fslogix cloud cache.

[James Kindon]

There are a few considerations you need to be looking at here, not just the number of VM's and file share capacity, but also around the number of file handles for example that an Azure File Share can handle (particularly with FSLogix), you will blow that limit before you blow the capacity 

 

At this scale, you would are going to need to manage groups and placement of users, profile locations, desktop assignments etc

[Suman Kumar Saurabh1709163824]

On 3/1/2023 at 7:18 PM, James Kindon said:

There are a few considerations you need to be looking at here, not just the number of VM's and file share capacity, but also around the number of file handles for example that an Azure File Share can handle (particularly with FSLogix), you will blow that limit before you blow the capacity 

 

At this scale, you would are going to need to manage groups and placement of users, profile locations, desktop assignments etc

Thank you James for your response. Could you please share any reference article to read about Azure NetApp files handle capacity specifically for FSLogix. 

We are going to use Azure NetApp in production, currently using Azure files until storage team give us NetApp.

 

I am still not sure how to handle multiple files/volume and distribute users dynamically with simple approach. Security is not in the favor of creating multiple OUs and we need to define VHDX location of multiple file share/ volumes for 10,000 machines residing in single OU. I read one of article published by James-rankin about powershell script but that script re-write registry all the time when it runs. 

 

I am wondering how other people are handling this ?

[James Kindon]

2 hours ago, Suman Kumar Saurabh1709163824 said:

Thank you James for your response. Could you please share any reference article to read about Azure NetApp files handle capacity specifically for FSLogix. 

We are going to use Azure NetApp in production, currently using Azure files until storage team give us NetApp.

 

I am still not sure how to handle multiple files/volume and distribute users dynamically with simple approach. Security is not in the favor of creating multiple OUs and we need to define VHDX location of multiple file share/ volumes for 10,000 machines residing in single OU. I read one of article published by James-rankin about powershell script but that script re-write registry all the time when it runs. 

 

I am wondering how other people are handling this ?

Whilst this is a Microsoft AVD article, the concepts here are very relevant.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/wvd/windows-virtual-desktop-fslogix 

 

Specifically, for ANF

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/wvd/windows-virtual-desktop-fslogix#azure-netapp-files-best-practices

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/store-fslogix-profile

 

For the user distribution side of things, I re-wrote that script a couple of years back to make it more robust and flexible, same concept, different code (better code). The logic here is distribution based on available capacity - but I don't think that is the best logic for your deployment (pretty sure my code is in production in the environment referenced in Rankins article)

https://github.com/JamesKindon/Citrix/blob/master/FSLogix/DistributeContainerShares.ps1

 

I don't know why security are involved or having any form of say based on an OU or AD group layout, this has nothing to do with security, it's about architecture and providing an appropriate distribution of users. FSLogix has the ability to user per user/group based deployments as per Carl initial link -> not sure why that wouldn't be followed or would be of concern

[Suman Kumar Saurabh1709163824]

On 3/7/2023 at 5:01 PM, James Kindon said:

Whilst this is a Microsoft AVD article, the concepts here are very relevant.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/wvd/windows-virtual-desktop-fslogix 

 

Specifically, for ANF

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/wvd/windows-virtual-desktop-fslogix#azure-netapp-files-best-practices

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/store-fslogix-profile

 

For the user distribution side of things, I re-wrote that script a couple of years back to make it more robust and flexible, same concept, different code (better code). The logic here is distribution based on available capacity - but I don't think that is the best logic for your deployment (pretty sure my code is in production in the environment referenced in Rankins article)

https://github.com/JamesKindon/Citrix/blob/master/FSLogix/DistributeContainerShares.ps1

 

I don't know why security are involved or having any form of say based on an OU or AD group layout, this has nothing to do with security, it's about architecture and providing an appropriate distribution of users. FSLogix has the ability to user per user/group based deployments as per Carl initial link -> not sure why that wouldn't be followed or would be of concern

Thanks for the details James. I discussed with our team and currently we are thinking to use group based FSlogix settings shared by Carl above. Once we test and conclude it fulfil our all the requirements , will move to production.

[James Kindon]

have fun - good scale project