Optimizing Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops with SAN Storage Integration

[leoarthur]

Hello everyone,

I’ve been working on optimizing our Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops (CVAD) environment and am looking for some advice on best practices when it comes to storage solutions—specifically, integrating SAN storage for enhanced performance and scalability.

We’ve been using a local storage solution for our CVAD infrastructure, but as our deployment grows, I’m considering transitioning to SAN storage for better scalability and performance. From my research, it seems that SAN storage could offer more reliable performance, especially when dealing with a larger number of virtual machines (VMs) and high-density workloads, but I want to make sure I’m going about it the right way to fully leverage Citrix technologies.

Here are a few specific questions I’m hoping to get some insights on:

1. Performance and Latency: How has your experience been with SAN storage when deployed in Citrix environments? Any tips on mitigating latency issues or optimizing the storage layer for low-latency access, especially with shared storage across multiple Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops instances?
2. Storage Configuration: When configuring SAN storage for Citrix, are there specific best practices or configurations that work well for Citrix VDAs (Virtual Delivery Agents)? I’ve seen discussions about the use of clustered file systems—should we be looking into something like this for our deployment?
3. Disaster Recovery and High Availability: We are looking to improve our disaster recovery plan and high-availability setup. Has anyone had success integrating SAN storage with Citrix’s built-in redundancy and failover features? How do you ensure that your storage system doesn’t become a single point of failure?
4. Integration with Citrix Cloud: As we move more towards Citrix Cloud, how should we approach the integration of SAN storage? Does Citrix Cloud work seamlessly with SAN, or are there other storage options that might integrate more effectively?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Jeff Riechers]

SAN is tied to the hypervisor, so CVAD and cloud will work with anything.  The big thing is to look into what hypervisor you are using, and what features are supported with what type of hypervisor.

In particular, look for something that supports thin provisioning, and redundant multiple GB links for best performance.

[Paul Murray]

Might want to look at Nutanix as well

 

1. Performance and Latency: Performance and Latency stays linear as you scale out the Nutanix clusters. This is something that is difficult with SAN technology
2. Storage Configuration: The Nutanix layer can be scaled as needed. Essentially is presents a single storage pool to CVAD. No need for LUNS, storage balancing etc, All done by automatically Nutanix 
3. Disaster Recovery and High Availability: Built into Nutanix. Automated via runbooks?
4. Integration with Citrix Cloud: Nutanix can use a thing called Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) as well as the native Cloud Connectors built into the product,

Happy to explain more if needed.

[Nicola Campaci]

Hi,

The correct section for these questions is Citrix DaaS & Virtual Apps & Desktops:
https://community.citrix.com/forums/forum/25-citrix-daas-virtual-apps-desktops/

This section of the forum is mostly followed by Netscaler administrators.

In the other forum section, you’ll find more experts on Virtual Apps & Desktops who will be able to assist you better