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There are a number of reasons to create different virtualization clusters in an EUC
design. The decision to have different clusters is typically going to be driven by
different workloads and cluster size. A lot of time won't be spent on this subject in
this eBook, but here are a few recommendations that build on the topics covered
elsewhere in the broader book and online.
First and foremost, when building a VDI design of more than a few hundred users,
it is essential to separate the virtualization management infrastructure from the VDI
workload. This means that all of the management servers, VDI brokers, file servers,
application management servers, and any other functions that are not virtual desktops
should be running in a different cluster.
Whether the management cluster needs to be one just dedicated to the EUC design is
going to depend on how large the environment will be. If the design is smaller, one
can run management VMs in an existing server virtualization cluster. It is possible to
scale these virtual desktop clusters up to reach a size that is between 16-32 hosts. This
range allows for a larger resource pool to be created for VMs to use, and also pushes
most customers to adopt a cluster that is larger than their typical sizes. Recent hypervisor
updates allow for clusters up to 64 hosts, but it will take time for many architects and
customers to feel comfortable going that large. If the environment is large enough
that the host counts would exceed these ranges, there would be a need for more than
one VDI cluster.
Virtualization
Cluster Design
