VMware vCenter Server scalability for VDI deployments View

VMware vCenter (ESX) is still a popular platform for VDI deployments, also with QWDV (vWorkspace). This article discusses the limits that vCenter imposes on deployments.

This article talks about VMware View but the same limits apply for other desktop virtualization solution on top of vCenter. When talking about vCenter Server, VMware View administrators frequently ask questions about the scalability differences between desktop and server workloads.  vCenter Server 5.0 has a documented scalability of 10,000 virtual machines. However, VMware View 5.0 has a documented scalability of 2,000 desktops. As of VMware View 5.1 few things changed, as noted below.

VMware Architecture Guide defines the following: “With vCenter 4.1 and 5.0, each vCenter Server can support up to 10,000 virtual machines. This support enables you to have building blocks that contain more than 2,000 View desktops. However, the actual block size is also subject to other View-specific limitations. If you have only one building block in a pod, use two View Connection Server instances for redundancy.”

That is great news, however because of the picture demonstrated below in the VMware Architecture Guide, and because of previous bad experiences with vCenter Server tasks failing to complete because of insufficient resources, administrators and architects in general have start designing VMware View solutions with no more than 2,000 desktops per vCenter.

Source: http://myvirtualcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Screen-Shot-2012-06-22-at-10.29.40-AM.png

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