XenServer 6.x makes it possible of passthrough of multiple GPU’s.

HP blade workstation WS460C is an enterprise solution for this area that fits perfect with Citrix XenServer 6.x multiple GPU passthrough. You can attach an Graphic Expansion to the WS460C so its possible to integrate two graphic cards like (Nvidia FX3800, FX4800, FX5800 or the new fermi cards 4000, 5000, 6000)

The target here is to support high-end 3D professional graphics applications with multiple GPU passthrough. Applications like Autodesk/Dassualt Systems and many more CAD/CAM systems are often using OpenGL and or Direct-X and Citrix provides the full user experience with HDX3D to deliver this everywhere. HDX3D is available both for XenDesktop 4/5.x> and XenApp 5/6.

This article descripes HowTo enable MultiGPU with HP blade workstation WS460C with HP Graphic Expansion blade and Citrix XenServer 6.x

Bios Settings for ws460cG6 with Graphics Expansion Blade

Option “HP Graphics Expander x16”
Help (F1 pressed) associated to this option

“When enabled will allow x16 PCIe connection on HP Graphics Expander slot 1.  Slot 2 will NOT be functional”

HowTo enable MultiGPU in HP WS460c with Graphic Expansion blade

Choose this BIOS setting for “HP Graphics Expander x16” for enabling both graphic cards. When the BIOS setting is disabled the Citrix XenServer 6.x is able to see both Graphic cards and you can then passthrough the GPU’s to the Virtual machines.

HP Graphics Expander x16: DISABLED

• HP Graphics Expander slot 1 : x8
• HP Graphics Expander slot 2 : x8

 Enabling “VT for direct I/O” in the BIOS

HowTo identify the Multiple GPU’s in Citrix XenServer 6.x

Note XenServer 6.x XenCenter Console only shows 1 GPU if you have multiple GPU’s *this is default design belowed explains why:

If you have multiple GPUs in different PCI slots then Xenserver forms the groups of identical GPUs. For example if you have 2 – Quadro 4000 GPUs then there will be one Quadro 4000 GPU group identified by Xenserver.

Now when you try to assign the GPU to a VM from Xencenter it shows the GPU group and not the individual GPU. In your case one GPU group has 2 – Quadro 4000 cards, so you can assign this GPU group to 2 VMs wherein each GPU is attached to an individual VM

If you want to identify that XenServer 6.x is showing multiple GPU’s access local command shell

Execute #lspci to view multiple  GPU’s
In belowed picture you can see i have identified 2 GPU’s with the command #lspci

The long waited Citrix Branch Repeater 6.0 is out for download. Here is whats new in this release.

Release 6.0 is a major software release for the Citrix Branch Repeater. This release contains a number of new features along with bug fixes.

Release 6.0 is the first production release of the Branch Repeater 6.x software, which introduces traffic shaping, enhanced reporting, improved Windows Filesystem and Outlook/Exchange acceleration, and many other features.

Release Highlights

This major release of Repeater and Branch includes a significant number of new features, including:

• Smart Acceleration
  Now traffic can be prioritized based on a variety of different parameters including service class, protocol, QoS parameters, IP address or range, port, etc.  Applications are automatically detected and QoS features can be applied to all traffic including unaccelerated protocols like UDP.

• Extensive Reporting on WAN Bandwidth Utilization
  Repeater administrators will have a vastly improved view into WAN operations and bandwidth utilization with several new dashboards and graphs.
• ICA Prioritization based on Desktop Group or Published Apps
  XenDesktop and XenApp administrators can prioritize traffic on a WAN link based on an individual’s desktop group or a specific XenApp published application.
• Over 500 Pre-Defined Service Classes
  Repeater and Branch Repeater 6.0 includes and automatically detects over 500 pre-defined applications on the WAN.  Priorities can be assigned to the pre-defined service classes so unintended traffic like games can be given very low priority or blocked.
• And Many More Features
  Support for new features in the next releases of XenDesktop and XenApp, new printing acceleration enhancements, SMB2 and encrypted MAPI acceleration, acceleration for Outlook and Exchange 2010 and support for the Citrix License Server.

New Features in Release 6.0

• Traffic shaping which expedites WAN traffic according to user-selectable policies. Both accelerated and non-accelerated traffic are shaped to give full control over the link. Traffic shaping replaces the “Repeater QoS” feature.
• Traffic classification and reporting give greater visibility into WAN traffic. • Multi-stream ICA support provides a better user experience for XenApp and XenDesktop by combining acceleration with enhanced traffic shaping.
• Vista/Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 Filesystem acceleration. New SMB2 accel- eration features increase remote filesystem performance.
• Windows filesystem acceleration. Signed SMB can now be accelerated.
• Enhanced MAPI Acceleration. Encrypted connections between Outlook and Exchange Server can now be accelerated.
• Support for multiple links. In previous releases, Branch Repeater had a single-link model. Release 6.0 supports up to ten independent links, each with its own link speed, so traffic can be shaped precisely on every link.
• Remote license server support. Release 6.0 allows a remote network license server to supply the Branch Repeater licenses, simplifying deployment.
• Dashboard page provides a quick view of current system status.
• “Features” page. The product’s enable/disable toggles have been combined on a single page.
• Simplified menu structure. The number of top-level menu categories has been reduced. Entries within a category are now alphabetized. Similar functions have been combined into a single page, such as “Advanced Deployments,” which con- tains the functionality of the old high-availability, WCCP, group-mode, and proxy-mode pages.

Compatibility

Note: The Repeater Plug-in is not included with release 6.0 Plug-ins from prior releases will interoperate with Appliances running release 6.0

Note: Branch Repeater with Windows Server is not included in release 6.0 Branch Repeater with Windows Server Appliances from prior releases will interoperate with Appliances running release 6.0

Supported Products

Bellowed figure shows supported products and platforms for Citrix Branch Repeater

Supported Branch Repeater VPX Configurations

Release 6.0 is supported on Branch Repeater VPX running on both XenServer (5.5 and 5.6, but not 5.6 FP1) and VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi 4.1 hypervisors.

Note: The User’s Guide incorrectly states that VMware vSphere ESX 4.0 is supported. The correct list is “ESX 4.1 and ESXi 4.1.”

Note: The User’s Guide incorrectly states that the “Enable Bridging” feature is on the “System Status” page, when it is on the “Features” page.

RAM and vCPU requirements have increased with this release. See Figure 2 and Figure 3.

Licensing

Release 6.0 supports both remote license servers and locally installed licenses. If you are upgrading an existing system with a local license, it will continue to work.

Branch Repeater VPX supports two license types: remote and local licenses

• Production licenses use remote licenses hosted on a Citrix license server. Production licenses include retail, CSP, and annual licenses
• Non-production licenses (such as VPX Express and Eval licenses) are installed locally on the Branch Repeater VPX virtual appliance
• Annual and CSP licenses need to be installed on your license server

Sources (require MyCitrix ID)

Download Release notes for Citrix Branch Repeater 6.0 here

Download Quick Installation Guide for Citrix Branch Repeater 6.0 here

Download User Guide for Citrix Branch Repeater 6.0 here

Download Branch Repeater VPX for Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere Software Release 6.0 here

Download Citrix Branch Repeater Appliance Software Release 6.0 here

I want to share this hint with you about my experience with XenServer 6 Technical Preview…

My goal was to install XenServer 6  on some HP WS460C workstations and BL460 servers in a HP C7000 enclosure, the workstations and servers where good to go but after the XenServer 6 TP installer hits the first issue. The server keeps rebooting when it tries to initialize hardware and then start all over again and again and again… “the bunny methoed”. Would i ever get my XenServer 6  installed or was i getting my expertations to high.. towards the cloud i looked and i did verify that the current released XenServer 5.6 Sp2 had no problem installing on the hardware. With a little help of my friends the solution was simple but weird. I hope Citrix will fix this in the final release of XenServer 6 when its shipped.
* update 13/10-2011 this is not fixed in XenServer 6. 

The solution to get XenServer 6 installer up and running is by doing following:
Go to “Power Management Options” >> “Advance power management options” >> “Minimum Proc Idle power state” = Set to “No C-State”

The issue is a known issue on HP, Dell, IBM maybe others..

CTX127395 explains about How – Hosts Become Unresponsive with XenServer 5.6 / (6)

Symptoms

Random server lockups

XenServer hosts intermittently and without any apparent reason become completely unresponsive and lose network connectivity, serial console access and local console access. To recover, a hard reboot is required in most circumstances. Examination of logs and traces typically fails to provide an explanation on why the issue occurred.

Hosts that are experiencing this issue mighgt display the following log entries that indicate long idle periods leading up to the system freeze:

Oct 11 15:02:58 HOSTNAME — MARK –
Oct 11 15:22:58 HOSTNAME — MARK –
Oct 11 17:54:06 HOSTNAME syslogd 1.4.1: restart.
Oct 11 17:54:06 HOSTNAME kernel: klogd 1.4.1, log source = /proc/kmsg started.The freeze can be identified in the time gap between 15:22 to when the server is rebooted at 17:54. Had the server been “alive” after 17:54, it would have continued to log – MARK – every 20 minutes where there was no other system activity.

Frequency of occurrences have varied from multiple times per day to once every 10 days or so. Servers where all CPU cores are kept constantly busy might never encounter the issue, because no core ever goes into a deep C-state.

Other issues

In addition to the total system freezes, C-states have been linked to a number of less severe misbehavior, such as erratic network performance, bus resets on storage adapters, random crashed processes, and unexplained low system performance.

Cause

The Nehalem CPU architecture introduced new power-saving features for CPUs in the form of deep C-states which the CPU cores can enter during idle periods, essentially allowing partial power-down of the CPU. Unfortunately, processors, the same as software, have bugs. Rather than call them bugs, Intel prefer to call them “errata”, and there are a number of known CPU errata in both the Nehalem and Westmere CPU cores with regards to the new C-state features. In particular, under certain conditions C3/C6 state transitions can lead to system freezes and other erratic behavior. As software platforms have been updated to include support for these new power saving features, the real life results of these errata have gradually come to light, and problems have been observed on every software platform that has implemented support for the deep C-states (see “External links” at the bottom of this document). Older operating systems, including versions of XenServer prior to 5.6, were not affected because they did not yet make use of the new C-state features, and thereby never encountered these CPU problems.

Citrix engineering is still investigating the exact mechanisms by which the errata lead to the observed symptoms. Currently, the errata most strongly believe to be the cause of the full system hangs are as follows:

For Nehalem:

75xx – BA80
55xx – AAK120
35xx – AAM108
34xx – AAO67

For Westmere:

56xx – BD59
36xx – AAY54

Detailed descriptions of the CPU errata can be found on Intel’s tech docs site, at the following site. The relevant documents are under the “Specification Updates” heading.

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor/xeon3000/technical-documents/

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor/xeon5000/technical-documents/

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor/xeon7000/technical-documents/

Resolution

Go into the BIOS menu and make the following changes:
Set C-states to Disabled.
Set Turbo Mode to Disabled.

If your server BIOS has power management options that leave power management to the BIOS rather than the operating system, such as Dell’s Active Power Controller mode, also disable this and set the power management options to OS Control.

Examples of Dell and HP BIOS screen shots with C States support are listed below:

Dell Servers:

HP Servers:

Note: Some manufacturers are now shipping their servers with C-states turned off in BIOS, by default. IBM appears to have done this from the start, and Fujitsu reportedly has C-states turned off in their latest BIOS revisions.

Status

The core problem is faults in the hardware implementation of the new C-state features in this generation of CPUs. Citrix is investigating what software workarounds can be put in place to avoid these issues, but recommends that on current affected hardware, C-states should remain disabled in the BIOS until Intel can provide a CPU microcode update that makes C-states behave as designed.

More Information

Affected hardware:

Potentially any server based on the Nehalem and Westmere architectures. This includes

Nehalem:

Xeon 75xx, 55xx, 35xx, 34xx

Westmere:

Xeon 56xx, 36xx

A comprehensive table of CPUs based on the Nehalem and Westmere cores can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(microarchitecture)

Special note on Broadcom 5709 / 5716 NIC cards

Servers with the Broadcom 5709 and 5716 adapters have proven to be particularly susceptible to the system freeze issue. One suspected link is that the Broadcom driver included on the XenServer 5.6 installation disk contains a known defect (RHBZ 511368) which leads to a lost interrupt vector and subsequent loss of network connectivity when the server is under load. This, in turn, can lead to the server and virtual machines becoming idle because of a lack of network requests, which causes the CPUs to enter the problematic C-states, with resulting hang. Servers with these Broadcom NICs thereby become susceptible to freezes both under low and high system load.

Disabling C-states prevents the Broadcom driver bug from causing hangs, but Citrix nonetheless strongly recommends that customers with Broadcom cards contact Citrix Technical Support to receive an updated driver disk.

External links for further reading:

Dell – http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2010-May/042280.html

Microsoft – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2000977

IBM – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5083648

IBM – http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5085841&brandind=5000008

VMware – http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1028656

Oracle – http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=1924462&start=15&tstart=0

RedHat – https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-26837 (available for Red Hat subscribers)

V.U.E.M – VirtuAll User Environment Manager its out and its free…

lets digg in

This free tool, developed by CTP, Pierre Marmignon was designed as a companion to User Profile Manager, a Citrix tool that provides an easy, reliable way to manage user personalization settings (i.e., user profiles) in Windows environments. User Profile Manager is a whiz at managing user profiles, but it does not replace login scripts. Using VUEM with User Profile Manager, you can avoid login scripts to manage your user profiles and, while you’re at it, you can manage your entire environment… everything on your desktop including your applications.

With VUEM, you can manage your desktops while:

• Eliminating login scripts – With VUEM, you can replace all your login scripts with a centrally managed tool, allowing you to manage all actions the most complex script can do and more. VirtuAll User Environment Manager has been designed to provide a new flexible and efficient solution for virtual desktops environment composition. No more scripts to maintain, only a single console managing the user desktop!
• Optimizing user experience — Includes two different agents: the Console Agent, a command line application designed to execute all actions silently and exit after tasks are done (like a standard logon script), and the UI Agent that will execute with a splash screen and stay in memory after tasks are done. The user will be able to call the UI Agent via a systray icon, and this interface will provide additional features and customizations.
• Getting centralized management – With an easy-to-use admin console, gathering all configuration settings, adding a new application shortcut on a specific virtual desktop is now a matter of seconds! All configuration settings are stored in a central Microsoft SQL Database (SQL Server 2000 to 2008 R2, Express Editions supported) ensuring great performance and reliability.
• Improving visibility – VUEM is using a user based log file to trace all actions. To find applied settings at a glance administrators can also use Administration Console Modeling Wizard or user side Resultant Actions Viewer.
• Deploying with ease – Agents are stateless so you do not have to specify any setting during setup. All you have to do is to deploy them silently and then activate them through Group Policies.

Released in June 2011, VirtuAll User Environment Manager (aka V.U.E.M) is an environment management tool designed for Virtual Desktops but that can also run on traditional desktops.

It’s purpose is to get rid of login scripts that can be really powerfull but hard to maintain and make evolve.

To do so, VUEM is able to manage lots of actions like :

• Applications Shortcuts
• Network Printers
• Network Drives
• Virtual Drives
• Environment variables
• Registry Values
• Ports (COM / LPT) Mapping
• Ini Files Entry
• External Tasks Execution
• File(s) / Folder(s) Operations
• File Associations Management
• User DSN Creation

VUEM is also providing utilities improving your virtual desktops users experience

• Fast Logoff
• CPU Management
• Memory Management
• Processes Management

Architecture

• VirtuAll User Environment Manager Administration Console and Agents are written in C# 4.0.
• All Agent actions are written using unmanaged API calls wich means that the Agent is calling directly the Windows API do process actions. This ensures the fastest possible performances while managing User Environment.
• SQL Server Database (2000 to 2008 R2, including express releases) ensures that are all configuration settings are retained in a secure database platform.
• The VirtuAll User Environment Manager Database model has been designed for efficiency and has been validated on environments containing up to 10 000 concurrent users.

To ensure consistency and performances, Offline mode localhost cache is running Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 3.5

Components

The VUEM package includes two different types of client-side agents:

Note: Both agents are provided with translation files including English, Spanish, French and German, and additional languages can be added if needed.

• Console Agent is a command line application designed to execute all actions silently and exit after tasks are done (like a standard logon script):
• UI Agent executes with a splash screen and stays in memory after tasks are done. It is then accessible through a systray icon. As shown below, just right-click on this systray icon to get a menu that includes options to Refresh Settings and Manage Printers (that allows the user to override the default printer selection).
• The VUEM package also includes a management console that allows the admin to manage all settings centrally:
  

Licensing

There are two user license editions that work with unlock codes, one for the community called a Community License and one for each subscriber a support contract, called a Subscriber License. A Community License is a free version with no support contract, and a Subscriber License is delivered with a Maintenance & Support Package that can be purchased via PayPal for an annual cost of approximately $9 USD per user. Register for free on the VirtualDesktopsInfo.com site to view VUEM support contracts, access downloads, and participate in the support forums. Note: These two editions currently have the same feature set; however, feature sets are subject to change.

Background

This project started a year and a half ago by Pierre Marmignon, a Citrix Technology Professional and active community contributor, who is well known for the useful management tools he has built and freely provided for the benefit of the virtualization community and industry.

Pierre noticed that the community was missing a free baseline user environment manager, so he decided to build one using adapted freeware and scripting. His main goal was to eliminate the need for login scripts that can be difficult to maintain and evolve, and he has met this goal with the VUEM tool that he has publicly released today!

Sources

Download V.U.E.M – VirtuAll User Environment Manager here
* requires you to register an account ;O) its free

Download V.U.E.M Quick Start Guide here

Visit V.U.E.M – VirtuAll User Environment Manager Support Forum

VUEM Community License Key – * note the community license key is valid 1 year.
VUEM Release Notes - Current version of VUEM is v1.0.3.

Kudos to Pierre Marmignon for this great work.

Whats next to expect.. a full analysis comparing

• RES
• AppSense
• Liquidware Labs
• Citrix Profile Manager
• FlexProfiles
• Tricerat
• SepagoPROFILE
• VirtuAll User Environment Manager

Ruben Spruijt might be the man for delivering the results on this in PQR UEM Smackdown;o)

Citrix and IBM have created this great whitepaper on howto size baseline and reference configuration on XenDesktop on XenServer on IBM Hardware

Overview

The overall goal of this White paper is to provide sizing baselines for the deployment of Citrix XenDesktop on IBM BladeCenter Servers running Citrix XenServer.

A laboratory environment was created to test and validate the different components of the IBM hardware and the XenDesktop solution. The main focus of all tests conducted in the laboratory was to define the optimum number of virtual desktops that can be hosted on a single IBM BladeCenter HX5 server.

Reference configuration of the environment, methodology for conducting tests, and the findings from tests performed are presented in this document.

This document assumes that the reader has an architectural understanding of blade server hardware, storage area networks, and the Citrix XenDesktop Platinum components.

Executive Summary

The laboratory environment used for conducting all tests was based on the IBM BladeCenter HX5 Blade Server and the IBM System Storage N5200.

A total of two BladeCenter HX5 servers were used. Each featured dual 1.86GHz Nehalem-EX processors with Intel Hyper-Threading enabled. Both servers were equipped with 50GB solid state drives (SSD), dual port Gigabit NICs, and Qlogic Fiber Channel adapters. Memory configurations included 64GB of DDR3 RAM for the blade hosting virtual infrastructure servers and 128GB for the blade hosting the virtual desktops.

The IBM System Storage N5200 featured a cluster of two controllers and the IBM EXN4000 disk expansion unit with 14 FC 15K HDDs. The N5200 was attached to the HX5 Blade servers via 2Gbit Fiber Channel.

The latest release of the Citrix XenDesktop 5 components available at the time of testing were used to build the laboratory virtual desktop infrastructure. The XenDesktop 5 Site consisted of:

• Two (2) Desktop Delivery Controllers for brokering and managing the virtual desktops
• Two (2) Provisioning Servers for OS provisioning.

Citrix Licensing and Web Interface servers were also deployed as part of the environment. All of the XenDesktop 5 infrastructure servers were virtualized on XenServer 5.6 FP1.

Tests conducted within the laboratory environment validated the Citrix XenDesktop 5 hosted VDI solution running on the XenServer platform with IBM BladeCenter HX5 servers. Single server scalability tests show a single IBM BladeCenter HX5 server being capable of supporting an optimum number of 80 virtual desktops with a “medium user” workload using Microsoft Office 2010 on Microsoft Windows 7 Professional.

Memory utilization was determined to be the main bottleneck limiting the server from effectively hosting additional desktops with the XenServer virtual desktop host reporting 98% of RAM utilization with 80 active desktops.

A combination of tools was used to simulate user load, monitor resource utilization, and gather data in order to validate the reference configuration. The latest version of the Login Virtual Session Indexer (VSI) 3 from Login Consultants was used for load testing and capturing system response time data. Other tools used for benchmarking and monitoring the environment included Citrix XenCenter, Citrix VM Performance Utility, Windows Performance Monitor, and NetApp’s ONTAP .

Click here to download whitepaper - XenDesktop on XenServer and IBM Hardware – Sizing Baseline and Reference Configuration