I am pretty excited about this blogpost, last week I was at NVIDIA GTC in San Jose, California. I was invited by NVIDIA to come and talk about my experience with delivering 2D/3D apps with remote graphics solutions from Citrix. In this session I cover the history of remote graphic solutions from Citrix (XenDesktop, XenApp and XenServer) and whats possible to do today with the technologies and how the collaboration is together with NVIDIA. You get an understanding how to build the solution on a high level and then I tell about 4 real world examples, where you get key insights for determining if these solutions are the right for your company.
You will learn how Vestas have been using this technology with Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro since 2008, and how Ramboll uses this for several years and what they gained of implementing remote graphics solutions globally. The third case is a very excited story, which is a POC I did at an Oil client and in this case ,we used the new NVIDIA GRID K2 with Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro and Citrix XenApp HDX 3D + the new OpenGL GPU sharing feature and how this works together with thin clients and collaboration software from CISCO UC, so the business are able to take their 3D application from their desktop session, and share this to a collaboration room and then share this with multiple screens to multiple locations globally and work in 1 place with people and technology combined in place. Amazing stuff. The last case study is how Raysearch Lab have been using Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro to their clients for several years and how they make the world a better place with their software for cancer treatment.
I have been testing this new feature and its truly amazing to see how powerfull this new feature works. You are now able to run multiple users that use 2D/3D CAD,CAM,CAE application on either bare metal attached with a GPU or with VM’s attached with a GPU with GPU pass-through (Citrix XenServer 6.x or VmWare vSphere 5.1) This lowers the cost dramatically and removes some load from the CPU, which some 2D/3D applications used if they supported software rasterizeof OpenGL and most important it delivers an amazing user experience for the user on any device on even poor bandwidth. Citrix XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro is still the top of the flagship when it comes to local user experience, because of the high frame rate it delivers and the deep compression codecs that works great over high latency connections and most important if customers requires 3DConnexion SpaceMouse, this special mouse is working with USB redirection with Citrix XenDesktop and this does not work with Citrix XenApp you have this requirement.
You can now build solutions with XenApp & NVIDIA GRID K1/K2 and increase the user density for the 2D/3D app workloads. Imagine you have 1 server with typically 2 NVIDIA GRID K2 cards. Virtualize the server with either Citrix XenServer 6.x or VmWare vSphere 5.1 and create 4 VM’s with Citrix XenApp 6.5 and attach each Citrix XenApp 6.5 VM’s to a GPU with GPU pass-through. So total 4 Virtual machines and the beauti comes here. Instead its 4 users accessing 4 VM’s you can max out the GPU and in many cases its the CPU cores thats the limitation or the memory or even more important the iOPS. Cause iOPS will be the bottleneck many times in these new solutions, so remember to design this properly. To measure the GPU, Memory, CPU, iOPS, Network load i recommend you use Microsoft Process Explorer this great tool can give you the numbers realtime.
I have made a video of the user experience with different OpenGL applications running on a virtualized Citrix XenApp 6.5 with Citrix XenServer 6.1 GPU pass-through to a NVIDIA GRID K2. I can tell you its truly amazing to see how powerfull this GPU is, the GRID K1/K2 are the GPU’s that will supports the upcoming VGX hypervisor from NVIDIA.
Comments from Citrix early Tech Preview participants have been very positive and informative:
I tested ten OpenGL applications including some Tier 2 apps/games with OpenGL GPU Sharing on XenApp 6.5 and it works brilliantly.
On a system with two NVIDIA Q4000 cards we ran 18 users (ten in one XenApp VM and eight in another VM) using a test app that works with ESRI ArcGIS, and we still had space for more.
Our customer purchased a new dedicated Dell server with an NVIDIA Quadro 6000 and we installed XenApp 6.5 with the OpenGL GPU Sharing feature add-on to test Dassault SolidWorks. The customer said this is “AWESOME”! They said it makes a huge difference; it looks and responds just like at the console. In some cases it performs better than their dedicated desktop systems! They are really impressed.
Running Dassault SolidWorks, Ansys Workbench and Fluent, our tests indicate that customers will hit a CPU limitation before they hit a GPU processing limit or GPU RAM issues. We first tested using an NVIDIA Quadro 4000 card. We got good performance numbers per GPU as the models are not overly complex. Scalability was 6 to 10 users per Q4000. With the new NVIDIA GRID K2 card it seems that the CPU will be the limiting factor. Currently our test XenApp servers have eight cores and around 16-32GB of RAM depending on the application.
We tested on the NVIDIA Quadro 6000 card (448 CUDA cores) with four users all running our most complex animation. The animation runs for 166 seconds with one user. With four users it took just three seconds longer! Considering our timing is manual stopwatch, the margin for error basically says no slowdown with four users. In fact, the Quadra 6000 was able to support 30 users running Dassault 3DVIA Composer Player with only minor slowdown. At 33 users a few users started to experience jerky motion, but the app was still usable. 40 sessions seems to be the limit. The GPU was maxed, not the video memory. My test case was users running the animation non-stop, whereas in real world usage the animation is like a training video and it has forced pause points, so real users would stop at times to read or do work. The point is that the test was harder on the graphics card than the real world is, yet we could run about 30 concurrent users on a Q6000.
More about the Citrix XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on
OpenGL GPU sharing is a feature add-on to XenApp 6.5 to enable graphics processing unit (GPU) hardware rendering of OpenGL applications in Remote Desktop sessions. This functionality can be used on bare metal or virtual machines to increase application scalability and performance. The Citrix XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on is available for download from http://www.citrix.com/downloads. Select Product > XenApp and Download Type > Components
HDX 3D allows graphics-heavy applications running on XenApp to render on the server’s GPU. By moving OpenGL rendering to the server’s GPU, the server’s central processing unit (CPU) is not slowed by graphics rendering. In addition, the server is able to process more graphics because the workload is split between the CPU and GPU. The XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on requires no special settings, but is available only on servers with a GPU that supports a display driver interface (DDI) version of 9ex, 10, or 11.
You can install multiple GPUs on a XenApp server, either by installing a graphics card with more than one GPU, or by installing multiple graphics cards with one or more GPUs each. Mixing heterogenous graphics cards on the server is not recommended.
Note: Virtual machines require direct passthrough access to a GPU, which is available with Citrix XenServer or VMware vSphere. When HDX 3D is used in conjunction with GPU passthrough, each GPU in the server supports one multi-user XenApp virtual machine.
Most users do not require the rendering performance of a dedicated GPU, so OpenGL GPU Sharing enables multiple concurrent sessions to share GPU resources. This functionality does not depend any specific graphics card. When running on a hypervisor, select a hardware platform and graphics cards that are compatible with your hypervisor’s GPU passthrough implementation. The list of hardware that has passed certification testing with XenServer GPU Passthrough is available at hcl.vmd.citrix.com/GPUPass-throughDeviceList.aspx. When running on bare metal, XenApp distributes the user sessions across eligible GPUs; to guarantee that all installed GPUs are eligible, use identical GPUs. Scalability using OpenGL GPU Sharing depends on the applications being run, the amount of video RAM they consume, and the graphics card’s processing power. For example, scalability figures in the range of 8-10 users have been reported on NVIDIA Q6000 and M2070Q cards running applications such as ESRI ArcGIS. These cards offer 6 GB of video RAM. Newer NVIDIA GRID cards offer 8 GB of video RAM and significantly higher processing power (more CUDA cores). Other applications may scale much higher, achieving 32 concurrent users on a high-end GPU.
Note: Some applications handle video RAM shortages better than others. If the hardware becomes extremely overloaded, this could cause instability or a crash of the graphics card driver. Limit the number of concurrent users to avoid hitting the ceiling on resource allocation.
To install OpenGL GPU Sharing on a XenApp 6.5 server
The XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on can be installed on any XenApp 6.5 system, regardless of which hotfixes are already installed. However, Citrix recommends that you install Hotfix Rollup Pack 1 or above before installing OpenGL GPU Sharing. This feature add-on is packaged with Microsoft Windows Installer 3.0 as a .msp file.
For more information about deploying .msp files, see Microsoft article 884016 or visit the Microsoft Web site and search on keyword msiexec. This installer program complies with Microsoft User Account Control (UAC). If UAC is enabled, you must run the installer program in elevated mode; that is, with administrative privileges enabled. For more information about UAC, see Microsoft TechNet or visit the Microsoft Web site and search on keyword UAC. To install this feature add-on successfully, servers must not have registry modification restrictions in place.
Citrix XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on uses the Hotfix Rollup Pack Installation Wizard to install the feature add-on.
Copy the feature add-on package to an empty folder on the hard drive of the XenApp server.
To try experimental GPU acceleration for CUDA or OpenCL applications
Citrix XenApp 6.5 OpenGL GPU Sharing Feature Add-on also provides experimental support for GPU acceleration of CUDA and OpenCL applications running in a user session. This support is disabled by default, but you can enable it for testing and evaluation purposes.
To use the experimental CUDA acceleration features, enable the following Registry
To use the experimental OpenCL acceleration features, enable the following
Registry setttings:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook\AppInit_Dlls\Graphics Helper]
“OpenCL”=dword:00000001
Hi all, i am so excited to share this news with you.
I love that Citrix released in Citrix XenDesktop 5.6 FP1 a new version of HDX 3D Pro, which reduced the bandwidth consumption and increased framerate, this is a huge improvement of the technology that i adore. A lot is happening in this space and soon we will see the new Nvidia VGX card that will be able to virtualize the GPU and have multiple users on 1 GPU. NVIDIA says they will be able to have 100 users using this card. For HDX 3D Pro i would cut that down to 10-20, why cause users that normal works with a card like the Quadro 4000 are using the 256 CUDA cores for 3D rich applications like Autodesk Inventor, Dassault Catia/Solidworks, ProE + more. Again time will tell when Nvidia VGX Model 1 is released and if i know NVIDIA right, they will ship cards with more powerful GPU chips on the VGX in the future.
Nvidia have released a Quadro graphic card thats based on the new Kepler technology. The card is called Quadro K5000.
This card is 1/3 the price of the Quadro 6000 and look at the numbers it delivers in the chart i have created.
The CUDA cores it delivers are so impressive 3x more than Quadro 6000.
The Power consumption is 45% less than the most powerful Quadro card.
** update 22 February 2013
If you want to use the Nvidia Quadro K5000 with GPU pass-through the card is now supported from NVIDIA.
GPU pass-through is supported with Citrix XenServer 6.x and VmWare vSphere 5.1
Above is information confirmed from NVIDIA.
Look out for the Nvidia VGX K2 thats will be sold in Q1 2013. This card is 2x K5000 on 1 card and works with GPU pass-through.
This article contains a list of known hardware-related issues encountered when using Provisioning Services. Virtual hardware issues are also included in this article. Each individual article contains specific information about the issue encountered.
Issues List
CTX131570 – TSBBDM.BIN File Failed to Download in a Hyper-V Environment
CTX131156 – HP Proliant BL 460G7/465G7 Unable to Boot from Boot Device Manager Start Imaging Process
CTX130458 – Teamed NICs Used for Non-Provisioning Services Traffic Fails
RES Software have released RES Automation Manager 2012. RES Automation Manager now supports Linux and better integration with Microsoft System Center. In the following article i will describe whats new in RES Automation Manager 2012.
Whats new in RES Automation Manager 2012
RES Automation Manager 2012 introduces the RES Automation Manager Agent for Linux Operating Systems. With this Agent, you can execute the following new RES Automation Manager Tasks on machines running Linux Operating Systems:
Linux Command (Execute) (“Task “Linux Command (Execute)
Linux Computer (Reboot, Shutdown) (“Tasks “Linux Computer (Reboot, Shutdown)
Linux Resource (Download) (“Task “Linux Resource (Download)RES Automation Manager Agents for Linux need to be installed with a separate installation file. The RES Automation Manager Agents for Linux will run on the following Linux Operating Systems:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 4: 4.5 and higher
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 5: 5.3 and higher
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server release 10: versions higher than 10.0
IBM AIX 5L: version 5.3
Licensing: Evaluation licenses valid for 45 days
When you install RES Automation Manager 2012, 75 evaluation licenses are provided automatically. These evaluation licenses are now valid for 45 days, instead of 60.
New RES Automation Manager Dispatcher: Dispatcher+
RES Automation Manager 2012 introduces a new Dispatcher that has been developed using the latest Microsoft tools. This has enhanced the Dispatcher with the following capabilities:
Improved scalability: The Dispatcher+ is no longer limited to 150 concurrent connections.
Native 64-bit installer.
Resource integrity check: When the Dispatcher+ starts, an integrity check is now performed on the available Resources in the Resource cache of the Dispatcher+. This ensures that Agents can always download valid Resources from the Dispatcher+.
The availability of a Web API provides full support for building and deploying RESTful and SOAP web services. This allows you to integrate Job scheduling in external systems.
The Dispatcher+ logs all events in the Event log, which can be viewed with e.g. the Event Viewer that is part of the Microsoft Windows Operating System.The new Dispatcher requires the installation of Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (full version) on all machines hosting a Dispatcher. Please make sure to update all Dispatcher hosts with this version before installing or upgrading to RES Automation Manager 2012
New RES Automation Manager Upgrade Pack
RES Automation Manager 2012 introduces a new Upgrade Pack: the Upgrade Pack now consists of a standalone executable file. This differs from Upgrade Packs of previous releases of RES Automation Manager, in which you could upgrade your RES Automation Manager environment by importing a .WUP file in the Console. The RES Automation Manager 2012 Upgrade Pack can also be used on machines on which no Console has been installed.
As a result of the new Upgrade Pack, the buttons Update Wizard and have been removed from the node Infrastructure > Datastore > Setup > Components in the Console.
If necessary, it is now possible to downgrade to a previous version of RES Automation Manager by right-clicking the node Infrastructure > Datastore > Setup > Components and choosing Downgrade (WUP).
The RES Automation Manager 2012 Upgrade Pack needs to be deployed manually and is not suitable for unattended installations.
RES Automation Manager 2012 upgrade requirements
RES Automation Manager 2011 SR3 or later
Microsoft Windows XP SP3 Professional or later (x64/x86)
Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 or later: Client Profile is the minimum requirement for the machine on which the Upgrade Pack is run; Full Version (Client Profile and Extended) is required for all Dispatchers. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 Full Version can be installed on your Dispatchers from the Console.
RES Automation Manager samples for RES Automation Manager 2012
RES Automation Manager introduces a set of samples that make it easier to perform certain IT tasks. These samples are Building Blocks of predefined Modules and include hypervisor Modules, Linux Modules and Microsoft Windows Modules. After importing these Building Blocks into your RES Automation Manager environment, you can adapt the predefined Tasks to your situation if necessary.
The samples are included in the file RES-AM-2012-Samples-6.5.0.0.zip, which can be downloaded from the support portal.
The samples cover the following:
Linux Tasks:
Application Management
Disk Management
Network Management
Security Management
Service Management
System Management
User Management
Hypervisor Tasks: These Tasks allow you to manage snapshots and VMs on:
VMware vSphere Hypervisor
Microsoft Hyper-V Server
Citrix XenServer
Additional Tasks:
Citrix XenApp 6.5 Unattended Deployment
Write Event to Microsoft Windows Event Log
Support for Bare Metal OS deployment using WDS and RES Automation Manager
When deploying new workstations or servers, Bare Metal OS deployment usually is the first task that is performed. This task can now easily be carried out by combining Microsoft Windows Deployment Services (WDS) and RES Automation Manager.
For more information about Bare Metal OS deployment using WDS and RES Automation Manager, please refer to the chapter Appendices\Best Practices\Bare Metal OS deployment using WDS and RES Automation Manager of the RES Automation Manager 2012 Administration Guide, available at http://support.ressoftware.com/automationmanageradminguide2012.
Variables
RES Automation Manager 2012 introduces Variables.
When configuring a Task, the values of many fields can now optionally be replaced with Variables. Similar to parameters, Variables function as placeholders for customer-specific values, such as, for example, server names, passwords or credentials. Different from parameters however, Variables are resolved at the moment of Job execution, rather than at the moment of Job scheduling.
The global values of Variables can be set up at Infrastructure > Datastore > Settings > Global Variables. These values are inherited by default by all Teams and Agents, but exceptions for individual Teams and Agents can be set up on the Team’s Team Variables tab and the Agent’s Agent Variables tab.
Team Variables and Agent Variables allow “owners” of a specific Team or Agent to override the Global Variables by specifying a custom-value. This makes Variables especially useful for use in multitenant RES Automation Manager sites, because it makes it easier to manage different settings for different customers and assigned projects, and to exchange Modules, Projects and Run Books with other branches of an organization.
Example
You can set up Global Variables to specify a Domain, Security Context and Domain controller for usage in a Task Manage Active Directory Computer. This creates a generic Task that can be used by all customers in your multitenant site. “Owners” of a specific Team or Agent at the customer site can override the global values of these Variables by specifying a custom-value that only applies to their site. When the Task is executed, the Task automatically gets the correct values that applies to the individual customer site. Depending on the hierarchy of these Variables, these can be the global values, Team-specific values or Agent-specific values.
Video tutorials
As of RES Automation Manager 2012, video tutorials are available that will help you quickly start using RES Automation Manager. These tutorials cover a broad range of subjects, from planning, installing and setting up an environment to using the functionality of RES Automation Manager.
Video tutorials can be accessed from the Help:
Custom Properties from previous versions of RES Automation Manager will automatically be migrated to Variables in RES Automation Manager 2012. Because names of categories in Variables must be unique, any categories in Custom Properties with the same name will be merged into one category in Variables and any existing Custom Properties objects in these categories will be categorized in this category.
A complete list of all available video tutorials by category can be found in the Help, by clicking Help > Video Tutorials from the menu bar of the Console.
Depending on availability, individual tutorials can be accessed from the matching Help topic, by clicking “View tutorial”.
New Tasks in RES Automation Manager 2012
Task “Linux Command (Execute)”
At Repository > Modules, a new Task has been added to the library folder Linux: Execute Linux Commands. With this Task, you can run commands on Agents running on Linux Operating Systems.
Scripts that you run on the RES Automation Manager Agent for Linux using the Task Execute Linux Command cannot include reboot and shutdown commands. Use the Tasks Reboot Linux Computer or Shutdown Linux Computer instead. See Tasks “Linux Computer (Reboot, Shutdown)” (on page 6).
The library Linux and its Tasks will only be available in the Console if your RES Automation Manager environment contains at least one RES Automation Manager Agent for Linux.
Tasks “Linux Computer (Reboot, Shutdown)”
At Repository > Modules, the following Tasks have been added to the library folder Linux: Reboot Linux Computer and Shutdown Linux Computer. With these Tasks, you can reboot or shut down Agents running on Linux Operating Systems automatically. A restart is often required after the installation of new software. These Tasks can also be useful after the execution of a Task Execute Linux Command. See Task “Linux Command (Execute)” (on page 6).
The library Linux and its Tasks will only be available in the Console if your RES Automation Manager environment contains at least one RES Automation Manager Agent for Linux.
Task “Linux Resource (Download)”
At Repository > Modules, a new Task has been added to the library folder Linux: Execute Linux Commands. With this Task, you can download Resources to Agents running on Linux Operating Systems.
The library Linux and its Tasks will only be available in the Console if your RES Automation Manager environment contains at least one RES Automation Manager Agent for Linux.
Tasks “Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (Distribute Software, Query Client)”
At Repository > Modules, the following Tasks have been added to the library folder Provisioning: Distribute Software with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and Query Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Client. You can find these Tasks in the Task library Provisioning.
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager allows you to distribute, configure and manage software across virtual, distributed and mobile environments. RES Automation Manager supports Configuration Manager 2007 and 2012.
With the Task Distribute Software with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, you can deploy software distribution packages on Agents on which a Configuration Manager Client is running.
With the Task Query Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Client, you can:
Create status reports of Configuration Manager clients, including client version, cacheoptions, service states, etc.
Obtain an overview of all software distribution packages that were advertised to Configuration Manager clients, including local status of the advertisement, last run date and exit code.
At Repository > Modules, the following Tasks have been added to the library folder RES Automation Manager: Delete RES Automation Manager Job Results and Export RES Automation Manager Job Results.
With Delete RES Automation Manager Job Results, you can clean up the Datastore from Job results that are no longer relevant, for example because they have become obsolete through Snapshot Intelligence or because they are the results of recurring Jobs.
With Export RES Automation Manager Job Results, you can export Job results to XML files. This allows you to back up Job results for review purposes. This Task is especially useful in combination with the Task Delete RES Automation Manager Job Results, in which you first back up certain Job results by exporting them to zipped XML files, and then clean up the Datastore by deleting them.In these Tasks, you can delete or export Job results from the Datastore, based on a combination of criteria:
The type of Job that was performed (recurring/non-recurring)
The relevance of the Job results (actual Job results/Job results that have become obsoletethrough Snapshot Intelligence)
The Agent(s)/Team(s) that executed the JobThe period in which the Jobs were executed
Task “RES Automation Manager Team Membership (Change)”
At Repository > Modules, a new Task has been added to the library folder RES Automation Manager: Change RES Automation Manager Team Membership. With this Task, you can add or remove Agents from a Team, and offers a more dynamic way of adding and removing Agents to and from Teams.
This Task is typically used in combination with a Task Query Installed Programs in which an evaluator determines whether the succeeding Task Change Team Membership should be executed.
For example, suppose you want to add an Agent to the Team Office if Microsoft Office is installed on the Agent. You can achieve this by setting up a Module that contains the following:
A Task Query Installed Programs with an evaluator for Microsoft Office that fails the Query if it does not return results.
A Task Change RES Automation Manager Team Membership with a condition that executes the Task if the status of the previous Task is Completed. This Task adds the Agent to the Team Office.When the Module is executed, the Agent(s) that execute the Module will be added to the Team Office if Microsoft Office is installed; if not, they will not be added to the Team.
Enhancements and Improvements
Agents: Agents no longer shown as offline when using IBM DB2
When using an IBM DB2 database, all Agents were shown as being offline in the Console. This did not have any consequences for the functioning of these Agents: in reality, they were online and all RES Automation Manager functionality was available. This has been fixed. All online Agents will now also be shown as being online.
Agents: Delete Job history of Agents
At Infrastructure > Agents, it is now possible to delete the entire Job history of individual Agents.
If many snapshots of an Agent are made, for example by using a provisioning server, the Job history of such Agents can become very large and may contain many obsolete entries. In such situations, it can be desirable to clean up the Job history of the Agent.
For this purpose, a button Delete Job History has been added to the History tab of the Agent Properties window, which is available when viewing the properties of an Agent.
It is also possible to delete the Job history of an Agent at Infrastructure > Agents (right-click the Agent, select Delete Job History).
Further informations about RES Automation Manager 2012
For the full release notes read the informations from RES Automation Manager 2012 release notes which can be downloaded from the client portal at www.ressoftware.com
