Nutanix G9 and Citrix Desktop as a Service: Windows Desktops

July 1, 2024

In this reference architecture, Nutanix provides an in-depth analysis of deploying Citrix Desktop as a Service (DaaS) on Windows Desktops, with a particular emphasis on performance optimization. It details the architecture, installation procedures, and best practices for configuring the system to enhance performance. Key focus areas include advanced performance tuning, security considerations, and troubleshooting techniques designed to ensure a robust and efficient virtual desktop environment. This document particularly focuses on differences in capacity and performance between Windows 10 and Windows 11, Nutanix G7, G8, and G9 as well as MCS and PVS. The guide aims to help administrators achieve maximum system performance and reliability through meticulous setup and continuous optimization.

On Nutanix, available host CPU resources drive Citrix Desktop as a Service user density, rather than any I/O or resource bottlenecks for virtual desktops. Login Enterprise test results showed densities at 130 sessions per Nutanix node for virtual workloads running the Login Enterprise knowledge worker workload. Nutanix offers a pay-as-you grow model that works like public cloud.

The results show that if you use MCS-published or Provisioning-streamed servers to linearly scale the Citrix Desktop as a Service on Nutanix solution, the system maintains the same average response times regardless of how many nodes you have. The results from the tests performed on three generations of hardware (G7, G8, G9) show that upgrading to a newer generation improves user experience and increases density per node.

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