Understanding the Floating VDI Power Management Modes in VMware Horizon Cloud on Azure

In VDI Environment, there are two types of Desktops Assignment

• Floating = In this case every time user connects with the desktop pool, user can get any available desktop from the desktop pool. Which means desktop is not Persistent

• Dedicated = In this case every time user connects with the desktop pool, user will get the same desktop from the desktop pool. Which means desktop is Persistent.

There is no Power Management Mode available for Dedicated desktops, it is only available for floating desktops.

In this post, i will discuss about if you have created Floating VDI Desktop in Horizon Cloud on Azure then what are the power management modes available and how these are helping organizations to minimize the cost of running Desktops in the Cloud.

Power Management Modes

There are three power management modes available in Horizon Cloud on Azure

Low Threshold = This is used to Power off the VDI Desktop in VDI Deskop Assignment

High Threshold = This is used to Power on the VDI Desktop in VDI Deskop Assignment

Example Scenario

VDI Assignment Setting

• Min Desktops = 1
• Max Desktops = 10
  
• Power Management Mode = Optimized Performance

Formula to Calculate Load

Active sessions / unassigned powered on desktops) x 100 = utilization%

When Desktop is Powered On in VDI Assignment?

As my assignment capacity is Max. 10 Desktops, all 10 VM's will be created upfront but as the min desktops is 1 due to this out of 10 only 1 will be powered on

When Another Desktop is Powered On in VDI Assignment?

As Powered on desktop is assigned to one of user now based on formula i have discussed my pool utilization is 100%

1/1*100 = 100%

As the result of this one more vm will be powered on as shown in this example vm2 is powered on

Now if two desktops are assigned to two users, again both the powered on vms are consumed as the utilization is again 100% (2/2*100) then two more vm's wlll be powered on to keep the utilization as per the threshold

2/4*100 = 50% Utilization

When Desktop is Powered off

Lets assume 6 VM's were powered on over the time period and out of this only 1 is in assigned to the user. Now the current utilization is below the low threshold

1/6*100 = 16.67% Utilization

Now 4 VMs will be powered off

Once all the users are logged out, then only number of minimum desktops specified in the Pool will be in the powered on state, rest all will be powered off. In our scenario Min Desktops is equal to 1.