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Network Support of Streaming - To determine whether a network environment supports Provisioning Services operating system streaming, the following items must be reviewed:
- Security: Ensure that the appropriate TCP Ports required for streaming are allowed or can be enabled on the network.
- Bandwidth: Ensure there is enough available bandwidth between the source and destination of all streamed operating system endpoints, such as streamed desktops or servers. This is extremely important to review when there are WAN connections that are in the data path between the Provisioning Services host and the target devices
- Existing PXE Services: If the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) service is used in an implementation and PXE services are already provided by the network, you must determine if the existing PXE service conflicts with the Provisioning Services PXE boot feature
Network Boot Options - You can configure Provisioning Services to deliver a bootstrap file to a target device using the PXE service or to allow target devices to start from local media instead over the network.
- PXE: Using a PXE service provides a centralized method for managing network starting for Provisioning Services target devices. DHCP can
be used to deliver the PXE service information to target devices; this configuration enables the devices to locate the PXE service on the
network and start from it. PXE-compliant devices can start directly from the PXE service running on the Provisioning Services host. In
many production Provisioning Services implementations, the Boot Device Manager is used because an existing PXE service is already in
place. The PXE service supports the following network protocols:
• DHCP
• TFTP
• BOOTP
Note: Delivering the bootstrap file location with a DHCP service reduces the number of services and increases reliability.
- Boot Device Manager: The Boot Device Manager (BDM) is used to create startup devices, which store necessary initialization settings on an ISO, USB drive, or hard disk partition. Target devices can access startup devices as local media instead of over the network, which is an alternative to traditional DHCP, PXE, and TFTP methods. Startup devices created with BDM work with Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere desktop and server virtual machines.
Note: The BDM.EXE utility is found in C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Server\ by default
Traffic Isolation - When possible, vDisk streaming traffic should be isolated from normal production network traffic, such as Internet browsing, printing, and file sharing. It is best to use multiple NICs: a single NIC for PXE traffic and bonded NICs for streaming the vDisks to target devices. This separation provides more consistent performance to the streamed operating systems and prevents conflicts between the streaming traffic and the production network traffic
Stream Service Traffic Separation - To separate Stream service traffic from LAN traffic, you can connect separate NICs to a PXE network and a LAN.
1. Verify that the network interfaces are on isolated subnets, so that the PXE and LAN traffic are routed separately and do not conflict with each other.
2. Run the Provisioning Services Configuration Wizard to bind the Stream service to the network interface that you want to use for vDisk streaming.
3. Specify the network interface that you want to use for the PXE services from the Provisioning Services host
NIC Teaming - Network I/O on the Provisioning Services host can be a limiting factor in server scalability. Teaming two NICs for throughput provides the server with a maximum of 2 GB of network I/O, which increases the network performance and helps alleviate a potential bottleneck. Teaming the NICs eliminates having a single point of failure by providing redundancy.
Considerations when using NIC teaming:
- Provisioning Services supports Broadcom and Intel NIC teaming drivers
- A target device only fails over to Provisioning Services hosts that are in the same subnet as the PXE boot server
- Provisioning Services does not load balance the network traffic and has no effect on the load balancing of VHDs on Provisioning Services
- This configuration is recommended for use with large-scale Provisioning Services implementations
Note: For a virtualized Provisioning Services host, consider creating a NIC bond at the host level. Having the bond at the physical host-level mitigates the load balancing limitation and reduces the complexity of the virtualized Provisioning Services configuration
- Security: Ensure that the appropriate TCP Ports required for streaming are allowed or can be enabled on the network.
- Bandwidth: Ensure there is enough available bandwidth between the source and destination of all streamed operating system endpoints, such as streamed desktops or servers. This is extremely important to review when there are WAN connections that are in the data path between the Provisioning Services host and the target devices
- Existing PXE Services: If the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) service is used in an implementation and PXE services are already provided by the network, you must determine if the existing PXE service conflicts with the Provisioning Services PXE boot feature
Network Boot Options - You can configure Provisioning Services to deliver a bootstrap file to a target device using the PXE service or to allow target devices to start from local media instead over the network.
- PXE: Using a PXE service provides a centralized method for managing network starting for Provisioning Services target devices. DHCP can
be used to deliver the PXE service information to target devices; this configuration enables the devices to locate the PXE service on the
network and start from it. PXE-compliant devices can start directly from the PXE service running on the Provisioning Services host. In
many production Provisioning Services implementations, the Boot Device Manager is used because an existing PXE service is already in
place. The PXE service supports the following network protocols:
• DHCP
• TFTP
• BOOTP
Note: Delivering the bootstrap file location with a DHCP service reduces the number of services and increases reliability.
- Boot Device Manager: The Boot Device Manager (BDM) is used to create startup devices, which store necessary initialization settings on an ISO, USB drive, or hard disk partition. Target devices can access startup devices as local media instead of over the network, which is an alternative to traditional DHCP, PXE, and TFTP methods. Startup devices created with BDM work with Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere desktop and server virtual machines.
Note: The BDM.EXE utility is found in C:\Program Files\Citrix\Provisioning Server\ by default
Traffic Isolation - When possible, vDisk streaming traffic should be isolated from normal production network traffic, such as Internet browsing, printing, and file sharing. It is best to use multiple NICs: a single NIC for PXE traffic and bonded NICs for streaming the vDisks to target devices. This separation provides more consistent performance to the streamed operating systems and prevents conflicts between the streaming traffic and the production network traffic
Stream Service Traffic Separation - To separate Stream service traffic from LAN traffic, you can connect separate NICs to a PXE network and a LAN.
1. Verify that the network interfaces are on isolated subnets, so that the PXE and LAN traffic are routed separately and do not conflict with each other.
2. Run the Provisioning Services Configuration Wizard to bind the Stream service to the network interface that you want to use for vDisk streaming.
3. Specify the network interface that you want to use for the PXE services from the Provisioning Services host
NIC Teaming - Network I/O on the Provisioning Services host can be a limiting factor in server scalability. Teaming two NICs for throughput provides the server with a maximum of 2 GB of network I/O, which increases the network performance and helps alleviate a potential bottleneck. Teaming the NICs eliminates having a single point of failure by providing redundancy.
Considerations when using NIC teaming:
- Provisioning Services supports Broadcom and Intel NIC teaming drivers
- A target device only fails over to Provisioning Services hosts that are in the same subnet as the PXE boot server
- Provisioning Services does not load balance the network traffic and has no effect on the load balancing of VHDs on Provisioning Services
- This configuration is recommended for use with large-scale Provisioning Services implementations
Note: For a virtualized Provisioning Services host, consider creating a NIC bond at the host level. Having the bond at the physical host-level mitigates the load balancing limitation and reduces the complexity of the virtualized Provisioning Services configuration