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XenDesktop Planning Guide:
User Bandwidth Requirements

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Overview
Regardless of the flavor of virtual desktop being implemented (hosted shared, hosted VM-based
VDI, local streamed, etc.), the network plays a critical role, especially for remote and branch office
users. If the network bandwidth is not planned properly, users will most likely experience poor
performance with their virtual desktop.
When planning a virtual desktop solution, one must think about how the users workload will
evolve. The design must be able to support future activities, not just todays. As can be observed,
the content users interact with is changing from textual-based to more multimedia-based. Any
solution and methodology must be able to account for these changes in user behavior. Although
there is no single answer to the question of how much bandwidth will a user need, this planning
guide provides recommendations on how to estimate the user network requirements.
This guide is used to provide bandwidth estimates during the planning and design phase.
Actual results may vary during implementation due to user habits, bandwidth utilization, and
infrastructure implementation.
This methodology provides an average bandwidth estimate. Different activities will result in
a burst of traffic (video and printing). It is assumed traffic bursts will be random between
users throughout the workday. If all users have network bursts at the same time,
performance will degrade as adequate bandwidth levels will not be available.
The bandwidth estimates were obtained through the testing procedures identified in the
CTX124457 Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for Delivering
XenDesktop to Branch Offices white paper. Additional modifications, as explained in
CTX125060 - Best Practices for Optimizing HDX Technologies white paper, can be used to
further reduce bandwidth consumption at the cost of the user experience.
Guidelines
As one would expect, the user experience can degrade as the latency increases and the bandwidth
decreases. Proper network planning must be based on the type of work users are performing and the
overall network topology. The bandwidth requirements of delivering a full Windows desktop will
likely be higher than the bandwidth required for delivering few applications using a solution like
XenApp because a full Windows desktop provides a richer experience along with more multimedia
and graphical content and is idle less often than when a user is only accessing few applications.
Estimating network requirements needs planning and following best practices because Citrix HDX
technology tunes itself based on several factors including the servers, end points and the amount of
network bandwidth available. For example, if less bandwidth is available then more compression is
applied.

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Also, to better determine user bandwidth requirements, the users activity must be assessed. Simply
estimating bandwidth for Office-based applications will result in inadequate performance if users
also print and access multimedia content. The percentage of time a user spends working with
Office-based applications, browsing the Internet, accessing videos, and being idle will help in
determining the overall bandwidth required.
Planning
By calculating the percentage of time a user is expected to be doing certain activities, a rough
estimate can be determined for HDX bandwidth requirements, which is shown in the follow table:
Parameter (medium
workloads)
Native XenDesktop XenDesktop with
Branch Repeater
Office-based 43 kbps 31 kbps
Internet 85 kbps 38 kbps
Printing 555-593 kbps 155-180 kbps
Flash Video 174 kbps 128 kbps
Standard WMV Video 464 kbps 148 kbps
High Definition WMV Video 1812 kbps 206 kbps
Idle Based on active
applications
Based on active
applications
Note: These are estimates. If a user watches a WMV HD video with a bit rate of 6.5 Mbps, that user will require
a network link with at least that much bandwidth. In addition to the WMV video, the link must also be able to
support the other user activities happening at the same time. When the user group is small, it is easy for calculations
based on averages to come out short of the actual required pipe size.
An interesting point with regards to bandwidth usage is during idle time. If the user is idle but the
applications are still active, chances are that there is still a bandwidth element to consider. Many
applications (Outlook, Internet browsers, etc) continue to update the screen through constant
updates and synchronization. These will in turn impact the overall bandwidth usage.
Also, if multiple users are expected to be accessing the same type of content (videos, web pages,
documents, etc.), integrating the Branch Repeater into the architecture can drastically reduce the
amount of bandwidth consumed. However, the amount of benefit is based on the level of repetition
between users.
Note: Additional details on the bandwidth estimates can be gathered by referring to the following Citrix white paper:
CTX124457 Performance Assessment and Bandwidth Analysis for Delivering XenDesktop to Branch Offices.
By using this information, the following formula can be used to estimate the bandwidth
requirements for a group of active users with similar workloads:

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Based on the formula, the following scenario is used to help calculate the average network
consumption for a typical 8AM to 5PM workday.
Office-based: 4 hours
Internet: 1 hour
Printing: 15 minutes
Flash Video: 30 minutes
Standard WMV Video: 10 minutes
HD WMV Video: 5 minutes
Idle: 3 hours (one hour lunch and two, one hour meetings)
1

For an entire day, a particular user in this scenario would require roughly
Average Burst
Native XenDesktop 78 kbps 1812 kbps
2

XenDesktop with Branch
Repeater
34 kbps 206 kbps
Caution must be taken when using the average value. By averaging out the bandwidth requirements
across an entire day and across many users, there may be a lack of bandwidth if a large percentage of
users have a large burst in traffic at the same time. Based on the expected user habits, it is advisable
to include a bandwidth burst calculation for unexpected bursts of traffic.
Note: Branch Repeater bandwidth estimates assume users are watching and accessing similar content. If the content
is different, the bandwidth savings will not be nearly as great.
For certain environments, additional modifications to XenDesktop and HDX can be implemented
to try and reduce the bandwidth requirements even further. Many of these modifications reduce
bandwidth by slightly degrading the user experience. The estimates used in this document were
based on mostly default configurations. By utilizing additional functionality, like the following, the
bandwidth requirements can be reduced further:

1
The bandwidth usage for idle sessions is not being calculated as part of the formula. It is often recommended to
lock the desktop and enable a screen saver after a short period of idle time. To conserve bandwidth, the selected
screen saver is to blank the screen, thus not consuming additional bandwidth.
2
Assuming the burst is coming from the user watching High-Definition WMV videos. For own calculations, utilize
the activity that has the largest bandwidth consumption.

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More aggressive HDX compression
Bandwidth limitations on HDX virtual channels
Reduction in the video rendering frame rates
A more complete list of bandwidth tuning tips can be found by leveraging the CTX125060 - Best
Practices for Optimizing HDX Technologies white paper.


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Revision History
Revision Change Description Updated By Date
1.0 Document created Daniel Feller Lead Architect July 28, 2010





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