Forum Discussion
AVD pool - performance issues
Hi All,
Hope everyone are doing well ! I have came up with a question would be helpful to share your experience.
In AVD host pools, I have a scenario where I have 50 users assigned to AVD pool, the users are standard users with same average workload per user. They all use Microsoft apps like outlook, chrome, excel. Currently, I have pool configured to run four D8sv3 session hosts.
But after using this settings for 1 week, users are now complaining about performance issues in their sessions. I feel memory should be the major issue.
If I upgrade the pool to eight D4sv3 or eight E4sv3 or two E16sv3 VMs will it resolve the issue?
Can you suggest either one of these options for upgrading the pools configured ?
Thanks.
- Hi,
You should only consider 80% of the cores proposed by your VM.
D16s => maximum 13 users on it
D8s => maximum 6 users on it
That means you have to take 4x D16s to host your 50 users.
4 * 16 * 0.80 = 51 users
That's what we are doing with our clients. Never exceed the 80% of the cores available or you will have performance issues.
Regards What is the usage (%) right now and any other application apart from Outlook, chrome and Excel?
Hi Krishnakumar_M,
Performance issues in AVD environments can indeed be challenging, and it sounds like you're dealing with a resource bottleneck, possibly memory-related as you mentioned. Let's break down the potential solutions and considerations for upgrading your pool configuration.
Current Configuration and Issues: You currently have four D8sv3 session hosts, each with 8 vCPUs and 32 GB of RAM. For 50 users, this setup can be stretched, especially if each user has a moderate workload.
Analyzing the Workload:
- CPU Usage: As per the best practices mentioned by other community members, you should consider using only 80% of the total available cores to avoid overloading.
- 4 x D8sv3 = 4 x 8 vCPUs = 32 vCPUs
- 80% of 32 vCPUs = 25.6 vCPUs for 50 users, which is roughly 2 users per vCPU.
- Memory Usage: Each D8sv3 has 32 GB of RAM, so with 4 hosts, you have 128 GB of RAM total. For 50 users, if memory usage per user is high, this could be a bottleneck.
Upgrade Options:
Eight D4sv3 VMs:
- Each D4sv3 has 4 vCPUs and 16 GB RAM.
- 8 x 4 vCPUs = 32 vCPUs; 80% of 32 = 25.6 vCPUs, still 2 users per vCPU.
- Total RAM: 8 x 16 GB = 128 GB (no change in total memory).
Eight E4sv3 VMs:
- Each E4sv3 has 4 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM.
- 8 x 4 vCPUs = 32 vCPUs; 80% of 32 = 25.6 vCPUs.
- Total RAM: 8 x 32 GB = 256 GB (doubling the total memory).
Two E16sv3 VMs:
- Each E16sv3 has 16 vCPUs and 128 GB RAM.
- 2 x 16 vCPUs = 32 vCPUs; 80% of 32 = 25.6 vCPUs.
- Total RAM: 2 x 128 GB = 256 GB (doubling the total memory).
Recommendation: Given that you suspect memory is the major issue, and to avoid CPU bottlenecks:
- Eight E4sv3 VMs seem to be the most balanced choice. They double your current memory capacity to 256 GB, which should alleviate memory-related performance issues. The CPU allocation remains adequate with the 80% rule applied, and you avoid the complexity of managing fewer larger VMs (like E16sv3).
Additional Considerations:
- Monitoring Usage: Ensure you continuously monitor CPU, memory, and disk usage. Tools like Azure Monitor can help identify the exact resource causing the bottleneck.
- Application Impact: Verify if there are any additional applications running or if specific user activities are causing high resource consumption.
- Autoscaling: Implement autoscaling rules to dynamically adjust resources based on load.
I hope this helps!
- CPU Usage: As per the best practices mentioned by other community members, you should consider using only 80% of the total available cores to avoid overloading.
- In addition to the community comments already posted around sizing - have you looked at using newer version of the VMs? V5s as an example? That will give a performance increase as well and probably cheaper than the V3s. You could also look at the AMD variants which offer more performance than the Intel variants (according to the MS docs) and are often the same price if not cheaper.
In general, the previous answers have already given a good starting point for troubleshooting.
What I'm missing, however, is information about what hard drives are being used on the host?
In my experience, IOPS (read/write) are often a problem in the VDI or AVD space.We therefore always recommend a premium SSD as a minimum standard for AVD.
Regards,
Matthias
