As part of the XenDesktop implementation planning process, IT administrators may want to execute scalability testing to establish target numbers for virtual desktop density and hardware requirements. Citrix Consulting has utilized the Login VSI tool from Login Consultants to execute scalability testing for XenDesktop. Login VSI is commonly referenced as a standard within the virtual desktop community and was designed for benchmarking Server Based Computing (SBC) and Desktop Virtualization (VDI) solutions including Citrix XenDesktop. The Login VSI tool consist of two key components, the Login VSI Launcher and the Login VSI workload. The focus of this paper is to provide guidance on utilizing the Login VSI Launcher in conjunction with a custom Python script to launch simultaneous XenDesktop connections that simulate a large number of end-users accessing the environment.
It should be noted that Citrix Consulting recommends leveraging Citrix EdgeSight for Load Testing 3.8 when performing scalability testing for XenDesktop 5. Guidance for utilizing EdgeSight for Load Testing 3.8 with XenDesktop 5 and the Login VSI workload has been documented by Citrix Consulting with step-by-step instructions on the Citrix Knowledge Center. The EdgeSight for Load Testing 3.8 tool is available to Citrix customers as part of XenDeskop 5 Platinum Edition and provides a collective view of the performance metrics for all respective XenDesktop components, but for IT Administrators who are looking to either execute scalability testing with XenDesktop 4 (EdgeSight for Load Testing is not supported with XenDesktop 4) or utilize the Login VSI tool‟s Launcher component with XenDesktop 5 must leverage a custom Python script to perform scalability testing. This configuration guide provides step-by-step instructions for tailoring the custom Python script for an individual XenDesktop environment and configuring the Login VSI Launcher to execute that respective Python script.

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