Moving desktops to cloud requires careful consideration of the costs generated by Compute , Storage and Network . In most of the cases , customers have a fair sizing estimates for Compute and Storage , however they are puzzled with Network . In my experience , i have see the cost to be around $1.5 to $3 / per user / per month on Azure but dont hold me accountable ! please do your own estimate as it can vary for your use-cases. While the blog is focused on estimating the network traffic , you can use the other generated reports to gain visibility into current OS consumption, application landscape, resource consumption considerations to build environment that matches end user needs .
At a high-level there are 4 steps involved and is easy to follow . There is no cost involved and its FREE !
- Register & install Systrack agent
- Allow Systrack to collect data
- Systrack assesses environment against vendor-specific offering
- Voila ! Download the personalized reports
Now lets deep dive into our primary topic i.e estimating the Network usage
- Sign-up with LakeSide Sytrack based on the target solution . Its a cloud based tool and is offered free of charge .
2. Download and deploy LakeSide Sytrack agent on the target endpoints (physical / virtual) to measure the data egress traffic. The target endpoints are the ones that you will be migrating to cloud desktops. To increase the estimate accuracy , install agent on as many endpoints as possible . You can also use SCCM and other tools to automate the agent deployment.
3. Post deploying, run Systrack for 3-4 weeks, collecting the following key metrics including .
• Per Device Network Usage
• Per Session Protocol Bandwidth Usage
• Per Application (and Destination) Bandwidth Usage
4. The Advanced Sizing dashboard shows a summary of data transmission
• Note: dashboard data is in bits, not bytes.
In the following example PCoIP traffic is being estimated, which is the default display protocol for VMware Horizon and AWS Workspaces . Similarly you can choose the protocol for Citrix / WVD .
5. Calculate egress bandwidth in GB using simple formula, from the above example
• Monthly GB egress bandwidth per user =
((9.67/8)*1024) / 92 = 13.5 GB
(Bit to Byte – divide the digital storage value by 8)
So it was that simple ! You dont have to be a Data Scientist 🙂
Stay tuned where we cover more such unexplored areas .