To improve the performance of VDI desktops in an 8-node Nutanix VDI environment, consider the following key performance indicators:

Cluster Memory Utilization: 80%- This high level of memory utilization suggests that the cluster is experiencing memory pressure. Insufficient memory can lead to increased swap activity, affecting the overall performance of the VDI environment.

Cluster SSD Utilization: 70%- This level of SSD utilization indicates that storage performance is still within acceptable limits. Therefore, adding more SSD storage may not provide a significant performance boost.

Average VM CPU Wait Time: 11%- A high CPU wait time can be indicative of CPU contention, but in this scenario, it is more likely secondary to memory constraints.

CVM CPU Utilization: 75%- CVM utilization is moderately high, but not at critical levels. This suggests that the CVMs are performing their management functions adequately.

Given these conditions, adding more memory to the nodes will help reduce memory pressure, improve overall system performance, and reduce CPU wait time as VMs will have enough memory to operate efficiently without excessive swapping.

References:

Nutanix Bible, Performance Optimization section​​.

Nutanix-Community-Edition-Getting-Started, Memory and Performance tuning​​.