Strong Interest in SSD Storage as Solution to Overcome VDI Implementation

Astute
Networks Inc. announced findings from a North American survey on
the dynamics influencing the adoption rate of VDI.

The findings revealed an interest in
SSD flash-based storage as a solution to overcome VDI implementation
challenges including cost, complexity, and performance.

The survey, which was conducted in
December 2012 and was anonymous to the respondents, found that 86% of
respondents that plan to implement VDI in the next year were
considering storage systems that either fully or partially rely on
SSD flash-based technology as a central part of their infrastructure
to support their VDI deployments. This move is influenced by the
benefits flash technology can offer to overcome the barriers
impacting the speed of VDI adoption.

Findings of the survey for those
organizations
that have implemented VDI included:

• 63% identified ensuring a good end-user
  experience as one of their top 2 biggest challenges

• 40% identified ensuring that storage
  systems could support performance requirements as one of their top 2
  biggest challenges

• 57% recognized three benefits of VDI
  for their organization including centralized control of their desktop
  community, better user experience and lower desktop support costs
  findings of the survey for those organizations that have not yet
  implemented VDI included:

• 47% couldn’t see a way that virtual
  desktops would be cost-competitive with real desktops and laptops

• 60% were concerned about potential VDI
  performance issues and the user experience The findings underline the
  performance challenges and user experience challenges that are
  impacting VDI as network and storage resources are pushed to their
  limits.

As a result, enterprises are addressing
the problem by overprovisioning storage resources to gain more
throughput or they simply don’t virtualize their desktops.

The Astute
ViSX performance storage appliance was built to address I/O
intensive applications such as VDI and End User Computing. It
incorporates the DataPump Engine processor that offloads and
accelerates network and storage protocol processing. The combination
of a network-optimized flash and a protocol processor eliminates all
I/O bottlenecks that affect application and VDI performance and
delivers random IOPS performance and IOPS per dollar. The solution
works with all virtualization platforms including VMware vSphere,
Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, and Red Hat RHEV by complementing existing
SAN or NAS environments with a flash-based storage tier.

"These results were not
surprising as VDI is a very I/O intensive application with demanding
performance characteristics that legacy storage architectures and
hybrids simply can’t handle," said Len Rosenthal, SVP of
marketing, Astute Networks. "To overcome the cost and
performance challenges associated with VDI, and its potentially
negative impact on the user experience, IT organizations need to take
a fresh look at next generation storage technologies including
flash-based storage appliances that can function as a high
performance shared resource for hundreds and even thousands of VDI
users. ViSX is the one performance storage solution that can truly
meet these requirements."