Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) projects bring many benefits to the data center. The operational gains alone justify VDI. The challenge is getting users to embrace it so that IT can experience those operational gains. User adoption often comes down to how similar the user’s virtual desktop instance performs when compared to their physical desktop/laptop. Storage is one of the key influencers on the user experience.
The I/O demands that VDI places on the storage infrastructure are well documented, the problem is the solution is often to rip out the existing storage infrastructure and replace it with an all-flash array. The reality is not all VDI projects need to go to that extreme to resolve their user performance issues. Performance problems aside, the existing storage infrastructure compliments the VDI workload. In many cases the storage system is hard disk drive-based and is more than adequate for serving the individual files users interact with on a daily basis.
As we discuss in our on-demand webinar, “Achieving VDI Success Without All-Flash Problems“, there are alternatives to an all-flash array. Hybrid arrays, systems that mix flash and HDD, are another alternative, but even these systems require a replacement of the existing storage infrastructure. IT planners that want to extend the life of their current storage infrastructure may want to consider the new generation of caching appliances. These appliances can cache both read and write I/O and do so safely. They also have plenty of flash storage capacity so the chance of a cache miss is minimized significantly. Most importantly they bring high performance to the VDI architecture without replacing the storage infrastructure.
In the webinar, we compare and contrast methods to improve VDI performance as well as provide answers to viewer questions. By signing up for the webinar you can download a copy of our latest white paper, “Addressing VDI’s Fork in the Road Problem“.
Watch On Demand
George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
StorageSwiss.com - The Home of Storage Switzerland 