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Key features for VDI storage

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One of the biggest trends in IT infrastructure today is dedicated “storage systems” for VDI. I put “storage systems” in scare quotes because many of the vendors making these systems would object to being called a storage system. Regardless, the primary use case driving the sales of many of these systems is as a storage location for VDI. The reason for this is that traditional arrays have proven woefully inadequate to handle the amount and type of IO VDI can generate.

The architecture backing these systems varies greatly but when looking for a dedicated storage solution for your VDI environment, here are the top features I look for:

Speed. This one should be obvious but any storage system dedicated for VDI needs to be fast. Anyone who’s ever designed storage for a VDI environment can tell you that VDI workloads can generate tremendous amounts of most write-IO with very ‘bursty’ workload patterns. Traditional storage arrays with active-passive controllers, ALUA architecture and tiered HDD storage weren’t created with this workload in mind. Trying to design a VDI environment on this architecture can become (in some cases) cost and performance prohibitive. Indeed, many businesses are spending 40%-60% of their VDI budget on storage alone.

Today, the speed solution is being solved with a variety of methods. RAM is being used as a read/write location (e.g. Atlantis ILIO) for microsecond access times. “All flash” arrays are being purpose built to hold 100% SSD drives (Invicta, XtremIO, Pure, etc.). Adding to this, a whole host of “converged” compute/storage appliances are popping up utilizing local disk/flash for increased speed and simplicity (Nutanix, Simplivity, VSAN, ScaleIO, etc.) To reiterate, each of these systems I’ve mentioned can do more than just VDI, but VDI just happens to be a good use case for these solutions in many cases. If you’re looking for a place to put your VDI environment, the ability to rapidly process lots of random write IO should be of paramount concern and you should know that there are currently many ways this can be mitigated.

Data reduction. This one will be more controversial, particularly for non-persistent fanboys. Nevertheless, persistent VDI is a fact of life for many VDI environments. As such, large amounts of duplicate data will be written to storage and as a result, data reduction mechanisms become very important. De-duplication and compression will be the most effective methods and will be preferably in-line. Again, various solutions from Atlantis to Invicta, to XtremIO to Pure all offer these features but with very different architectures. If you have no persistent desktops then this feature becomes less important. However, data reduction can still be quite valuable in many non-persistent VDI architectures as well, as an example, XenDesktop MCS could greatly benefit from storage with de-duplication. I also find that many of my customers who start out thinking they’ll have only non-persistent desktops quickly discover during the course of their migration users who need persistence. Don’t be surprised by the need for this feature at a later point, plan for this at the beginning and make sure your storage platform has the appropriate data reduction features.

Scale. I don’t know how many VDI projects I’ve heard of where storage was purchased to support X amount of users only for the VDI project to take off faster and of larger scale than expected. The project then gets stalled because the storage system can’t handle more than the X amount of users it was designed for and the business doesn’t have enough budget to purchase another storage system. For this reason, any storage dedicated to VDI should be able to scale both “up” and “out”. “Up” to support more capacity and “out” to support more IO. The scaling of the system should be such that it is one unified system…not multiple systems with a unified control plane. The converged solutions are great at this, VSAN, Nutanix, et al. All flash arrays typically have this as well e.g. Invicta, XtremIO.

Ease of Management. This sounds basic and very obvious but make sure you evaluate “ease of management” when purchasing any VDI-specific storage solution. The reason for this is simple, any VDI-specific storage system is bound to have a much different architecture than any array’s you currently have in your environment. The harder it is to manage, the higher the learning curve will be for existing admins. My criteria for determining if a VDI storage system is “easy” to manage is this – “can my VDI admins manage this?” (and that’s no slight to VDI admins!). The management of the system shouldn’t require a lot of legacy SAN knowledge or skillsets. This makes the environment more agile by not having to rely on multiple teams for basic functions and doesn’t burden SAN teams with a disparate island of storage they must learn and manage. Again, many of the converged solutions are great at this as well as some of the newer AFA’s.

There are many other important factors in deciding what to look for in a storage solution for your VDI environment. Whatever the architecture, if it doesn’t include the above four features, I’d look elsewhere.

Note: Vijay Swami wrote an excellent article entitled “A buyer’s guide for the All Flash Array Market”. I found it interesting after I wrote this to read his thoughts and note how many of the things he looks for in an AFA are similar to my top features for VDI storage. Regardless, it’s good reading and if you haven’t already, check it out.



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