Atlantis looks to unclog VDI storage bottlenecks
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Atlantis ILIO storage optimization technology offloads virtual desktop I/O traffic before it affects storage.
Atlantis Computing is attempting to solve a huge problem for desktop virtualization: storage.
Virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) can lower the cost of desktop computing, increase security and make the desktop more agile. That's because virtual machines allow multiple users to maintain their own personal desktops while sharing the resources of a single computer or server located in a central location.
But the shared resources model inherent in desktop virtualization can also cause challenges for organizations, said Scott Thompson, solutions architect with Atlantis Computing,
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If storage is not properly deployed in virtualized environments and organizations try to scale to thousands of desktops, “that is where the pain” begins, Thompson told an audience of government and industry representatives at The Virtualization Exchange hosted by Accelera Solutions in Arlington, Va,. April 24.
In a VDI environment, the memory and processor remains on the physical server although closely coupled to the virtual desktop. But data storage is relocated to centralized storage-area network or network-attached storage environments.
As VDI deployments are moved into production, unpredictable workloads can overwhelm storage devices and cause performance degradation during times of peak traffic, Thompson said.
VDI workloads are interactive, which make them different from other workloads. “Users can impact other users,” Thompson said. The most important component of VDI is the user. If hundreds of users are not satisfied with their virtual desktops because they are too slow, it doesn’t bode well for VDI deployments, Thompson noted.
Atlantis ILIO storage optimization technology attempts to solve this problem by offloading virtual desktop I/O traffic before it impacts storage. When the Microsoft Windows operating system and applications send I/O traffic to storage, Atlantis ILIO, a software-based appliance, intercepts and intelligently de-duplicates all traffic before it reaches storage.
Atlantis ILIO processes up to 90 percent of Windows I/O request in memory so the VDI environment requires less storage to operate with the same performance of physical PCs.
Atlantis ILIO supports major hypervisors from Citrix and VMware, any type of storage for VDI and controls how Microsoft Window operating systems interact with VDI storage, Thompson noted.