VDI(Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) plays a vital role in enterprise virtualization. It can support a virtual desktop environment on physical servers, including operating systems, applications, and data required by a PC desktop, to offer users the same desktop experience as a physical machine. Compared with physical desktops, VDI is faster, easier, and more efficient in deploying operating systems. Moreover, VDI supports centralized management of clients to flexibly allocate storage resources, avoiding unnecessary resource waste while saving IT operation costs.

The operating system and applications need to read a large amount of data from the disk for loading and execution to boot VDI. However, a conventional disk array could not handle the intensive I/O load generated from thousands of concurrent virtual desktop sessions, while AccelStor’s NeoSapphire™ AFAs deliver ultra-high IOPS at ultra-low latency levels, facilitating easy VDI management for users. Besides, NeoSapphire AFAs support data reduction and can achieve a 10:1 reduction ratio in the VDI, which means 10TB of data only occupies 1TB of storage space, significantly reducing the cost per GB while increasing the value of storage investment.

• Clones without VAAI/ODX support
Cloning requires ESXi server and network resources, takes a long time to clone, and reduces the performance of virtual machines.

• Clones with VAAI/ODX support
Cloning actually copies a copy of the data on the flash array, consuming flash space and taking longer to complete.

• VAAI/ODX clone of FlexiRemap
When cloning, only the system mapping table needs to be copied, no flash space is consumed, and the cloning time is extremely short.