Handbook VIRTUALIZATION CLOUD DEVELOPMENT APPLICATION IT HEALTH NETWORKING ARCHITECTURE STORAGE CENTER MANAGEMENT DATA BI/APPLICATIONS RECOVERY/COMPLIANCE DISASTER SECURITY

1 EDITOR’S NOTE Manage Your VDI 2 Storage Costs VDI PERFORMANCE Storage doesn’t have to be the stumbling block to your virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) project. Careful planning and the 3 VIRTUAL DESKTOP right tools can keep storage performance up and its price down; CONFIGURATION learn how to size your VDI implementation. 4 REDUCING VDI COSTS EDITOR’S NOTE 1 VDI Project Action Steps: Evaluate, Test and Prepare

It seems like everywhere you look—or at Beyond that initial cost assessment, there Home least everywhere you work—you can find some- are several crucial things to consider. IT pros one talking about the advantages of virtual undertaking VDI projects must set clear project Editor’s Note desktop infrastructure (VDI) projects. The ben- goals, evaluate and investigate licensing mod- efits of VDI over traditional PC implementa- els, know network requirements and, perhaps VDI Performance tions are well known in the IT community. For most importantly, have a clear understanding storage managers, simpler provisioning and im- of user activity on desktops. There are common Virtual Desktop Configuration proved security are often at the top of the list. VDI project pitfalls that can be avoided, and a But experienced storage pros also know the set of best practices (and free tools) that can Reducing potential downsides: cost and performance. help guide a VDI implementation so it delivers VDI Costs The most compelling reason for VDI isn’t likely all the potential benefits. to be strict ROI. Instead, the reason for VDI If you’ve decided on a VDI project for your implementations can be found in a changing, shop, this handbook can help you chart a mobile workforce, often working on their own course with practical advice from experts who devices, and needing to secure and manage have completed successful VDI projects and data. Indeed, it’s the cost of VDI projects that seen first-hand how the technology delivers on can be intimidating at the outset. In the quest its promise. n to keep customers—end users—happy, storage pros conducting VDI implementations have to Ellen O’Brien decide how much to invest in solid-state drives Executive Editor or how much spinning disk to use. SearchVirtualStorage.com

2 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VDI PERFORMANCE 2 Avoid VDI Performance Issues With Monitoring, Testing and Tools

There are many third-party software tools like those from SwiftTest, to accurately simu- Home and products that enable data center managers late how well the underlying VDI storage in- to plan effective virtual desktop infrastructure frastructure will perform based on a variety Editor’s Note (VDI) deployments. From freeware monitoring of real-world testing scenarios. The insights to internal testing methods, a range of preven- gained from utilizing benchmark performance VDI Performance tive measures can help organizations avoid VDI tools will enable you to identify up front which performance issues and end-user discomfort, components will be needed to support data Virtual Desktop Configuration as well as free up storage and staff resources. movement on the network infrastructure side as well as in back-end data stores. Reducing What’s more, products like Login VSI and VDI Costs VDI PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION SwiftTest can be used post-deployment to Ideally, a virtual desktop infrastructure should help you gain visibility into any potential per- be thoroughly tested and benchmarked prior formance bottlenecks that may creep into the to going live. Basic freeware tools like ioMeter environment as you plan for changes to the in- can be used to do some initial measurements; frastructure, such as adding more virtual desk- however, to get a more in-depth picture of how tops to another network segment. the VDI environment will perform under pro- There are also VDI assessment tools, such duction loads, more advanced tools like Login as those from Liquidware Labs. That offering VSI can be used to simulate close to real-world relies on software to perform an assessment of end-user desktop activity. the environment, and then suggests which us- Likewise, you can leverage testing appliances, ers will be most suitable to having the desktop

3 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VDI PERFORMANCE 2 experience virtualized and which ones will Xangati may provide a more comprehensive not. These products are unique because they suite of VDI performance monitoring technol- calculate the workload required by the current ogy. Some universal VDI performance issues, desktop environment, rather than the potential like boot storms, aren’t nearly as prevalent in environment. a virtual server infrastructure. The aforemen- tioned companies offer products that provide Home in-depth analysis and monitoring of infra- DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS structure-related conditions unique to VDI Editor’s Note From a day-to-day management perspective, environments. some industry experts suggest monitoring Xangati provides a VDI performance moni- VDI Performance storage IOPS as a way to judge system loads. toring framework with DVR rollback capabili- This is fine for establishing a general base- ties to review both historical and real-time I/O Virtual Desktop Configuration line of VDI performance during peak load activity. This is particularly useful for isolating conditions; however, it’s not an ideal tool for storage performance issues and determining Reducing troubleshooting problems in real time. The the root causes of activities that cause con- VDI Costs challenge here is that unless you happen to tention storms. Likewise, eG Innovations has observe a system bottleneck when it occurs in management tools that take historical data real time, it will be very difficult to determine from the VDI infrastructure and establish a whether the performance issue is storage or baseline for what constitutes normal per- network related; and even then, it will be diffi- formance activity. When baseline activity is cult to ascertain the root cause. breached, VDI administrators are notified. While there are many companies that offer For example, in a large university campus virtual server monitoring solutions, it’s impor- setting, VDI administrators could plan for peak tant to distinguish VDI from virtual machine demand activity at the end of a semester as (VM) monitoring. For these reasons, com- students use their virtual desktops for exam panies like eG Innovations, SolarWinds and preparation, term paper submissions and so on.

4 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VDI PERFORMANCE 2 On the other hand, a rush of students access- VDI workloads are read I/O-oriented. To cir- ing a recorded lecture the day before an exam cumvent this limitation, companies like Alac- may be less predictable. Having an automated ritech and Avere Systems have developed NAS system to track historical activity can at least caching appliances to “front end” existing NAS provide VDI administrators with some insight storage systems. as to how to proactively plan and react to such Home events. As a NAS storage back end Editor’s Note approaches 40% utilization or MANAGING VDI STORAGE TIERING higher, read I/O begins to suffer VDI Performance AND CAPACITY USAGE as write I/O workloads are queued Many organizations are leveraging networked- Virtual Desktop ahead of read I/O activity. Configuration attached storage (NAS) devices to serve up VDI storage resources. Oftentimes, these are exist- Reducing ing storage assets that are being re-purposed. By providing an intelligent front-end cach- VDI Costs NAS devices work very well for servicing VDI ing appliance, read I/O workloads can be auto- workloads provided their storage capacity matically loaded into flash or solid-state drive and performance is carefully monitored and storage to provide highly optimized read I/O managed. performance. This has the dual benefit of ex- The inherent challenge is that many NAS tending the life of the existing NAS array, as systems are specifically optimized for write I/O it can be dedicated to serving up write I/O ac- performance. As a NAS storage back end ap- tivity—which it was designed for—while also proaches 40% utilization or higher, read I/O acting as a relatively low-cost storage reposi- begins to suffer as write I/O workloads are tory for inactive data sets. queued ahead of read I/O activity. This spells Once VDI storage capacity has been provi- trouble for VDI deployments as the majority of sioned to optimize both read and write I/O

5 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VDI PERFORMANCE 2 activity, the question of the best way to moni- want to sidestep from the outset as backing tor ongoing storage capacity can be addressed. up a VDI environment may impact network The onboard storage management tools from bandwidth and result in the consumption of the NAS caching device and the back-end NAS SAN storage resources. Virtual desktops con- array, for example, can be used to determine sist of either static desktop images, with some growth rates for capacity planning purposes. minor user customized settings such as those Home Leveraging a VDI monitoring framework to au- deployed for shift workers in a customer call tomate the collection of this data is particularly center, or remote desktops that are frequently Editor’s Note useful, especially for VDI deployments in ex- disconnected from the corporate network for cess of 1,000 desktops. knowledge-based workers such as sales reps VDI Performance Overall storage growth is rarely, if ever, pro- working in their respective territories. portional across the various users consum- In either case, automating the backup pro- Virtual Desktop Configuration ing VDI storage resources. For this reason, it’s cess so end users aren’t charged with protect- helpful to gain better insight by isolating the ing their own data is the most consistent and Reducing biggest consumers of VDI storage resources. reliable method to ensure that critical business VDI Costs VDI monitoring frameworks, like those listed data assets are safeguarded. above, provide tools that automate the collec- In the case of a remote end user, there are tion of storage usage data across wide VDI user a variety of backup tools that can non-intru- deployments to enable more accurate storage sively protect data each time an endpoint de- capacity planning. vice is connected to the company network. Through pervasive backup technologies such as change block backup, compression PROTECTING VDI DATA and deduplication, the data can be efficiently As with many technology projects, data pro- trickled over the network for safekeeping at tection or backup is often treated as an after- a centralized data center facility—whether it thought. This is a pitfall that IT planners will is on the premises or at a third-party cloud

6 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VDI PERFORMANCE 2 backup provider site. For static virtual desktop protection of corporate data while relieving environments, data can be centrally managed IT from the continual churn of responding to on a NAS or SAN device, and be periodically desktop crashes, viruses and so on. What’s protected via disk snapshots that are offloaded more, greater IT efficiencies and savings can to a disk backup appliance system and/or tape be derived by consolidating desktop data into a library. centralized storage and backup repository. Home From a data recovery standpoint, backup Unlike server virtualization, however, VDI tools that provide self-service restore capa- hasn’t enjoyed the same level of relative adop- Editor’s Note bilities for individual documents or files will tion. This is due, in large part, to concerns over contribute to end-user VDI satisfaction while the end-user experience and the total cost of VDI Performance lifting the burden of fulfilling these types of ownership to deploy and manage VDI com- mundane requests from IT help desks or ad- pared to a traditional desktop infrastructure. Virtual Desktop Configuration ministrators. In the event of a lost or damaged By augmenting existing data storage re- laptop in the field, IT administrators can man- sources with offerings designed to accelerate Reducing age the data restoration process centrally and VDI performance, IT organizations can reduce VDI Costs expedite shipment of the new device as policies the initial capital outlay required to seed a VDI dictate. deployment. As importantly, end-user quality of service can be more reliably managed by le- veraging third-party software tools that collect END GOAL: ACCELERATING VDI PERFORMANCE and aggregate performance-related data for en- For businesses that support a large desk- hanced centralized command and control. top end-user base, VDI can enable better —Colm Keegan

7 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VIRTUAL DESKTOP CONFIGURATION 3 Configuring Storage for Virtual Desktops

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) achieving appropriate levels of performance as Home enables IT departments to centralize the ap- it is about allocating ample disk capacity. plications and services offered on their users’ Editor’s Note desktops into the data center. Users have some sort of “thin client” device locally, but typically THE CENTRALIZATION ISSUE VDI Performance have no local data or applications installed. When desktops are dispersed across the IT in- The desktop operating system runs within a frastructure, the disk capacity they require is Virtual Desktop Configuration virtual machine in the virtual infrastructure. generally provided by low-cost SATA drives in- Although analogous to server virtualization stalled within each physical machine. A directly Reducing in that virtual hosts are placed on physical attached SATA drive is capable of meeting even VDI Costs server resources, VDI presents some differ- the maximum I/O demands of a typical desk- ent and unique challenges for data storage top. Any performance impact or data loss from management. a drive will only affect that PC or laptop. As A typical Windows virtual desktop deploy- storage is centralized, the potential impact of ment may require more than 20 GB of shared storage-related problems is significantly in- storage capacity, depending on the applications creased with any data loss possibly affecting installed. In addition, each of those desktops hundreds or thousands of users. In addition, on average will consume 5 IOPS to 10 IOPS, centralization of desktop data in a VDI envi- rising to about 10 times that at 50 IOPS to 100 ronment creates a large random I/O workload IOPS during boot time. Configuring storage profile, which is the most challenging to deliver for virtual desktops is usually as much about on storage arrays.

8 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VIRTUAL DESKTOP CONFIGURATION 3 Maintaining adequate I/O performance also maintenance, and the technical and administra- requires dealing with large I/O peaks known tive support required to manage multiple in- as “boot storms.” VDI is user-driven and users stances of desktop operating systems. typically log onto their desktop in the morn- As desktop storage is centralized into the in- ing and log out as they prepare to leave work frastructure supporting the virtual desktops, the at the end of the day. Most users logon activity cost of deployment of the storage piece can be Home is likely to occur between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., high, as required performance and capacity levels creating a boot storm that generates a large can be challenging to achieve. Editor’s Note number of read requests as the desktops start up. Similarly, at the end of the day when us- VDI Performance ers log off, saving their work and closing down SPACE-SAVING TECHNIQUES their desktops, large amounts of random write You should consider any opportunity to reduce Virtual Desktop Configuration I/Os are generated. Both of these peaks must storage consumption as essential within a VDI be addressed by the VDI infrastructure as any deployment. There are two space-reduction Reducing delay in response translates directly into lost technologies that fit well with VDI: thin pro- VDI Costs productivity. visioning and data deduplication. Thin provi- sioning ensures that virtual desktops use only the capacity required to accommodate the data TCO AND ROI that’s actually written to disk by the host oper- You must also consider the issue of total cost ating system regardless of how much capacity of ownership (TCO) and the return on invest- the desktop is actually allocated. So if a desk- ment (ROI) of deploying a virtual desktop in- top’s drive is configured for 20 GB but only frastructure. The savings realized by deploying 10 GB is actually used, then the thin volume VDI come from reducing end-user hardware appears as 10 GB rather than the 20 GB that’s costs, including the cost of the physical device, been allocated. Thin provisioning provides as well as the costs associated with ongoing the opportunity to size VDI drives based on

9 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VIRTUAL DESKTOP CONFIGURATION 3 future requirements without wasting current The VDI layer typically handles resources. cloning and replication on block- Data deduplication technology finds common based solutions, but in file-based files or blocks within a storage array and elimi- implementations­ cloning is per- nates duplicate copies, while retaining meta- data and setting pointers to track shared usage. formed by the storage array itself. Home Within VDI environments, deduplication is an excellent technology for storage space reduction. Editor’s Note Typically, desktops are built from a master im- either block (SAN) or file-level protocols (net- age, which is a customized desktop created espe- work-attached storage). Both platforms may VDI Performance cially for VDI environments. Individual desktops offer the space-saving features described here, are replicated from the master image by creating but the implementations differ slightly. The Virtual Desktop Configuration clones. The clones yield excellent deduplication VDI layer typically handles cloning and replica- ratios, as most of the desktop content is static tion on block-based solutions, but in file-based Reducing operating system data. On certain VDI platforms, implementations cloning is performed by the VDI Costs such as VMware View, deduplication is man- storage array itself. At the outset this may not aged within software through the use of replicas seem an important distinction; however, it and linked clones that automatically handle the does enable the work of creating clones to be tracking of changed data. offloaded to the array itself.

SAN VERSUS NAS PERSISTENT AND NON-PERSISTENT DESKTOPS In any discussion of storage space reduction for VDI desktops can be deployed with the abil- virtual desktops, it’s worth spending a moment ity to retain user configuration settings (such to address the storage protocol alternatives as shortcuts) across boots; these are known as for VDI deployments. Storage for VDI can use persistent desktops. Non-persistent desktops

10 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VIRTUAL DESKTOP CONFIGURATION 3 don’t retain any configuration information be- handle the most active VDI data. Storage tier- tween boots and effectively reset the user each ing is therefore essential in VDI solutions to time the virtual desktop starts up. In addition, achieve TCO and ROI benefits. local user data can be provided through map- ping to a local file server. SOLUTION SAMPLER Home Storage vendors typically address VDI storage PERFORMANCE CONSIDERATIONS requirements by deploying high-performing Editor’s Note Any storage system space-saving features will storage based on SSD and Fibre Channel drives. have a tradeoff in terms of sacrificing some However, there are a number of other vendor VDI Performance performance. The master images and replicas approaches that specifically deliver optimized deployed in a VDI solution will be subject to storage for VDI. Virtual Desktop Configuration significant read I/O activity, so they should be Atlantis Computing Inc. offers Atlantis ILIO, placed on the fastest storage media available, a software application optimized for VDI en- Reducing preferably solid-state drives (SSDs). vironments based on Citrix XenDesktop and VDI Costs Of course it’s not essential to place all virtual VMware View. The ILIO software layer reduces desktop data on SSDs—it will likely be cost- latency, I/O to physical disk and storage capac- prohibitive to do so. Where possible, tiered ity requirements. As a result, VDI solutions us- storage implementations should be used to al- ing ILIO can be deployed simply using low-cost, low high-performing devices such as SSDs to high-capacity SATA drives.

Tiered storage implementations should be used to allow high-performing devices such as SSDs to handle the most active VDI data. Storage tiering is therefore essential in VDI solutions to achieve TCO and ROI benefits.

11 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS VIRTUAL DESKTOP CONFIGURATION 3 NetApp Inc. filers are well suited for VDI meeting random I/O. Products from Nimbus deployments. NetApp’s Write Anywhere File and Pure Storage use compression and dedu- Layout file system effectively converts random plication to reduce the TCO of deploying SSD I/O into sequential writes, making it suitable arrays. for VDI deployments. NetApp Flash Cache (for- merly called Performance Acceleration Module Home or PAM) cards accelerate read requests, cach- THE VDI STORAGE BOTTOM LINE ing master images and replicas. Finally, NetApp Deploying storage for virtual desktops is all Editor’s Note FlexClones enable virtual desktops to be easily about managing random I/O and high IOPS de- replicated from master images while requiring mand. These requirements must be balanced VDI Performance only very small amounts of storage overhead. against the ROI of consolidating desktops into Vendors such as Nimbus Data Systems Inc. the data center, otherwise the benefit and sav- Virtual Desktop Configuration and Pure Storage Inc. offer solid-state arrays ings from implementing VDI may fail to be for VDI. Solid-state arrays are excellent at achieved. —Chris Evans Reducing VDI Costs

12 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS REDUCING VDI COSTS 4 Careful Storage Planning Reduces VDI Costs

Whether or not a virtual desktop infra- After speaking with industry experts and an Home structure (VDI) requires a SAN is open to de- IT administrator, we’ve put together advice for bate, but experts and administrators agree that making sure your SAN performs well enough to Editor’s Note if you do opt for a SAN for VDI storage, you’ll support a VDI environment without spending need to do a good deal of research and planning more than you have to. VDI Performance to find the right balance between performance and VDI costs. Virtual Desktop Configuration A VDI environment provides several ad- VIRTUAL DESKTOPS EXPLAINED vantages over traditional PC-based worksta- Desktop virtualization stores a user’s desktop Reducing tions, including better security and simplified as a virtual machine (VM) on a central server. VDI Costs management and provisioning, but storage Users can access their desktops from anywhere performance issues and costs have made it less through a thin client, which can be low-cost appealing for many. To provide end users with hardware, a PC or an application installed on an experience equal to or better than the PC any PC. The desktop is hosted on servers that desktop, administrators often have to use large handle the desktop processing and applica- amounts of traditional spinning disks or em- tions. “You’re freed from the hardware manage- ploy expensive solid-state drives (SSDs). They ment,” said Sam Lee, a VDI deployment veteran risk either spending so much money on per- and senior solutions architect at Force 3. “It’s formance that the project doesn’t make sense, a complete transformation in terms of IT or sacrificing performance to keep VDI costs management.” down. All VDIs are managed at the data center

13 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS REDUCING VDI COSTS 4 instead of individually on users’ PCs. Updates, Desktop Services, and Dell Inc. has its own VDI patches and configuration changes are made on offering called vWorkspace. the centrally hosted and managed VMs. VDIs also offer better security because ev- erything is stored in the data center as opposed PLANNING YOUR VDI DEPLOYMENT to users’ hard drives, which can easily be taken Despite the advantages of a VDI deployment, it Home out of an office or hacked. A VDI helps data re- can be a frustrating balancing act between giv- covery because the thin clients don’t hold any ing users the same or better performance expe- Editor’s Note storage. If they fail, user data is in the data cen- riences than their traditional PCs and keeping ter, not stranded on a failed disk in the field or infrastructure costs in line. “You have to pro- VDI Performance a remote office. vide two things,” Force 3’s Lee said. “The first The dominant virtual desktop applications is that [virtual desktop performance] has to be Virtual Desktop Configuration are VMware Inc.’s VMware View and Citrix as good as the existing physical desktop. Oth- Systems Inc.’s XenDesktop. View runs on VM- erwise, the users won’t accept it. Second, the Reducing ware’s vSphere hypervisor platform. XenDesk- cost of VDI has to be comparable to a desktop.” VDI Costs top can run on Citrix’s server virtualization VDI environments have different I/O re- platform, XenServer, vSphere or Microsoft’s quirements from typical desktop PC envi- Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V platform. Mi- ronments. Because of the random nature of crosoft also offers a virtual desktop product I/O requests from hundreds or thousands of called Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Remote desktops constantly bombarding the storage

It can be a frustrating balancing act between giving users the same or better performance experiences than their traditional PCs and keeping infrastructure costs in line.

14 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS REDUCING VDI COSTS 4 infrastructure, typical caching won’t help. Plus, five times more than that to get decent perfor- virtual desktops have different read/write re- mance,” Knox said. quirements than desktop PCs, which typically Storage vendors, hypervisor vendors and VDI do more writes than reads at boot but handle providers all have their own recommendations, more reads than writes the rest of the day. A and they can be all over the map. VDI environment performs more writes than Home reads throughout the day, putting more strain on its storage infrastructure. Determining how many IOPS you’ll Editor’s Note From his experience implementing VDIs for need per user is the difficult part. dozens of customers, Lee recommends using Storage vendors, hypervisor vendors VDI Performance SSDs for I/O-sucking operating system boots and VDI providers all have their own and using a traditional SAN with cheaper SATA Virtual Desktop recommendations, and they can be Configuration drives for user data. He sets aside 3 GB per user all over the map. on an SSD drive for I/O and 10 GB per user for Reducing storing user data. VDI Costs You also have to look at the operating sys- During his VDI project planning, Brian tems you will use, said Seth Knox, director of Brothers, network administrator manager for marketing at Atlantis Computing, which sells Ohio’s Department of Developmental Disabili- virtual appliances that optimize storage for ties, consulted with storage vendors, VMware VDI. For example, using Windows 7 instead of and other administrators with VDI deploy- Windows XP will double your IOPS needs, he ments. But they all gave him different IOPS said. requirements. “The numbers we got varied Determining how many IOPS you’ll need per anywhere from 5 IOPS per machine to up to 40 user is the difficult part. “Often, people under- IOPS per machine,” Brothers said. size it and use between 4 IOPS and 12 IOPS per Russ Fellows, a senior partner at Evaluator desktop when they really need three, four or Group, a Boulder, Colo.-based IT analyst group,

15 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS REDUCING VDI COSTS 4 said he found the same thing when he re- Atlantis Computing’s Knox said the mini- searched VDI IOPS requirements for enterprise mum amount of IOPS that anybody should plan clients. “That’s when we said we need to come for is 30 IOPS per user. To make the virtual up with something that allows users to accu- desktop experience at least as good as a physi- rately measure and compare storage systems cal desktop experience, he recommends at least against each other,” Fellows said. 50 IOPS per user. Home So the Evaluator Group published a VDI After you’ve determined your performance storage benchmark, the VDI-IOmark, that’s needs, look at capacity. There are two major Editor’s Note available to users and vendors. Fellows said us- considerations for determining VDI storage ca- ers run the benchmark to get a better idea of pacity: whether the desktops will be persistent VDI Performance how much the storage portion of a VDI imple- or stateless, and how the system is configured. mentation would cost and to compare storage Virtual Desktop Configuration systems’ VDI costs. You have to consider the average number PERSISTENT VERSUS STATELESS DESKTOPS Reducing of IOPS a user will need and also account for A persistent desktop contains everything the VDI Costs peak periods, such as the beginning of each user needs within the virtual desktop image day when everyone boots their thin clients and and the individual VM. All the applications, logs in to the network. “Peak processing is very documents, settings and profiles are tied to the important because if you get bogged down dur- individual desktop and VM. A stateless desktop ing the peak time, everybody is waiting to get uses one master image for all users (referred to things to work,” Force 3’s Lee said. as a “golden image”), and the profiles, settings While doing his own benchmark to repair a and applications are streamed to the thin cli- VDI deployment that went awry, Lee said he ent, much like Netflix streams movies to your found that a typical Windows desktop uses 50 television. “That’s an important distinction be- IOPS to 80 IOPS on average, including boot cause it really affects the cost of storage,” Knox storms. said.

16 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS REDUCING VDI COSTS 4 A stateless environment uses a single image can have a big impact on VDI costs. “Proper for all virtual desktops, eliminating the need to configuration for VDI is probably more impor- store individual images for each user. Instead of tant than any other application, and it has a updating each virtual desktop individually, an huge impact on cost, performance, capacity, all update or patch to the one image updates every of those things,” Evaluator Group’s Fellows said. virtual desktop. One option is using stateless desktops with a Home If you’re not equipped for a stateless VDI, master image that links to all desktops instead you can begin your deployment with a persis- of deploying unique images to each desktop. Editor’s Note tent setup and migrate to a stateless environ- Another option is using data deduplication, ment later. “A lot of people want to get to the because even if you use unique images for each VDI Performance stateless environment but have constraints desktop, a high percentage of each image will where they have to deploy persistent first be- be the same. Virtual Desktop Configuration cause it’s going to take time to migrate all their Fellows said proper planning and manage- desktops, virtualize all the applications and ment can make your storage costs for a VDI en- Reducing implement profile virtualization,” Knox said. vironment reasonable. “If you configure things VDI Costs really intelligently, you actually can get your costs down to under $100 per desktop just for CONFIGURATION the storage,” he said. “If you don’t, your cost How you configure your VDI environment and with the exact same gear could easily be 10 whether you use data reduction technologies times that.” —Todd Erickson

17 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS ABOUT THE AUTHORS COLM KEEGAN is an analyst at Texas-based firm Storage Switzerland LLC. He has been in the IT industry for 22 years. His focus is on enterprise storage, backup and disaster recovery.

CHRIS EVANS is a UK-based storage consultant. Manage Your VDI Storage Costs Handbook is a SearchVirtualStorage.com e-publication. Home He maintains The Storage Architect blog. Rich Castagna | Editorial Director Ellen O’Brien | Executive Editor Editor’s Note TODD ERICKSON is a news and features writer for the Storage Media Group. Kim Hefner | Senior Managing Editor VDI Performance Sarah Wilson | Assistant Site Editor Dave Raffo | Senior News Director Virtual Desktop Sonia Lelii | Senior News Writer Configuration Carol Sliwa | Senior Writer Linda Koury | Director of Online Design Reducing VDI Costs Neva Maniscalco | Graphic Designer Jillian Coffin | Publisher [email protected]

TechTarget 275 Grove Street, Newton, MA 02466 www.techtarget.com

© 2013 TechTarget Inc. No part of this publication may be transmitted or re- produced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. TechTarget reprints are available through The YGS Group. About TechTarget: TechTarget publishes media for information technology professionals. More than 100 focused websites enable quick access to a deep store of news, advice and analysis about the technologies, products and pro- cesses crucial to your job. Our live and virtual events give you direct access to independent expert commentary and advice. At IT Knowledge Exchange, our social community, you can get advice and share solutions with peers and experts.

18 MANAGE YOUR VDI STORAGE COSTS