Looking to make the move to desktop virtualization but worried that the business case won’t add up? VMware has just introduced a number of high-performance, fully validated desktop architectures that are simple to deploy, highly scalable, and extremely cost-effective. In fact, many of these solutions are so cost-effective-they will allow you to get started for less than the cost of a physical PC.*
Designs that Offer Unbeatable Price-to-Performance Ratios
How Do We Do It?
When you move to desktop virtualization there are many components to be considered. Not only do you need to evaluate desktop virtualization software, but you will also need to understand your user profiles and architect your storage, networking and servers to best support your end users and their requirements. And storage can often be a huge bottleneck-absorbing as much as 40-60% of the cost of any VDI rollout. In addition “traditional” storage can be difficult to manage. This is why choosing the right storage and architecture is critical.
The good news is-there are many new high-capacity disks, hybrid arrays, and Flash-based storage technologies out there that help drive down costs while still ensuring high levels of throughput and lower latencies. VMware Horizon View additionally provides many storage optimizations, including storage tiering, linked clones, VCAI and SE Sparse. When you pair Horizon View with these storage offerings you have an unbeatable combination.
VMware has tested and validated these solutions to provide you with quick and easy blueprints to get started. So whether you are rolling out 200 or 1000s of Horizon View seats, the vFast Track architectures ensure that the deployment will be cost-effective, will meet use requirements, and will scale linearly and predictably.
Featured VMware vFast Track Architectures
Cisco, VMware Horizon View and Atlantis Computing
Ideal for floating pools, this solution is highly scalable and easy to manage.
- Solution Brief: Diskless VDI for VMware Horizon View
- Reference Architecture: VMware Horizon View Stateless RA with Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI and Cisco UCS
- Video Case Study: Washington Trust
- Whiteboard Video: Atlantis, Cisco and VMware Horizon View
Cisco and VMware Horizon View
This is a highly scalable, easy to manage solution that optimizes user experience and delivers unprecedented price to performance ratios.
- Solution Brief: Cisco and VMware Transforming End User Computing
- Case Study: Seattle University
Cisco, VMware Horizon View and Fusion-io
Ideal for floating pools of users, this powerful solution takes advantage of industry-leading virtualization acceleration. Providing an outstanding experience for end users is as simple as adding in a Fusion-io Drive, which easily scales to support over 100 users with extremely low latency performance.
Combining storage and computing, NexentaVSA for View delivers a complete ‘storage-in-a-box’ solution for both persistent and stateless desktops.
- Reference Architecture: Nexenta, Cisco and VMware Horizon View
- Reference Architecture: Nexenta and VMware Horizon View
- Solution Brief: Nexenta and VMware Horizon View
- Whiteboard Video: Nexenta, Cisco and VMware Horizon View
Cisco, VMware Horizon View and Nimble Storage
Optimized for both floating and dedicated pools of users, this solution leverages a hybrid flash and high-capacity disk storage solution for added capacity, low latency and a high quality end user experience.
- Solution Brief: Nimble Storage SmartStack Solutions for VDI with Cisco and VMware
- Reference Architecture: Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solution with VMware Horizon View and Nimble Storage
- Case Study: University of Colorado Boulder Housing and Dining Services
Nutanix Appliance for VMware Horizon View
The Nutanix solution was designed for simplicity, enabling administrators to fire up View desktops in less than 1 hour after racking.
- Solution Brief: Desktop Virtualization with Nutanix
- Best Practices: VMware Horizon View on Nutanix
- Reference Architecture: VMware Horizon View on Nutanix
- Whiteboard Video: Nutanix and VMware Horizon View and Workspace
Pivot3 vStac Appliance for VMware Horizon View
This fully racked and stacked appliance reduces management complexity and cost and allows customers to linearly scale out desktops in increments of 100.
- ESG Lab Validation: VMware Horizon View with Pivot3 vStac
- Principle Technologies Lab Validation: VMware Horizon View with Pivot3 vStac
- Whiteboard Video: Pivot3 and VMware Horizon View
Delivers an all-flash VDI experience to your users for less than $100 /desktop.
- Solution Brief: Pure Storage and VMware Horizon View
- Reference Architecture: Pure Storage and VMware Horizon View
- Pure Storage Whitepaper: Design Considerations for Increasing VDI Performance and Scalability
- Case Study: City of Davenport
- Whiteboard Video: Pure Storage and VMware Horizon
Tegile Systems offers hybrid arrays that are significantly faster than legacy arrays and significantly less expensive than all solid-state disk-based arrays.
- Whitepaper: Tegile VDI
- Case Study: MiraCosta Community College
- Whiteboard Video: Tegile, Cisco and VMware Horizon View
VMware Horizon View and Tintri
Extremely easy to install, setup and use – Tintri with VMware Horizon View can go from power-on to first VMs in less than 30 minutes. Tintri’s flash-first hybrid architecture ensures that dedicated and floating pools of users have great performance and that IT can scale out VDI storage easily and cost-effectively.
- Technical Solution Overview: Deploying VMware Horizon View with Tintri VMstore™
- Best Practices for Deploying VDI: VMware Horizon View and Tintri VMstore™
- ESG Lab Validation: Tintri and VMware Horizon View
VMware Horizon View and Virident
This flash-based storage solution is extremely cost-effective and provides an abundance of IOPs to ensure low latency and high throughput for floating desktop pools.
- Principled Technologies Lab Validation: Virident FlashMAX II and VMware Horizon View
- Solution Brief: Virident and VMware Horizon View
*The cost per desktop cited only includes the cost of servers, networking, storage (required for the virtual desktop),the VMware Horizon View license and Thin Client (assumes $250 cost for Thin Client). It does not include the cost of the peripheral devices, added persona management or MS OS licensing costs. Assumes fully loaded physical PC costs of $750 (2/2013).
