At the end of September this year, Robert Passmore working for Gartner published an article with the title: Storage Best Practices for Hosted Virtual Desktops. The article discusses how features provided by some storage arrays can enhance Hosted Virtual Desktop (HVD) implementations.
The paper tries to answer the following questions:
- How can I simplify the creation and maintenance of thousands of disk images?
- How can I drive per-seat storage costs near to the same level as the original desktops?
- How can I provide performance to withstand boot, login and virus scan storms?
- How can I provide availability, data integrity and recovery appropriate for all those desktops?
"…Key Findings
- Users deploying HVD projects are often shocked by the apparent cost of storage.
- Users who have deployed the technologies described in this research have been able to achieve usable storage area network (SAN)/network-attached storage (NAS) storage costs approaching the costs of consumer disks used in actual desktops.
- Cache in the storage array is key to adequate performance during boot and login storms.
Recommendations
- Seek at least one storage vendor that can deliver the capabilities described in this research.
- Create a scenario/design around that vendor to provide a benchmark to evaluate other vendors and designs…"