Problem Overview

Deploying and managing dedicated virtual desktops is a tedious task that requires the provisioning of VMs including applications and OS uniquely for each and every user. The virtual image of the user’s desktop is bulky, ineffcient and difficult to manage since this entire image has to be unique despite the commonality of components within them. This duplication becomes a significant issue when deploying virtual desktops to 1000s of users where dedicated VMs ineffciently consume terabytes of storage and create management nightmares for IT staff.

Many VDI installations for efficiency reasons only offer non-persistent desktops – where the user persona and user installed apps are not maintained from one login to another. This does not provide the full features and functionality considered critical by users who are migrating from physical individual laptops and desktops to a virtual experience. The users expectation is that the virtual desktop will maintain changes from one session to another, including any personal files, user installed applications, or changes such as adding favorites to the browser all need to be available quickly at the next login, regardless of what VM or computer the user logs into. Virtual desktop deployments have been limited to small numbers of users with very specific and limited workloads due to this limitation, most VDI licenses although purchased, do not find their way into actual broad deployment within the enterprise.

CloudVolumes Solution

The single copy, multiple use capabilities of CloudVolumes has significant advantages for VDI deployments. The components of each VDI image (applications, OS, plug-ins, and user data) can be optimized separately and onto different storage tiers including local attached SSD.

Provisioning a new desktop is fast and easy – since the application does not have to be installed for each desktop user – the suite of applications, settings and data required for a user are instantly reconstituted into a single running instance at log-in or in real timev – without any streaming, copying or packaging.  CloudVolumes’ delivers a “persistent” virtual desktop experience with user personality preserved all without creating wasteful copies of a full desktop.

Unique user-specific settings, applications and files are the only parts of the virtual desktop that need to be maintained uniquely. The remaining components are shared (applications and OS) – storage usage is significantly less since there is only one copy stored for everything which is shared. This further reduces the complexity of backup and security – only the writable user data needs to be scanned and backed-up because the application and OS are read-only.

Citrix XenApp/Microsoft RDS

Since applications are delivered from the native hypervisor or cloud storage path, network usage is significantly reduced by not having to stream applications.  CloudVolumes Manager centralizes and simplifies application and workload management to Citrix XenApp farms and Microsoft RDS servers.  Applications are provisioned centrally and different versions of an application can be available concurrently which helps avoid the need for disruptive mass upgrades to individual servers. It is easy to track and meter licenses, enforce usage to conform to concurrent licenses purchased, manage revisions, and push updates to all the servers in a farm in one go.

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

CloudVolumes Desktop solution benefits DaaS providers in several ways: Onboarding of new customers is significantly simplified while giving customers the feel of a full featured desktop with native application experience. Storage usage is drastically reduced. Service providers can create with CloudVolumes a user driven app-store where end users can simply request applications and they are instantly deployed.