Why faster storage may totally set us free

Will we ever be totally untethered?

The thought of being able to take a single desktop compute experience and replicate it on any device from literally any location sounds like something everyone would want. I recently had lunch with a good friend of mine, who works for Citrix, and he showed me how XenDesktop works…pretty cool. Whether I am using my laptop, a tablet, or my smartphone, I maintain the same access to the same applications and files. The only thing that really changes is the screen size.

Talk about being untethered.

The idea of moving everything from local storage to the data center must place serious demands on performance – not just processing performance, but storage performance. Then, this survey by Nimble Storage caught my eye which found that 61 percent of respondents said they have implemented or intend to implement virtual desktops in their environments. 64 percent saying deployment size would range up to 1,000 virtual desktops, but not without concerns…one customer cited in the survey described the challenge of dealing with what they call “boot storms.” Basically, when hundreds of users attempt to boot up at the same time – obviously in the morning – which can lead to boot times upwards of 15 minutes.

The solution – according to Nimble Storage’s website – extremely fast/efficient enterprise storage in the data center.

Sounds like the same argument for other cloud computing platforms. Well, VDI could be considered a form of cloud. As Tom Nolle said on SearchStorage, “Put simply, VDI is a form of cloud computing where the client/server protocol used is the virtual device interface that mirrors the graphical user interface. Therefore, VDI can be considered a DaaS application of the cloud, and in time, VDI and cloud computing will converge further.”

As such convergence happens, so will innovation in storage architectures for use cases like VDI. Nimble Storage is one example of this. This is something Seagate continues to learn from. Whether it’s the cloud, desktop virtualization, or some other usage model, storage innovation must take into account the specific demands of each unique application and customer challenge. It’s the only way we can move the idea of a totally untethered world forward.

Have you completely untethered yourself? How?

image by: http://www.becominglayla.com/?tag=paragliding