Nimbus Data Systems announced that all Nimbus flash memory systems, including the performance-leading S-Class and the ultra-scalable E-Class, are now Citrix Ready certified. As the first high-availability and multiprotocol solid state systems to earn this designation, Nimbus S-Class and E-Class systems enable enterprise-wide virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with unmatched performance, superior reliability, and dramatically lower power, rack space, and administration costs.

While research firm IDC expects over 45 million VDI desktops to be deployed by 2014, VDI adoption has been hampered by storage performance and cost challenges. According to The Evaluator Group, one of the leading research firms covering desktop virtualization, nearly 50% of organizations deploying VDI face significant storage cost and performance challenges.

"Delivering the necessary IOps for a successful VDI deployment using disk arrays would require a significant number of spindles, increasing acquisition and operating costs," stated Russ Fellows, Senior Partner at The Evaluator Group. "Nimbus all-flash storage systems deliver very high IO performance in a small footprint, improving scalability while significantly reducing operating costs. This translates into a lower storage cost per virtual desktop, an essential goal in maximizing ROI."

Nimbus' flash memory storage systems benefit users by:

Improving VDI economics and acceptance: According to third-party performance tests, Nimbus flash memory systems provide up to 50x greater IO performance than conventional 15K RPM disk arrays. High storage performance enables greater VM density and cuts power, cooling, and rack space costs by up to 80%, significantly reducing storage costs per VDI instance. Users see these performance benefits firsthand as boot times are reduced and applications load faster, and this more responsive user experience increases VDI acceptance.

Supporting scalable enterprise-wide VDI: Nimbus' all-flash systems scale to 500 TB, providing ample storage capacity for the largest VDI deployments. With ultra-low latency, Nimbus offers a better alternative to hybrid SSD/HDD or caching/tiering designs that can suffer from unpredictable performance. Nimbus flash memory systems also outpace PCIe flash cards by providing better throughput, more capacity, centralized management, and online serviceability.

Simplifying VDI management: Nimbus systems are easy-to-deploy and administer. Support for Fibre Channel, NFS, and iSCSI gives users the flexibility to select the best storage protocol and networking technology for their existing infrastructure and staff skillset. With no software license fees and a low acquisition cost, Nimbus systems are affordable to organizations large and small.

"Reducing the storage cost and improving performance of VDI deployments are essential to the end-user experience and, ultimately, VDI adoption," stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO of Nimbus. "The Citrix Ready recognition is further validation of Nimbus' innovation, having delivered the most scalable, highest performance, and most fault-tolerant unified flash memory systems in the market today."