Neocoretech – Reduce your VDI project cost and improve performance!

When I talk about the Neocoretech NDV VDI solution, the common question I’m asked by VMware View engineers is “How do I size the SAN?”

There is normally a confused look, when I suggest there is no need for a SAN!

We first of all have to understand that VMware View is built on the VMware ESX infrastructure, where the Storage Area Network (SAN) is a requirement for server virtualisation. 

For VMware View, the backbone of the solution is shared storage, where SANs are often used to provide this. The underlying VMware ESX infrastructure has to be configured to use logical unit number (LUN) addresses in order to give high availability.  This means they reserve a LUN on a SAN for 2 servers, so if one server goes down the other still points to the same disk. Using direct attached storage cannot work with this approach as Direct Attached Storage (DAS) by definition cannot be shared.

Neocoretech provides a different approach based on clusters, utilising direct attached storage. A dedicated Ethernet interface links two servers to that disk cluster and the disks are mirrored over the LAN. This also improves performance as there are more disks and therefore more spindles are available to deliver disk IOs.

In combination with utilising read-only desktops on the Neocoretech NDV solution, means that the VDI infrastructure is only delivering the desktop, which means dedicated network storage can (and should) be used to manage the data and storage.

With correct sizing and infrastructure, Neocoretech NDV will not only lower the TCO giving quicker ROI, but it also means there is no need to endure the SAN IOPS storm in the morning!