Nimble Storage SmartStack for ROBO Desktop Virtualization

Nimble Storage, Inc. introduced SmartStack for ROBO Desktop Virtualization in conjunction with Cisco Systems, Inc. and VMware, Inc.

The new converged infrastructure solution brings the power of Cisco UCS Mini and VMware Horizon 6 to companies with remote offices, small IT environments or many retail locations to support the business and users at these sites with secure, easy-to-manage virtual desktops.

SmartStack for ROBO Desktop Virtualization helps businesses with remote or branch offices deliver better responsiveness to their smaller IT environments. Management complexities, the size of a data center’s footprint, application performance and the potential hefty investment of a storage environment are common pain-points that need to be considered when it comes to managing the desktops of employees who work at remote or branch offices. Part of the SmartStack family, SmartStack for ROBO Desktop Virtualization is a converged infrastructure solution based on Nimble Storage’s CS-Series arrays, the newly introduced Cisco UCS Mini, and VMware Horizon 6.

The UCS Mini embeds the unified server and networking capabilities of the top-of-rack UCS Fabric Interconnect directly into the UCS Mini chassis, enabling the SmartStack solution to deliver compute, storage and networking in a single compact solution.

By deploying an optimized desktop virtualization solution on-site at remote or branch offices rather than a central data center, IT organizations can deliver a predictable end-user experience by eliminating network dependent performance issues between sites.

SmartStack pre-validated reference architectures eliminate the challenges associated with deploying application, server, hypervisor, networking, and storage components.

The new ROBO Desktop Virtualization reference architecture is suited for single site implementations with up to 500 seats and enables organizations to deploy desktop virtualization that is right-sized for their environment, with the ability to scale in alignment with changing requirements.

CS-Series arrays are the building blocks of the company’s Adaptive Flash platform, which allocates storage resources to satisfy some of the pressing storage issues – including delivering better performance and capacity at a reasonable price, providing integrated protection with rapid backup and recovery and reining in storage complexity.

The company’s products are based on its patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout (CASL) hybrid storage architecture that leverages fast read performance of flash and the cost-effective capacity of HDD drives. Nimble combines this flash-optimized architecture with Nimble InfoSight, a cloud based management service that delivers predictive support and operational simplicity through deep data analytics.

SmartStack for ROBO Desktop Virtualization offering has been validated by VMware Proven Storage Program. This program validates specific criteria of workload performance for Horizon (with View) deployments.

“Nimble Storage’s SmartStack solution, along with Cisco UCS Mini and VMware Horizon 6, gives customers peace-of-mind in knowing that they have an all-in-one high performance solution that is easy to deploy and can scale as business needs grow,” said Mason Uyeda, senior director, industry solutions and technical enablement, end-user computing, VMware.

“The ability to deploy and manage desktop infrastructures can be a major challenge for those overseeing remote or branch offices due to high costs and lack of on-site IT support. By partnering with VMware and leveraging Cisco’s UCS Mini for the first time, we’re able to remove those burdens by offering a solution that allows remote and branch offices to operate efficiently and cost-effectively, all while being able to seamlessly scale and adapt as business needs change,” said Radhika Krishnan, VP of product marketing and alliances, Nimble Storage.