Storage Optimisation Atlantis Ilio for Hyper-V

Atlantis Computing, Inc., in VDI storage and performance optimisation solutions, announced ILIO for Hyper-V that runs as a virtual appliance natively on the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor for deployment with Citrix XenDesktop.

ILIO is the first storage optimisation solution that can be deployed on any server with any storage and on any of the three hypervisors VMware vSphere Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V.

The ILIO software virtual appliance allows customers to reduce the cost of their VDI implementations by cutting the amount of storage normally required and enabling the use of lower cost storage options as part of any desktop virtualisation project. In addition, ILIO makes virtual desktops run faster than PCs to ensure user acceptance and enables security measures to be deployed without impacting the number of users per server.

Citrix Systems, Inc., Atlantis Computing and GlassHouse Technologies, Inc. are designing, testing and publishing a desktop xirtualisation reference architecture that is focused on the following objectives:

• Lowering the cost of a virtual desktop to less than a PC
• Making virtual desktops and mobile devices such as iPads run faster than PCs to ensure user acceptance of desktop virtualisation
• Integrating critical components such as PVS, MCS, XenServer, Hyper-V and Personal vDisk with ILIO

"The Atlantis ILIO VDI storage optimisation technology integrates with all of the major VDI platforms and leading hypervisors, with persistent or non-persistent desktops, while supporting existing Citrix technologies such as PVS, MCS and XenApp. Processing IO locally in memory, on the hypervisor, delivers the fastest possible response time to the desktop. By eliminating up to 90% of all IO traffic before it reaches storage, Atlantis ILIO customers can realise the lowest cost per desktop using inexpensive local disk/SSD or shared storage. In servers with support for extended memory architectures, Atlantis ILIO can deliver Diskless VDI to eliminate the operational expenses of administering disk-based storage and the cost of maintaining SSDs," said Simon Bramfitt, Founder, Entelechy Associates.

"We look forward to working with Citrix and Atlantis Computing on this important VDI reference architecture. We’ve used Atlantis ILIO internally at GlassHouse since 2010 for our vLab and seen an 80% reduction in storage IO traffic and 90% less storage capacity consumed when using Atlantis ILIO with Citrix XenDesktop. By integrating the technologies of Citrix FlexCast and Atlantis ILIO, we believe that we can deliver a better user experience and a lower cost virtual desktop to our customers," said Erwin Vollering, Service Director, GlassHouse Technologies.

                      GlassHouse vLab Atlantis ILIO Deployment
 
"We are thrilled to offer customers the ability to deploy Atlantis ILIO on any server with any storage and on their hypervisor of choice. It is now possible for Citrix XenDesktop customers to deploy Atlantis ILIO on Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware vSphere and deliver a virtual desktop at a cost below that of a PC while delivering an incredible user experience," said Bernard Harguindeguy, President and CEO, Atlantis Computing

ILIO Technology  
ILIO is a software virtual machine that optimises how the Microsoft Windows XP and Windows 7 OS interact with storage. Atlantis ILIO technologies include efficient processing of Windows NTFS storage IO traffic – in the rack – and inline deduplication of Windows images before they reach storage. ILIO is designed specifically for VDI workloads and as a result, reduces the amount of traffic going to storage by up to 90 percent and decreases the storage capacity required by up to 99 percent, further reducing the amount of storage needed for a VDI deployment.
 
ILIO Citrix Ready Certification
ILIO has been Citrix Ready since June 14th, 2010.    
 
ILIO for Hyper-V edition is available since December 14, 2011.

More information on GlassHouse vLab deployment of ILIO