Hempstead School District Selects WhipTail SSD Storage

WhipTail announced that Hempstead School
District, one of Long Island’s largest districts with approximately 7,000
students, selected the WhipTail solid-state storage array to serve as
the storage hub for its VMware View deployment.

WhipTail has enabled a SSD storage solution, meeting the performance demands
necessary to deploy a productive virtual desktop experience in
the classroom.

Dr. Patricia Garcia, Superintendent of Schools at
Hempstead Public Schools charged Mr. Carlos Ramirez, District Director of
Technology and his technical team with the task to fulfill three requirements:

• The storage solution had to be easily deployed and maintained,
  scalable across the district’s vast networks and desktops
• The array had to support high amounts of WRITE IO,
  allowing VDI to meet the full performance expectations for a
  productive learning environment where students could realize maximum virtual
  desktop availability during computer classes, without disruptive VDI launch
  delays
• The array had to be attained at an investment level within the
  district maintenance budget, without a massive added infrastructure
  investment up front.

After evaluation of multiple vendors the technical team led by Dave
Lasker, network administrator, found that WhipTail was the storage
solution that met all three requirements and came recommended by
the district’s VDI partners for the implementation of a pilot plan.

The Whiptail SSD storage solution behaves like a traditional
storage array, reducing hardware and software costs tied to
alternative solutions. Enabling students’ productivity in the classroom
was priority, but Hempstead Public Schools was also looking to realize energy
savings.

Whiptail’s solid-state storage array runs on less than 200 watts and
supports up to 12 TB of MLC flash with a 250,000 IO/s in a 2U
array populated by MLC flash drives. It is tuned for low latency, high IO environments and
possesses a proprietary operating system designed to overcome the write
performance and longevity challenges typically associated with MLC flash.

A recent Lab Validation Report developed by Enterprise Strategy
Group explores the benefits of the WhipTail SSD array in more detail.

"The overwhelming storage
infrastructure required to support successful VDI deployment is becoming a
major challenge for many looking to achieve the best of IT computing. WhipTail
approaches the problem with an array that is built for performance – high
amounts of WRITE IO," said Dan Crain, CEO, WhipTail. "When you start talking in terms of IOPs
(WRITE IOPs in particular), as is the case when dealing with virtual desktop
environments, the focus should be on cost-per-IOP – not cost-per-GB. This
puts WhipTail at a 90 percent cost advantage when up against HDD solutions.
WhipTail also provides companies with up to 80% percent energy savings compared
to traditional storage."