Just 23% of Respondents Tried Flash to Improve Ability to Add VMs

Proximal Data, provider of server-side caching solutions for virtualized environments, announced results of a survey conducted at VMworld 2012, which showed that 95% of the respondents rated VM density as Important to Very Important.

The survey results validate the need for a fast virtual cache solution such as AutoCache, Proximal Data’s software for increasing VM density in virtualized servers.
 
During the VMworld exhibition from August 27 – 29 2012, 173 attendees were surveyed on a set of questions related to problems and requirements for solutions in their virtualized server and storage environments. When asked if they had tried a flash device to improve their ability to add VMs, only 23% of respondents said Yes, however, 74% of those who responded positively said that flash devices "did not work on the VM density issues as expected."

Regarding maintaining guest OS agents to address the VM density problems, 74% said agents pose a moderate to a Huge Problem. These results confirm that flash devices need the assistance of a virtual cache solution and should not require additional guest OS agents that need to be maintained or updated on a regular basis.
 
In response to questions about the importance of a solution having VMware compatibility and integration, and being non-disruptive to IT operations, 95% of the respondents said VMware compatibility is Important to Very Important and 91% said integration with VMware vSphere and vCenter is also of the highest importance. Not surprisingly, 98% cited no operational disruption as being an Important to Very Important feature. This reinforces the requirement for complete transparency when introducing a virtual caching solution, such as AutoCache, which works within VMware ESXi, is supported within vSphere and vCenter environments and requires no agents.
 
"This survey confirmed the extent of the problems enterprises have with scaling their virtualized environments," said Rory Bolt, CEO of Proximal Data. "We built AutoCache from the ground up to solve the VM density problem and drove to deliver a revolutionary solution in virtualized server optimization that provides enterprises with powerful levels of VM density, efficiency and performance."