Colt Builds VMware View Based VDI From Atlantis Computing

Atlantis Computing, Inc.,
in VDI storage and performance optimization solutions, announced
that Colt Technology Services Group Ltd has
built a VMware View based virtual desktop infrastructure to support up to
20,000 desktops.

The Colt cloud-hosted desktop utilizes Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI and VCE
Vblock Systems to deliver virtual desktops that are cheaper and faster than
physical PCs.

In order to reduce overall CAPEX and OPEX costs (rack space, cooling,
maintenance, disk repair), while at the same time improving user experience,
Colt moved to a VDI infrastructure with Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI software
using server RAM as primary storage for virtual desktop images.

Atlantis Computing has integrated this solution with VCE Vblock Systems which
bring together technologies from VMware, Cisco and EMC into a single converged
infrastructure system.

"We decided to take a new
approach to using VDI on Vblock Systems, running VMware View desktops with
Atlantis ILIO on Cisco UCS servers without storage," said Chris
Hewertson, CIO, Colt Technology Services. "Using Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI simplifies our VMware View deployment,
reduces operational complexity and delivers both a vastly improved user
experience and a much lower cost per desktop."

Colt and the VMware professional services organization were able to demonstrate
that the diskless VDI implementation delivered desktop
performance that scaled linearly with average response times of 0.53 seconds
for all common activities such as launching Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
Adobe, Zip or Internet browsers.

"We were able to run 171
virtual desktops per Cisco blade with Atlantis ILIO software while using only 66%
of the CPU," said Brian Keats, programme manager, Colt. "The 61% reduction in
total cost of our desktop estate, along with 23% OPEX savings, 40% increase in
density and Atlantis ILIO deployment automation, enabled us to deliver a high
quality and cost-effective cloud-hosted desktop that we can deploy at scale."

The diskless VDI deployment is architected with DR and HA across Colt data
centres for total resilience. Users are load balanced across sites in order to
minimize the impact of any DR event. Due to the density increase, Colt can
deliver a resilient system without excessive cost.

Colt automated the installation, storage sizing, configuration and
data store creation using ILIO Center with a handover to VMware View Composer.
Using ILIO Center automation, it is able to provision and
operationalize multiple racks of servers for thousands of users on-demand.
Colt’s deployment scales by adding Vblock Systems and ILIO
Diskless VDI software, making the concept of elastic data centres a reality.

Vittorio Viarengo, VP, end-user computing, VMware, said: "The VMware professional services
organization has worked closely with Colt to develop this unique VMware View
deployment, which is one of the largest VMware View projects in Europe."

Bernard Harguindeguy, CEO, Atlantis Computing, said: "VMware View can be deployed with Atlantis
ILIO to thousands of desktops in a matter of a few hours to simplify and
eliminate deployment risks for large scale implementations. We look forward to
continuing our partnership with VCE to enable successful VDI deployments."