GreenBytes V4.1 of Desktop Virtualization Storage Optimization Software

GreenBytes, Inc. announced the addition of new features and performance enhancements for its software for desktop virtualization and storage I/O optimization.

Featuring GreenBytes’ patented zero latency inline deduplication, v4.1 was architected to provide the integral building blocks required for quick entry into the growing VDI market by enabling customers to create customizable packages of quality, performant, full-featured desktop virtualization solutions that are simple, easy to deploy, and scale from departmental to cloud.

GreenBytes’ I/O and desktop virtualization storage optimization software is available through channel partners offering the vIO virtual storage appliance (VSA) or IO Offload Engine, a software-defined storage appliance.

GreenBytes solutions are cloud-scalable from hundreds to thousands of users and can size to any desktop virtualization environment:

• SMB and Branch Office – leverage local DAS for appliance options.
• Mid-Market and Departmental – using converged infrastructure or shared storage architectures.
• Enterprise – optimized shared SAN-based arrays for scale-out performance.

GreenBytes software-defined storage solutions divert OS and swap disk activity away from primary storage to flash, solving the performance and latency problems and poor user experience that occur during peak usage.

By moving the virtual desktop datastores via GreenBytes’ software optimizations, inconsistent performance and crippling congestion become a thing of the past via solutions that deliver the flexibility of a persistent image virtual desktop at the cost of non-persistent deployments.

The technology reduces the complexity of deployment and returns the full ‘personal’ experience to the virtual desktop deployment model. This also allows conventional PC lifecycle management tools to administer ongoing changes while controls like Microsoft Software Center provide users with the flexibility to add white-listed applications to their VDI.

v4.1 Features and Benefits Include:

• Improved Virtual Storage Appliance – vIO software enables converged infrastructure hosting of persistent desktops with three 200GB SSDs. A four-bladed configuration coupled with shared RAID-protected storage supports over 400 users while still supplying over 100 write IO/s per user. This feature allows for efficient use of resources that requires as few as 4 vCPUs and 16GB of RAM on a single blade, which still provides HA blade failover capabilities leveraging VMware DRS and HA.
• Fast Copy – Clone full desktop images via NFS in less than 30s using the company’ patent-pending enhancements for improved deployment times. This is 16 times faster than image copies via the network and 5.5 times faster than VAAI-optimized copies that occur locally on SSD storage arrays. The patented technology enables fast copies because it writes updates to the SSD-based metadata cache rather than full data replication.
• Site Recovery – GreenBytes is a VMware SRA (Site Recovery Adapter) certified offering, which enables deduplication-aware efficiency when creating a DR plan that leverages Site Recovery Manager in VMware vCenter. WAN-optimized replication using patented I/O optimization improves replication time and reduces bandwidth consumption.
• Rapid Configure – Captures tuning refinements made by customers to expedite setting up additional vIO virtual storage appliances or IO Offload Engine configurations. Since each customer deployment situation varies, those settings become important time savers that improve efficiency when setting up additional systems.
• Operations Console – Administrative dashboard visibility is now a click away and available via a customer’s end point device of choice with the new browser-based GreenBytes Operations Console. Real-time displays show all essential storage activity in a visually simple console remotely accessible from desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones.
• Simple – GreenBytes appears as a standard storage target. Provisioning events and administration are straightforward. Unlike competitive alternatives, it doesn’t add cost or complexity to each server, which can really add up in sizeable deployments.

“Deploying tens to hundreds of fully persistent virtual desktops traditionally takes many hours to complete, which wastes valuable administrator time. With GreenBytes’ Fast Copy, we have reduced this time down to minutes which has vastly improved deployment times, allowing IT organizations to scale out their environments and exceed their SLAs at the same time,” said Jim Zakzeski, VP, sales and marketing, ClearCube Technology, Inc.

Utilizing the new features and performance benefits of v4.1 of GreenBytes’ software, channel and OEM partners are able to develop desktop virtualization solutions that provide users with the features and performance needed, without the over-capacity provisioning of storage.

VDI deployments can now get personalized virtual desktops, with each user accessing an image for $80 per user (40GB image) MSRP, and under $60 per user MSRP in converged infrastructure designs, inclusive of the software and SSD-based hardware in a HA configuration.

Getting virtual capacity expansion by inline deduplication can take a 4.8TB SSD array and enable up to 96TB of effective storage. Using the IO Offload Engine, IO/s performance keeps up with demanding VDI environments with 622k read, 316k blended R/W, and 231k write IO/s measured via IOmeter at 4k block sizes, and all with sub-millisecond latency.

“Speed, capacity and cost optimization for the fully personalized virtual desktop space continues to be GreenBytes’ focus,” said Michael Richtberg, VP of product management, GreenBytes. “GreenBytes continues to lower the cost of deploying desktop virtualization without taking a performance penalty via our software-defined storage appliances, available as part of a converged infrastructure by utilizing the GreenBytes vIO virtual storage appliance, or via the IO Offload Engine shared storage appliance based on Dell hardware. Leveraging the high performance attributes of SSD flash, and the cost optimization of real-time inline deduplication, GreenBytes achieves scale with performance at the cost of HDD drive technology. We’ve seen over 400 user configurations of a four blade Dell VRTX running full persistent desktop images realize over 30x deduplication, which means high performance without the cost indigestion that normally complicates user-friendly, personalized desktops.”

The vIO virtual storage appliance and IO Offload Engine software-defined storage appliance featuring v4.1 software for desktop virtualization storage and I/O optimization are available.