SolidFire Adds VMware Horizon View Reference Architecture and vCenter Web Client Plug-In

SolidFire, Inc., in all-SSD storage systems designed for data centers, announced an expansion of their reach into the virtualization market with the availability of a VMware Horizon View 5.2 reference architecture as well as a vCenter Web Client Plug-In for vSphere 5.1.

They are the latest in a line of integrations from SolidFire as they strive for integration with tools relied upon by customers for provisioning and managing their virtual desktop and server infrastructure.

With the completion of the VMware Horizon View 5.2 reference architecture, SolidFire has proven out the value of their scale-out storage platform in large-scale virtual desktop environments. Through their testing, it has demonstrated virtual desktop density of 1,000 desktops/U, lowest cost per desktop ($50 for storage/desktop) with performance (50 IO/s/desktop), and a leading operational experience (View Planner score of 0.52).

“While everyone with an all solid state array is chasing the VDI market, SolidFire’s architecture has some unique advantages,” said Howard Marks, chief scientist, DeepStorage, LLC. “Since most storage systems have extremely limited abilities to manage performance, virtual desktop best practice has been to use dedicated storage devices for VDI. SolidFire’s QoS capability allows their customers to guarantee VDI users, and other applications running on the same storage cluster, to receive guaranteed levels of performance.”

“SolidFire’s scale-out block storage system, with granular quality-of-service controls, is uniquely suited to harness the mixed and unpredictable workload profiles that exist in VDI environments,” said Dave Wright, CEO, SolidFire. “This reference architecture helps demonstrate how SolidFire changes the economics of the storage infrastructure needed to enable a successful VDI buildout from start to scale.”

In addition to the VMware Horizon View 5.2 reference architecture, SolidFire has also delivered vCenter Web Client Plug-in integration. With it, administrators can now manage multiple SolidFire clusters through the vSphere 5.1 web client, as well as manage volumes, access groups and account. The new plug-in enhances ease of use in vCenter managed vSphere environments. Administrators can perform the most common storage operations from within the vSphere web client, mitigating the time spent managing storage separately.