VDI Solution from Nutanix & Intel
Read this solution brief to learn more about Nutanix and Intel® Optane™ persistent memory for VDI—maintain performance and user experience while lowering costs!
Today’s distributed workforce requires apps to maintain productivity, secure access to data wherever it resides, and the flexibility to innovate and deliver value for customers. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) can provide these benefits. Many enterprises recognize the advantages of VDI (sometimes called “end user computing” or EUC), such as centralized management and improved security. As companies explore VDI for the best solution, cutting costs and simplifying deployment are paramount. On the other hand, working remotely has evolved, as today’s users are accessing more apps and data. Therefore, choosing a solution that provides excellent performance is important.
The Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform was designed for workloads like VDI. Because everything is integrated, deploying a Nutanix-based HCI platform for VDI can be much simpler and faster than deploying a traditional compute-storage-network infrastructure. According to Nutanix, many customers progress from unboxing to running virtual desktops in as little as an hour, and the simpler, more integrated environment provided by Nutanix reduces OpEx by approximately 60%.
Intel has worked with Nutanix to configure the Nutanix HCI platform to optimally support VDI deployments at the lowest possible cost while delivering a rich and excellent user experience from a choice of OEMs. The VDI use case is a natural fit for Intel® Optane™ PMem because VDI workloads and today’s applications are often memory-constrained and require larger amounts of memory—up to 1 TB or more per node—yet the cost per GB for an all-DRAM system might be prohibitive. Organizations can use Intel® Optane™ PMem to create balanced systems with plenty of memory, instead of being limited to memory-constrained systems due to cost concerns. Using Intel® Optane™ PMem for system memory lowers memory cost by up to 30%.
For the most representative VDI configuration (based on Intel’s experience and data from typical Nutanix deployments), the Intel® Optane™ PMem configuration supports the same number of VDI sessions (150 per node) with a minimal difference in latency (around 10 milliseconds).
VDI deployments continue to scale to meet remote worker demands and the need to lower costs. The ability to reduce memory cost by 30% by using Intel® Optane™ PMem, with minimal effect on the VDI user experience, is compelling. The years-long collaboration between Intel and Nutanix has resulted in a Nutanix-supported VDI solution that can help enterprises continue their digital transformation and future-proof their businesses.