| | February 20158CIOReviewSoftware-defined Storage Designed for Virtual Workspace DeliveryBy Momchil Michalov, VP, Storage Technologies, Citrix Modern datacenter architecture allows us to utilize hardware to empower software. This shift, which has been called the software-defined datacenter (SDDC), allows us to create a more fluid, dynamic, and responsive infrastructure. Such an infrastructure provides the flexibility to quickly adjust to meet rap-idly changing workloads, data streams, and computing demands. Virtual workspace delivery through virtual desk-top infrastructure (VDI) and application delivery, where end users access applications running in the cloud or in the datacenter, greatly benefits from this type of flexibility.By delivering the workspace vir-tually, we enable organizations to improve productivity, and workload efficiency empowering the work-force to access their applications and data from anywhere, on any device. Yet, to do that, we also need to fo-cus on and deliver a consistent and responsive workload user experi-ence across many end-user devices, including workstations, laptops, smart-phones, and tablets.The Unique Storage Challenges Involved in VDI and Work-space DeliveryThe lowest common denominator in most IT deploy-ments is stor-age. Since VDI first emerged, storage perfor-mance has been a key factor in delivering a quality end-user experience. Yet for a long time, stor-age has been a black voodoo box for IT. It has been very expensive to procure and manage, and it is frequently one of the most complex, yet poorly performing infra-structure elements in the customer's datacenter. However, storage holds one of the most precious re-sources in the organization--user and application data, which are the keys to productivity and output when de-livering virtual workspaces. VDI and workspace deployments have been sig-nificantly hindered by the cost, complexity, and per-formance of storage. For virtual workspace delivery to provide the full value businesses need, the industry must not only address performance challenges, but must also reduce the per-session cost and deliver a bet-ter user experience. Redefining the Storage Architecture to Reduce the Workspace Delivery Cost and ComplexityFor a long time, storage has been a monolithic and ex-pensive piece of infrastructure lagging behind more modular server, networking, and application architec-tures. In addition, server virtualization and application delivery have added fluidity and dynamic expansion and migration to these layers. This cannot be matched by conventional storage infrastructures.To make matters even more difficult for custom-ers, an average storage array lives in the customer da-tacenter for 10 years. As a result, new storage architec-tures must enable these capabilities, while augmenting current infrastructure, rather than requiring a rip and replace approach. New storage architectures should be modular, fully distributed and should take advantage of indus-try-standard components, coupling them into elastic storage, data and compute systems through software. These systems can then be used to deliver elastic VDI and workspace delivery seamlessly, with a focus on defining and guaranteeing the user experience while eliminating infrastructure and storage islands.Momchil Michalovopinionin my
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