Everyone acknowledges that the cost and cool factor of tablets acting as primary client computing devices is what gets the headlines.  The reality of non-PC device ubiquity firmly took root for me when smartphone shipments passed PC shipments back in 2010¹.

From this tablet and smartphone-centric view, one would conclude that Microsoft apps are simply a legacy burden to be endured only until all-web-all-the-time-apps take over.  Less expensive thin clients, zero clients, and mobile client devices would logically replace PCs as user clients and importantly, the Microsoft tax on traditional PC use ends.

But after speaking with users well-versed in VDI, the opposite conclusion is holding true– namely that fully functional PCs remain alive and well in a VDI world – although the PCs often become the property of a different owner.   There are three reasons favoring the continued use of PCs in smaller-scale desktop virtualization programs.

First is the reality-check that comes when someone actually tries to run a Windows app on an iPad.  Guess what?  It’s not so easy.  Windows screens are invariably the wrong size, finger taps are not nearly as precise as mouse clicks and multiple windows are awkward to navigate.

Second, while tablets are outstanding and fun for consuming content, they remain clunky for generating content.  Sure, not everyone builds PowerPoints, writes lengthy Word docs, or creates detailed Excel spreadsheets.  However, for those that do, like in educational environments, non-PC devices are simply not ideal.

Third, VDI enthusiasts in education, government and medium businesses don’t want to own PCs at all – they want to free-ride on PCs owned by their employees or customers.  Medium businesses, for example, are offering PC reimbursement programs to meet user demands for flexibility in supported systems while increasing employee satisfaction.  Secondary, educational institutions are shifting PC ownership to students to minimize capital costs, free up lab space, and shift PC maintenance to the Apple Genius Bar.  There is even a creative move to finance and fund student PCs by lumping PC purchase costs into grant and financial aid packages.

Given that the bring your own computer (BYOC) model is truly about saving money, it only makes sense that a cost-effective, VDI solution that works at small and large scale is what most businesses are after

The combination of VMware View with the Pivot3 vSTAC™ VDI appliance is the latest example of how creative users can deploy virtual desktops in cost-sensitive, smaller environments.

Read this ESG Lab review with results of hands-on testing of the Pivot3 vSTAC VDI appliance VMware View 5 VDI implementations.

Lee Caswell,  Founder of Pivot3 and Chief Strategy Officer

First posted 2/15/12 http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/02/desktops-are-alive-and-well-in-a-vdi-world.html

The upcoming release of View 5.1 will incorporate cool new functionality called View Storage Accelerator (VSA), which is designed to 1) improve performance and, 2) reduce shared storage costs.

Improving performance. View Storage Accelerator caches the most frequently read data from disks inside the hypervisor memory, enabling in-memory-type performance for disk access. This is especially useful during login or boot storms where there is a heavy concurrent set of reads. In fact in tests that we have run on the View 5.1 release candidate we seen a marked reduction in peak IOPS consumption when using View Storage Accelerator during boot and login storms. We’ve measured a net reduction in peak IOPS by as much as 65% during these activities. Although we haven’t done as much testing on concurrent file reads for common applications, we believe that there would also be some important gains for application performance from the in-memory caching capabilities of View Storage Accelerator.

Reducing shared storage costs. In tests that we have run in our labs, we believe that there is an opportunity for us to reduce the overall amount of SSD we currently use in order to provision desktops at log in or boot up. This translates into an overall reduced cost of shared storage and an overall reduction in dollars per desktop for the shared storage infrastructure.

This one feature allows us to deliver a better price/performance vSTAC™ VDI appliance to the market. We will be shipping our 5.1-enabled vSTAC VDI that takes advantage of View Storage Accelerator very soon after the GA of View 5.1. In addition, we are doing advanced R&D to further leverage the benefits of VSA that will manifest itself into our product lineup later this year.

If you can’t wait to see what View 5.1 and VSA are all about, then you can get a sneak peak during our upcoming Driver’s Ed Webinar. During this virtual desktop-based webinar jointly hosted by VMware and Pivot3, you will be able to explore some of the new View 5.1 features interactively. Be sure not to miss some of the cool eye candy and management functionality of vCenter Operations Manager during this live webinar!