About Citrix XenDesktop

Citrix XenDesktop™ is a desktop virtualization and VDI solution that delivers a complete Windows desktop experience as an on-demand service to any user, anywhere. Whether users are task workers, knowledge workers or mobile workers, XenDesktop can quickly and securely deliver individual applications or complete desktops while providing a high-definition user experience.

VDI Storage Problem

Virtual Machines (VMs) are proliferating at an exponential rate and with it are the costs of acquiring and maintaining expensive and complex storage infrastructure. When IT organizations try to address the problem by adding more hardware, networking or storage, VDI quickly uses up the additional capacity without solving the problem. IT organization have also tried to apply Linked Clone, thin provisioning and data deduplication to minimize storage requirements for desktop VMs but find that the storage reduction is not as straightforward as adding capacity, using master disk image clones or applying traditional storage technology. In order for VDI to scale to thousands of users, IT organizations need to take a new approach to storage for VDI that dramatically lowers storage costs and improves performance.

Atlantis ILIO: Citrix XenDesktop Storage Reduction and Performance Acceleration

Atlantis ILIO is a VDI storage and performance optimization solution that integrates with Citrix XenDesktop to reduce storage costs, increase desktop performance and streamline image management. Atlantis ILIO is delivered as a plug-and-play hardware appliance that instantly reduces the amount of VDI storage needed and boosts Citrix XenDesktop performance by inserting the ILIO appliance into each VDI server rack. In addition, IT organizations can use any storage solution they like without worrying about performance issues. When enterprises are ready to deliver rapid deployment of patches and updates, they can turn on Atlantis ILIO’s image management feature by purchasing an additional image management license.

Integrating Atlantis ILIO into a Citrix XenDesktop Deployment

Atlantis ILIO is deployed as a 1u physical server appliance, with a high availability (HA) option. The Atlantis ILIO appliance is installed inline in the data path between the XenDesktop servers and the storage array. Typically, the Atlantis ILIO appliance(s) are installed at the top of each rack of XenDesktop servers, supporting up to 1000 users per appliance. The Atlantis ILIO appliance scales out easily to add more desktop capacity by adding more XenDesktop server racks without adding additional storage.

For information on Citrix verified compatability, visit the Citrix Ready Product Profile for Atlantis ILIO