VDI platforms use shared storage located centrally for VDI desktop images. However, Windows operating systems and the NTFS file system were designed to operate with a low latency dedicated local disk for every desktop. The Microsoft Windows family of operating systems is dependent on performing input/output (IO) intensive tasks such as file layout optimization, background defragmentation, antivirus scanning and virtual memory paging. However, in a VDI environment, these tasks result in placing a heavy tax on shared storage infrastructure as each user, application and desktop compete for limited IO capacity (measured in input/output per second-IOPS). Without adequate storage IOPS, applications and virtual machines take longer to boot and applications respond sluggishly, leaving users frustrated.

Atlantis ILIO is a revolutionary approach to deploying VDI that makes the Windows operating system perform well without massive investments in storage infrastructure. Atlantis ILIO boosts VDI desktop performance by transparently optimizing IO and offloading IO intensive Windows operations from VDI shared storage. ILIO terminates operating system and application traffic on the same rack as the VDI servers before traffic hits the storage system. By virtualizing the IO components of a virtual desktop, Atlantis ILIO also enables administrators to clone destops virtually rather than making a copy of the entire desktop, reducing cloning time and eliminating storage of cloned virtual desktops. The result is up to a 10 times performance increase for VDI desktops, which translates into faster virtual desktop boot times, logon, cloning, antivirus scanning and overall desktop performance. Atlantis ILIO also eliminates VDI IO bottlenecks caused by boot storms, logon storms and antivirus scanning.