Desktone, NetApp Streamline DaaS

At a time when high upfront costs, complex architectures, and shared storage bottlenecks have been dogging mainstream VDI products such as XenDesktop and View, Desktone offers a tempting alternative built on its cloud-based desktop-as-a-service platform. Currently designed for enterprise and services providers, the DaaS offering prides itself on its economical, no-muss, no-fuss approach to VDI, which has been poised for a popularity liftoff that has yet to occur.

Enter NetApp. Combined with Desktone, the major domo storage player is enabling a solution that further simplifies the delivery of DaaS. The good news for service providers and users alike is the NetApp/Desktone offering reportedly helps service providers reduce those high, upfront costs and alleviate the nagging complexity, while igniting a surge in performance. In addition, with this joint offering, service providers can quickly deploy a full-featured service that allows customers to realize the benefits of virtual desktops such as support for mobile users, less expensive desktop support, and BYOD compatibility -- which doesn't seem like a lot to ask for, given the amount of hyperbole that users have been exposed to for the past few years.

According to Desktone, "the Desktone Platform is the only solution that enables virtual hosted desktops to be delivered as an outsourced, cloud subscription service," adding that it is "currently powering the cloud-hosted desktop offerings of more than a dozen global service providers."

As would be expected, NetApp is bringing its storage expertise to the table in the form of thin provisioning and deduplication that are expected to reduce storage requirements on a platform that was already storage conscious. Desktone says that NetApp "enables the near-instant provisioning of new virtual desktops so that new customers and users can be up and running on the service fast. NetApp integrated data protection features allow service providers to deliver enterprise-level data protection including point-in-time backups for user data, self-restore and data archiving."

Also included in this package is FlexPod technology, a pretested networking, computing and storage datacenter platform that includes NetApp unified storage systems, Cisco Unified Computing System server and Cisco Nexus switches.

In a nutshell, the Desktone-NetApp combination provides expanded mutli-tenancy, enhanced overhead provisioning, an administrative self-service portal, and scale-out architecture.

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 10/16/2012 at 12:48 PM