SanDisk Introduces New Solutions for Horizon 6, Virtual SAN

Flash storage solutions provider SanDisk (SNDK) brought wider support for VMware (VMW) Horizon 6 and Virtual SAN to users this week with the introduction of a new series of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and end user computing (EUC) solutions for Horizon 6. Support for VMware’s offerings will stem from SanDisks’s ULLtraDIMM solid-state drive (SSD) and Fusion ioMemory solutions.

SanDisk’s ULLtraDIMM SSD and Fusion Memory will allow Horizon 6 customers to deploy high-performance virtual desktop infrastructure solutions within their environments and increase their virtual desktop density, according to the company. The combination of SanDisk’s SSD hardware and software technology is expected to give enterprises more deployment options so they can increase flexibility and reduce potential barriers to adoption.

“Software-defined storage allows enterprise customers to break traditional barriers between the compute, storage and network layers of the data center. We can create innovative models leveraging software to increase ROI of existing storage infrastructure,” said John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk, in a statement. “The solutions for Horizon 6 and Virtual SAN are prime examples of how SanDisk continues to collaborate with VMware. These solutions are just the beginning of many advances that our partnership with VMware will bring to virtual desktop infrastructure deployments.”

According to SanDisk, the ULLtraDIMM memory channel storage solution will allow customers to extend the performance of their virtualized environments due to the system’s speedy write times and scalable performance options. Additionally, Fusion ioMemory virtual desktop infrastructure users can expect to see up to 90 percent SAN offload potential and up to 16x increased desktop density per server when used alongside flash-enabled SAN storage.

SanDisk is expected to demonstrate three of its new reference architectures this week during VMworld 2014 in San Francisco, including its in-Server ULLtraDIMM SSD, Virtual San cluster for Horizon 6 and its SAN storage Fusion ioMemory infrastructure solution. VMware released Horizon 6 in June, promising to give users the ability to deliver RDS hosted applications through a unified workspace.

“We are thrilled by these new flash-powered solutions from SanDisk which provide our mutual customers with increased levels of VM performance density with fast, cost-effective and highly scalable, virtual desktops for key customer deployment options whether it is with SAN, in-server or with Virtual SAN,” said Erik Frieberg, vice president of Marketing and End User Computing at VMware.