 We know that virtualization, server virtualization breaks storage. Does VDI break storage too? Put a lot of pressure on it? It doesn't it doesn't. So there's a couple different points on the storage that that we learned. First we we were doing that whenever we first started out we were doing all non-persistent full full clones. We weren't doing any link cloning or anything like that. We started out with the 10 gig XP image. And what we found out with the shared storage is that everything would be working fine and then anytime that a SQL server would kick off or a backup would kick off on a server it would kind of saturate the line and that the performance that the end user would see that were on VDI would slow down. And I've always kind of said that and this is if the networks down you can still play solitary. Your end user can at least play solitary. Where if you're on VDI and the networks down end users staring at a blank screen. And the end user is the first to notice something to slow down. So there's no warning or anything. Your phone lights up and you know there's problems. So what we found out is that we wanted to get or once we found that out we wanted to get VDI off on their own storage. And once we did that we've been now over a year and a half with knock on wood without a glitch. What are you using for storage. We use the equal logic 6500 sumo that's a 48 terabyte in a 4U space. We do a rate 10 so it's 22 terabyte usable and right now we're running about 1200 desktops on it without a problem. Yes performing well simple to set of equal logic really use right. Oh yeah yeah it's literally plug and play. I mean I'm on the desktop team and so we have a VDI team and I'm more of a server guy and then we have a desktop guy. And that's it. We control everything. We control our sand. We control all the servers. We control you know the image all the scripting all the policies everything. So it made it to where we didn't have to rely on a storage specialist to really you know be part of our team. We don't have to go to anyone and say hey we need another lawn or hey we need this. We just do it ourselves. Doug okay what are some advice would you have for your peers out there. I mean people are out there going hey that's really great. They have the same dynamics going on in their company. Sure you know they will all want to get there this journey. People want the cloud they see it's relevant it's real. What advice would you share with folks out there on how to go forward your proof points best practice. A couple of best practice points is there is a lot of talk out there and it's like oh you can spend up two thousand desktops and stuff. It's like well you know once again you know be practical and realistic that you know you're really only going to have you know as many users in a certain department on one image which is fine. I mean now I only have to tweak out one image to update one image or whatever for a hundred desktops. Well it's done still ahead. The other thing and the biggest thing that I could ever say is whenever you're going to your boss or whenever your boss is going to their boss and they want to start a VDI deployment don't don't go to your server team and give them and say hey we're going to do a VDI deployment and don't go to your desktop team say hey we're going to do a VDI deployment. What we did is we have a server guy and a desktop guy and that's our VDI team because even though it's desktops you're still on the server but once this once it becomes an XP machine once it becomes a Windows 7 machine it's a desktop. So with us you know I mean so I'm able to you know spin up all the ESX servers and all the hosts and get all the storage and everything all set up and then you know clone out machines and then once the machines are cloned out I kind of hand it over to him and he does all the group policies and scripting and everything else that makes a desktop a desktop or makes it makes it what a desktop how it should work within a corporation and that has seemed to really really work the best to where we're completely separate from everybody. So break down the old silos create a new team totally integrated team. Yeah yeah and and if you pull someone from the server side and you pull someone from the desktop side you still have that relationship with the server side and that relationship with the desktop side so you're no longer you know like going to the server team going hey guys can I get this again you know I mean you're that you're everybody works together at that point. What's the biggest pain point that you see down the road that's going to be relieved by this new paradigm of virtualization and cloud computing. Is there is there stuff that goes away just I mean new challenges but I mean it's still got to run networks and you got to still run applications. Sure what there's what changes. The fact that you can go to an end user and you can say you no longer have to wait three years for a new desktop. You could you will get a brand new desktop every day or you know potentially you can have that you know set up to where your end user comes in and they get a brand new desktop every day. You no longer have to worry about viruses you no longer worry I mean you still have to worry about viruses but you know you no longer have to worry about you know really taking care of them you know you log off it's deleted you log back on you get a new machine. You know stuff like that that you can now tailor fit an image for a department or if your department has a big update coming you can say okay well we're going to make these you know 10 virtual machines we're going to put the update on this or the new software on this here you go try it out have it out basically. Well it's not it's a slow roll out but but as soon as they try it out you're okay so so I'll spin up you know once it's once they sign off on it okay I'm cloning out a hundred machines I un-entitled them from this hundred I entitle them to this hundred all the end you guys to do is log off log back on they get a new image. Yeah if it doesn't work log off log back on they're on the old edge until we fix whatever needs to be fixed rolling out you know going to Windows 7 so you know we're before you know they take forever oh my god we're now you know we'll spin up a template of Windows 7 image that the that department can now test out make sure everything works right on it once they sign off that it's working right we'll clone them out they log off they log back on now the entire department is converted to one sounds easy. So Microsoft would love a VMWare then right? Yeah. We have Microsoft on today at five o'clock we'll talk about that. I need to come over here and ask them some questions. So I'm doing a lot of testing with the Vue 4.5 and Windows 7 and stuff and so right now with XP you know there's still some some glitches you know watching video and and you notice any any graphics and stuff like that and sound and whatnot I mean it's it's there you can but it's not the greatest. When you have a Windows 7 fat client and if you can you know if you want to strip it down strip it down and and just put the Vue client on there but Windows 7 to a Windows 7 virtual machine on a LAN connection you can't tell the difference. So the graphics experiences. I can get Arrow I can get HD video I can get you know flash everything just works. I literally you cannot tell a difference. Now so you said about 20% or VDI your clients or VDI. Yeah. How far do you want to take it and right now the probably you know 80% you know whatever we can. I mean so right now like you know running Photoshop and and so all our designers and stuff like that they're not really good candidates to be brought over. Obviously our Mac users you know we can't really bring them over. But you know for the general population of all the users we want to convert them over. And what's slowing you down. We're really once we saw the performance boost so you know going from right now with with the way everything is set up there you do take kind of a performance hit going from a full desktop over to virtual run an XP and you know what you 4.0 or 3.1 or whatever and there is it's just reality. You just need the but once I started beta testing view 4.5 and Windows 7 and the fact that you can't tell a difference. That's what we're waiting on that. And so once that's out and once that's released we're going to start rolling. So other than 4.5 what's on VMware's to do list. I would still love to see right now you know I mean you I guess you know whenever I see you can't tell a difference between desktop you know it's probably eighty eighty five percent there which is good. I would still love to see a hundred percent. I would love to see I would love to be able to put Photoshop people and illustrator people on a virtual machine. And until that is reached and until you can do that on a WAN connection is reached. I think there's still improvement. But they're getting better closing the gap. You know I mean it's definitely getting better. We got to kind of wrap up. I know you got to go. And we got to know the guests coming on. But your vision of the future what's what are you excited about. I mean I'm obviously you're an IT IT is powers the organization is changing to his consumption model. You know VDI virtual desktops mobiles here. People want iPads and iPhones. These are the big big stories are going to come out tomorrow. What gets you excited about the future in terms of the role. You're more of an architect now you're delivering bigger systems. What particular thing gets you most excited. Solid state hard drives are I did some testing with Ecologic on their solid state saying and I got to say performance on those were incredible. So that's you know one thing more you know whatever view 5.0 comes out. I mean I'm excited to see whatever improvements they can do to to see what I can you know what how much better it can be. I mean you know can we you know finally do true gaming on a virtual machine. And you know that that not not the next level of gaming but next level of performance. Yeah it is stuff like that. I want to be able to to give VDI to an end user and an end user is excited about getting it instead of going hey we're going to give you this thin client we're going to give you this virtual machine and they're and even though it works great for business stuff I want them to be able also be excited about hey not only does it work you know for business wise but it also does everything that I shouldn't be doing while I'm working. Yeah yeah and so the end user can feel like a real power PC kind of thing experience. Yeah yeah and that's something that that's an argument I've always had is that I've always you know kind of used the comparison of hey you know I don't get arrow whatever I have a virtual machine and everyone always says well you don't need arrow that's not really it's not just a spreadsheet objective hey cut some cost be more efficient it's like deliver value to the right you know I don't need air conditioner whenever I drive to work but it's nice to have yeah you know so it it's it's just something that it's like yeah the three you need them yeah well we're in St. Louis so it's a little bit more but it's something that that I just want to I want them to strive for the best and and I want to I want to eventually have them deliver the best and and I think they will or hopefully you know so Doug West off here on the Cube he's in the Cube only on SiliconANGLE.TV where you can see all the