ESG Blogs

In my time with ESG Lab, I have seen and tested numerous virtual desktop solutions and reference architectures. It’s common knowledge that virtualizing end-user computing environments can present the most challenging workloads an infrastructure must support. Users have become accustomed to the performance of flash drives in their business and personal computers, making delivery of an exceptional user experience–essential to the success of desktop virtualization–even more challenging. If you can’t deliver performance equal to or better than what users already have, you’ve already lost.

Many organizations are so intent on identifying new malware that they are failing to address or in some cases even recognize advanced evasion techniques (AETs) that can enable malware to circumvent their security defenses. AETs pose a great threat because most security solutions can’t detect, much less stop them. Security professionals and executive managers need to wake up to this real and growing threat.

Advanced persistent threats (APTs) have been a huge focus in network security discussions over the past few years with good reason. Numerous organizations are implementing new solutions to protect themselves from this determined type of malware. Even so, cyber criminals have been penetrating the network defenses of even the most robust security infrastructures, including some very high-profile enterprises.

Virtual desktop environments can present one of the most challenging workloads an infrastructure must deal with. Random, shifting I/O and bottlenecks in the storage domain will have a significant impact on performance. Delivering an exceptional user experience is essential to the success of desktop virtualization deployments because users are becoming conditioned to the performance of flash drives in their business and personal computers. Users demand performance equal to or better than what they already have.

Fusion-io announced Fusion ioVDI software for VDI acceleration at VMworld this week. ESG Lab has gotten an early look, and is in the process of testing and analyzing for a Lab Validation report to be released soon.

A: One-unless you're a masochist.