Anglia Ruskin University Virtualizes 1,000 Desktops for 32,000 Students Using Violin Memory

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 7, 2012) - Violin Memory, Inc., provider of one of the world's fastest and most scalable flash Memory Arrays, helped Anglia Ruskin University virtualize nearly 1,000 desktops for 32,000 students. Realizing the bottlenecks of disk, the university replaced their existing architecture with a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution that used Violin 3000 Series flash Memory Arrays.

The Challenge
According to Gregor Waddell, assistant director of Anglia Ruskin University, the university wanted to provide a modern and attractive desktop to its students and staff, leverage recent technology innovations to reduce costs, and improve the delivery of the latest software to those who need them irrespective of location. The university also had to reduce power consumption and contribute to sustainability objectives within its corporate plan.

Anglia Ruskin had a great understanding of the advantages of virtualization for its server infrastructure and had already pushed almost all of its server estate over to VMware vSphere. However, the limiting factor was the back-end storage performance in the VDI environment. The storage performance required a solution that can scale to at least 800 concurrent users with no appreciable degradation to user experience, and introduce a resilient architecture, avoiding single points of failure.

The Solution: Violin Flash Memory Arrays
After considering several options, Anglia Ruskin selected Violin's 3000 Series flash Memory Array for its ability to handle 220,000 random write IOPS in 4K blocks: more than twenty times the performance of a comparable storage area network (SAN) disk array.

"We chose the Violin 3000 Series flash Memory Array because it's very well-engineered, reliable and offers high storage performance," said Waddell. "Storage performance is key to VDI, but our traditional spinning disk infrastructure did not offer enough performance. The virtual machines needed 800-1000 IOPS per desktop, most of which were writes."

To cater to the heavy I/O loads generated by hundreds of users logging on and launching apps, a traditional storage area network (SAN) based solution would have required many shelves of disks, consumed more power, required significant cooling and incurred higher maintenance costs than the Violin Memory solution. The project was part of an upgrade from an estate of around 4,500 Windows X-based PCs to Windows 7 -- supporting a vibrant and diverse student population of 32,000.

Return on Investment
After deploying the new VDI solution with Violin's flash Memory Array, the University saw significant benefits and cost savings. The virtualized desktop was initially launched within a new IT open access area in 2011 and is now being rolled out to a wider base including the staff. 

"Feedback from our students and Student Union has been excellent," said Waddell. "Our architecture has allowed speedy additions of new software such as Adobe Dreamweaver. We have also realized potential software license savings where software can be licensed on a concurrent basis rather than a 'per seat' basis."

Key benefits:

• Hosted VDI, associated software costs, training, consultancy and 400 thin clients had a total budget similar to that required to provide traditional PCs.
• Additional users may be added up to the existing server capacity of 600-700 concurrent users by either adding thin or zero clients or by reusing existing PCs.
• Predicted power total consumption is 60-70 percent lower than comparable Windows 7 based PCs (using thin client devices). This includes all server and storage power consumption. 

For more information on VDIs using flash memory, download our latest webinar replay, whitepaper and success story that highlight Anglia Ruskin University's VDI deployment. Learn about the value of Violin for virtualized environments by visiting booth #300 at VMworld between August 26-30 in San Francisco. To schedule a meeting in advance, click here.

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About Anglia Ruskin University
Anglia Ruskin University is located in the East of England and is based on two main campuses: Cambridge and Chelmsford. In the Government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) for Higher Education Institutes Anglia Ruskin University were the top-rated modern university for Psychology, 2nd for English Language & Literature (including contributions from Communication, Film and Media) and 3rd for History. Rated 'world-leading': 8 of our areas of research -- Allied Health Professions & Studies; Art & Design; English Language & Literature; Geography & Environmental Studies; History; Music; Psychology and Social Work; Social Policy & Administration had a proportion of their work rated as 'world-leading'. Anglia Ruskin also has three major regional college partners, University Centre Harlow, University Centre Peterborough, and University Centre West Anglia. All centres deliver a number of credit-rated and modular courses validated by Anglia Ruskin. http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home.html

About Violin Memory, Inc.
Violin Memory is pioneering the future of flash memory storage in the enterprise data center. Violin Memory Arrays deliver storage at the speed of memory, accelerating business critical applications and enabling fully virtualized and optimized IT infrastructures. Specifically designed for sustained performance with high reliability, Violin flash Memory Arrays scale to hundreds of terabytes and millions of IOPS with low, spike-free latency. Founded in 2005, Violin Memory is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information, visit www.vmem.com.