Hello hppyflight, EMC's FAST and XtremIO are definitely great technologies to deliver VDI. As well a server based flash card / technology (VMware's vFRC - vSphere Flash Read Cache available in 5.5 or EMC's XtremSF) is an option to improve performance. As always it depends. Today EMC recommends to look at XtremIO with 1000 users and above. If you plan to start small and move into 2000 and more users this might be your choice. If you are anywhere between 100 to 2000 users: it depends. But VNX and a local server flash cache may be a good setup. But don't forget: it's about the applications, the user experience and the network as next bottle neck. Feel free to reach out to EMC and EMC partners to discuss your scenario as the final solution depends on what the scope of the VDI solution is. If you would like to get familiar with design and sizing, feel free to have a look at VMware End User Computing / Horizon Plan & Design Resources Trying to have interesting and helpful resources together for that. One of the first links is the Reference architectures. And if you would like to have a look at the VMware Horizon View with EMC XtremIO Reference Architecture, here you go: EMC Infrastructure for VMware Horizon View 5.2 w/ XtremIO Good luck and will be curious to see what you come up as your final design. KR, David
When we make VDI environments, are Fast cache and Extrem I/O still good solution? I wonder if we use "View storage accelerator (a per-host RAM-based solution), it will solve the problem (I/O bottle neck of storage side) which is a target issue of Fast cache and Xtrem I/O. I found some whitepaper or sizing guide which recommend to use both storage functions.  In what case I sould use which? I'd loke to know the pros and cons.
View storage accelerator VS. Fast Cache and Extreme I/O