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Thin-client accelerator GreenBytes has separated its software from its virtual desktop appliance hardware so customers can use anybody's flash to store machine images.

The company's IO Offload Engine is a dedicated solid-state disk array that stores virtual desktop images and feeds them to users' computers at blistering speed. The biz claims its patented inline deduplication technology can strip out up to 97 per cent of data in VDI files, and thus store them in much less space than otherwise needed and transmit them faster too. It makes a point of saying it supports persistent clones, the ones that change state as the user alters them, as well as the skinny linked clones that do not store a user's alterations from day to day.

So, as speculated, GreenBytes has split the engine's hardware from its software and made the code available as product called vIO.

This uses a PCIe, local SSD or flash-based storage controller as its data store with a VMware ESXi host. One vIO installation is designed to support up to 100 or so VDI seats. Deploy more instances for more seats. If you think you might need a thousand or more seats then the IO Offload Engine itself might be better value.

The vIO is GreenBytes' inline dedupe applied to VDI. For flash storage suppliers without good VDI software nor any deduplication this could be a useful application. The vIO software will be generally available on 1 March. ®

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