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Converge THIS: Network titan Cisco on how to VDI in 10 days

I got your convergence right here, pal

HPC Blog Thinking about virtualising your desktops? Want to run all those sessions in your data centre and simply broadcast the screen and UI out to whatever device your users desire?

There are a lot of vendors out there who are looking to ease your shift into VDI (virtualized desktop infrastructure), helping to figure out how much server, storage, and network you need to make your desktop dreams come true.

At the NVIDIA GTC’14 conference, I spent a few minutes with Tony Paikeday, Cisco’s Global Solutions Lead for desktop virtualisation. I caught the conversation on video, of course, which you can view below

While Cisco is synonymous with networking, we mainly talked about its UCS systems and how the firm is using them to drive its VDI initiative. As Paikeday pointed out, the UCS product line was designed from the ground up with virtualisation in mind, and the addition of NVIDIA Grid GPUs makes them a natural choice for a VDI host platform.

Youtube Video

In the video, we talked about the challenge of providing enough performance to handle a bunch of task workers (not all that hard), but also how to keep the power users happy (not as easy). Figuring out what sort of architecture you need to support various types of users is a complex undertaking.

The firm has developed a set of Cisco Validated Designs that show Cisco’s recommended solutions for small, medium, and large organisations with persistent or non-persistent desktop sessions.

If you’re looking for more information, you can either download or stream Cisco’s GTC’14 VDI session. Here's the abstract:

You can find the session online here.

I have to give Paikeday a lot of credit for sticking around and pushing all the way until the end of the show. As he and I were talking, the show was being taken down around us. All of the booths were coming down so fast that I halfway expected someone to come up and load him on a hand truck for transport back to Cisco HQ. ®

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