Disklace - VDI vs disks maintenance

Disk Maintenance for VDIs (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure)

Users and administrators tend to ignore their duty to maintain their disks, either because their defrag programs interrupt their work, or because they do not understand how often the process needs to be done. Those who defrag usually do so according to a preset schedule, which does not necessarily correlate with when the disk needs care.
Lace Watcher PRO solves all of these problems, by centralizing computers’ care management—discovering when a disk needs maintenance before problems begin and performing defrag exactly when necessary, working quietly in the background while users go about their regular work.
Our research, presented at IBM’s 3rd Storage Research Academic Conference (June 2010), shows that by the time an end user notices any strange symptoms and slowdowns—disk maintenance is already too late. Defragmentation does not help much at this point, and major, expensive intervention is required.
VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) users sometimes believe their disks to be immune to these risks. Virtualization means that a disk exists in a central location, and users are connected virtually. Each user’s connection to the disk is transparent, so that they are able to work exactly as if working on a real disk, accessing all applications without any evidence of their virtual nature.
However, the disks used in VDI are exactly same as any other disk. The technology of virtual systems is distinct because of the means used to access the disk, not the disk itself. This means that if you are working on a VDI, you need to be maintaining your disks to prevent slowdowns and other symptoms. When a VDI is new, the virtual disks are clean, and everything looks fine, but inevitably, the fragmentation symptoms that we all dread will slowly appear.
While developing a system that would defrag users' disks centrally is technically possible, we chose against this route for several good reasons:

Security: Central defrag would create back-door access to your users’ disks, which could be used maliciously
Privacy: Users want their disks to be their private corners—a central defrag means creating a central path to the disk, essentially a form of privacy penetration
Risk assessment: Trying to maintain a user’s disks from a central access point could result in conflicts that prevent the user from accessing his disks Defragmentation is the most extensive and dangerous operation on a disk. If it is mistakenly performed in parallel to normal work, it can destroy the disk.

Lace Watcher PRO works by measuring disk fragmentation through the users' machines. Therefore, the location of the data is not relevant. Your data can be on a real disk, a virtual disk, or even in a cloud. In fact, if you are currently migrating between platforms, Lace Watcher may assist by monitoring the migration stages.

Whatever storage system you use, Lace Watcher PRO can maintain your disks to keep them running better and faster—without depending on the efforts of your users or interrupting their work flow—saving you time and money.

Virtual Users, Beware!

Your virtual drives are as vulnerable to problems as any other disk! And no one can take care of them but you. Neglecting their maintenance will lead you down the wrong road, and you will soon find yourself encountering the all-too familiar problems that you had with your old disk.

Let us help you:

Lace Watcher PRO is the right tool for you to care for your system, whether you work on real disks, virtual disks, or any other type of storage.