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If your employees work in a remote or hybrid model, your business may use VDI, which allows businesses to provide personnel with virtual desktops on thin clients or laptops rather than on-premises desktops. Each virtual desktop is equipped with exactly what your company specifies—so IT admins don’t have to dedicate time troubleshooting each employee’s unique configurations, OS, and apps. In addition to potentially reducing device and support costs, because VDI stores data in the data center instead of on end user devices, it can also help keep your data secure.
Besides the pervasive challenges of upgrading, the pandemic has changed the workplace. According to a study by McKinsey Global Institute, up to 25 percent of workers in advanced economies could work remotely three to five days per week.6 With younger workers more likely than older counterparts to give up future earnings for the opportunity to work remotely,7 workplace flexibility is key for the future. Whatever your workforce looks like now, your organization may be considering a remote or hybrid work approach in the long term.
Our VDI workload on each server cluster—which ran at the same time as the transactional database tests— consisted of 100 simulated virtual users logging into virtual desktops and performing work-related tasks using the Standard Profile. The View Planner benchmark measured latency across two types of tasks: CPU Sensitive and Storage Sensitive. According to View Planner documentation, CPU Sensitive tasks include quick, interactive operations such as scrolling through a PDF or modifying a Microsoft Word document.8 As Figure 2 illustrates, the newer Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 cluster delivered less latency for these types of tasks.
Figure 2: Operational latency, in seconds, while performing CPU Sensitive tasks for a 100-user VDI workload with the View Planner benchmark. Both clusters simultaneously ran an OLTP workload and the 100-user VDI workload. Lower latency is better. Source: Principled Technologies.
Storage Sensitive tasks for VDI testing include slower operations, such as saving a slide deck or opening a large document.9 Our results show that for these types of tasks, the Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 cluster reduced latency by 1.8 seconds (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Operational latency, in seconds, while performing Storage Sensitive tasks for a 100-user VDI workload with the View Planner benchmark. Both clusters simultaneously ran an OLTP workload and the 100-user VDI workload. Lower latency is better. Source: Principled Technologies.
Lower latency on tasks for VDI users could translate to a smoother experience for your hybrid and remote employees.
In our testing, we ran workloads on Dell EMC PowerEdge R6515 servers powered by mid-bin 32-core AMD EPYC™ 7543P processors. These single-socket 1U servers support up to 64 cores of compute, offer up to 16 DDR4 RDIMM/ LRDIMM slots,10 and have what Dell calls “best in class” embedded management tools.11 They also feature Cyber Resilient Architecture, which includes Silicon Root of Trust and iDRAC9, and integrates with AMD EPYC processor security features. Dell Technologies says that their security is “built-in, not bolted-on after the fact, and is integrated into every step through Dell’s Secure Development Lifecycle.”12
To learn more, visit https://www.dell.com/en-us/ work/shop/povw/poweredge-R6515.
6 McKinsey Global Institute, “The future of work after COVID-19.”
7 PwC, “What’s next for America’s workforce post-COVID-19?” accessed November 12, 2021, https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/consulting/workforce-of-the-future/library/workforce-pulse-survey.html.
8 Julie Brodeur, “Understanding the View Planner Report,” accessed November 16, 2021, https://blogs.vmware.com/performance/2020/09/understanding-view-planner-report.html.
9 Julie Brodeur, “Understanding the View Planner Report.”
10 “PowerEdge R6515 Spec Sheet,” accessed November 12, 2021, https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Product_Docs/en/poweredge-r6515-spec-sheet.pdf.
11 “iDRAC9 with Lifecycle Controller—Best in class management for Dell EMC 14th generation PowerEdge Servers,” accessed January 4, 2022, https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/dell-emc-idrac9-lc-overview.pdf.
12 “Technical White Paper: Cyber Resilient Security in Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers,” accessed December 8, 2021, https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-my/products/servers/industry-market/cyber-resilient-security-with-power-edge-servers.pdf.