Previously, the company had provided hosted email, hosted backup and infrastructure-as-a-service to its customers. The next step was to develop a desktop-as-a-service offering but it needed a high performing, multi-tenant virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution to support customer demand. Initially, it planned to use a storage area network (SAN) running on solid state drive (SSD), but the costs were higher than expected. When OGL discovered software-defined storage solutions from Atlantis, it realised that this alternative approach to storage would enable it to achieve its business objectives at a lower cost.
Atlantis Software Defined Storage supported the business model – superior performance but at a lower total investment. This allowed OGL to set more competitive subscription prices for its new service. Since deployment, feedback from users has consistently been positive. In the twelve months since OGL Computer launched its new hosted desktop-as-a-service, the Atlantis solution has been extremely reliable, and simple to use. OGL now has 20 hosts, each serving 80 desktops delivering a resilient service for its customers because it eliminates all single points of failure. Recently OGL Computer has started moving towards Atlantis’ USX solution to support the company’s VDI environment.
Mark Slater, solutions architect at OGL Computer said: “We estimated that the cost of 1,500 Atlantis licences was 34% less than the cost of purchasing an SSD-based SAN for up to 1,500 desktops. Also, the SAN would have required additional rack space and power, as well as 2-3 hours of technical support per week. Atlantis offered far better value for money as well as impressive performance and more flexible scalability.”
Chris Plant, VP EMEA, Atlantis, said: “OGL Computer is a well known and respected IT services company in the UK and prides itself on offering its customers products at competitive pricing. The Atlantis software has enabled OGL Computer to deliver 200 IOPS per desktop, with less than one millisecond of latency. This is more than double the performance of a typical desktop PC and a ten-fold improvement over SSD.”
