VirtualStorm is software that allows you to do pretty amazing things. In the process it also reduces both CAPEX and OPEX because of the single image management and the centralized virtual application repository. The best way to understand what you can do with the extreme virtualization that the VirtualStorm VDI solution brings you, is to witness a live demo. This article can only show some static images of the kind of activities that are made possible with this technology.

The solution consists of a software agent, a Memory Enhancement Stack, a Disk-IO driver and a central Management Console to tie everything together. All this is built on top of existing, best-of-breed technologies from Symantec, Microsoft and VMware.

Reduced Image Size

The VirtualStorm XP image is 1.2 GB large. On the ESX shared storage you will find that the image is exactly 1.249 Gbytes large (although Windows on the inside considers it 1.19GB) Inside this 1.2 GB image initially there is around 400MB of kernel and necessary drivers, about 100MB of VirtualStorm agent, software and drivers and the rest is free space. On the shared storage you will find that there is a .vswp file that equates to the 384MB of RAM inside the image. In addition you will find a REDO file that can grow to a maximum of roughly 800MB, resulting in a maximum image size of 2GB. This is the absolute limit of the VirtualStorm image. (please note that the REDO file can be increased in size through parametrisation to allow for larger virtual memory.)

Having this fixed image size allows for lineair scalability of the size of the central storage for ESX. With each image 2GB, sizing for 1000 or 10000 is just a simple calculation.

Reduced Memory Size and Memory Enchancement Stack

The VirtualStorm image runs with only 384MB of memory. This is not a mistake. Using less memory allows for higher densities on servers. However, this would mean that fewer applications could be loaded inside the image. Also, this would mean that the Windows memory manager would quite soon cause Memory Allocation Errors when too many application were open. These problems have been solved through the Memory Enhancement Stack that extends the virtual memory of the XP image onto the SAN (remember the REDO file) and allows to load up many -virtualized- applications simultaneous while also managing the available memory in stead of the Windows Memory Manager. The way this is done reduces the number of blue screens (because of Memory Allocation Errors) but it also enhances the speed of the memory to such an extent that the Memory Enhancement Stack can be faster than the XP image's virtual memory because applications are loaded into the image through sequential disk IO. For further explanations please read the section on VirtualStorm technologies.

 An additional advantage of the reduced image memory size is the increased density of VMs on the physical server.With VirtualStorm running multiple hundreds of operational VMs on current hardware is quite feasible, as demonstrated by DinamiQs on Vmworld 2009 in San Francisco where more than 400 running VMs were loaded onto dual CPU quad core blades.