Boston Limited Unveils VDI Solution, Based on Citrix® XenDesktop and Commodity Hardware, That Delivers Virtual Desktops at Under $500 USD Per User

Featuring High Performance Supermicro Servers, Mellanox 10GbE Interconnect, Citrix® XenDesktop 7 and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V & Windows Storage Spaces, Boston offers a VDI solution that delivers virtual desktops at under $500 USD

Boston Limited, now in its 20th year as distribution partner for Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI), is proud to unveil their cost-effective VDI solution at CeBIT 2014 that delivers storage, network and server infrastructure for only $125 USD per user - and only $500 per user for the complete hardware and software stack. The solution will be on display on Boston's booth at CeBit 2014 (Hall 2, Stand #B39) and Boston's VDI Engineers will be on hand to offer insights into how VDI for under $500 per user is a reality.

As VDI technology matures, its suitability for delivering desktops to a wide range of end-users is increasing. However, despite this, IT Managers still face difficulty in balancing the well understood costs of delivering desktops in the traditional way against BYOD strategies and the security and management benefits of VDI.

To respond to this dilemma Boston, in partnership with Citrix, Mellanox and Supermicro, has developed a cost efficient VDI solution based on a commodity hardware architecture that delivers virtual desktops at a cost of under $500 per user - bringing VDI to the masses.

The Boston VDI solution uses software components including Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 in combination with Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 and Windows Storage Spaces. The hardware stack incorporates Supermicro rack servers equipped with SATA 6Gb/s 7mm 2.5" SSD and four AMD 12 Core Opteron processors for servicing the Hosted Shared Desktop workloads, as well as a Mellanox 10GbE interconnect switch for ultra-low latency. The VDI solution removes the need for SAN and relies on a traditional JBOD that is managed by Windows Server 2012 R2 clustered file services for hosting user data.

Manoj Nayee, Managing Director of Boston Limited, says "An increasing number of enterprises look towards desktop virtualisation to help them respond to rising IT costs, security concerns, the user demands of BYOD and mobile working strategies. By partnering with Citrix and leveraging commodity hardware by Supermicro, Boston Limited has designed a cost-effective yet powerful and scalable virtual desktop infrastructure at a price point lower or equivalent to that of a traditional PC."

Boston is also launching an exclusive whitepaper at CeBIT 'Cost Efficient VDI: XenDesktop 7 on Commodity Hardware'. The whitepaper explains how Boston's XenDesktop-based solution achieves the goal of delivering an enterprise-class VDI solution that maintains the cost-per-user at levels comparable to traditional desktop delivery methods.

Visit Boston at CeBIT 2014 on stand B49, Hall 2 to see the solution in person and obtain a copy of the whitepaper.

About Boston Limited
With nearly 20 years of trading within the distribution and OEM marketplace, Boston continues to lead the way in providing the latest high-performance, power-optimized technologies into the data centre, HPC, ISP, Military, VFX, Enterprise and Broadcast markets with multi-award winning server, storage, workstation and clustered solutions. Since the successful launch of Boston IT Solutions (India) Private Limited in 2009, we announced the launch of Boston Server & Storage Solutions GmbH in 2010. Expansion into both regions has been driven purely by market demand for alternate vendors providing high-performance and high value-add systems. As our global reach continues to expand we plan on opening further global facilities to improve and expand the services we offer. For more information about Boston, please visit www.boston.co.uk and follow @BostonLimited on Twitter.

For more information and review samples please contact Apostolos Lambrianides, Marketing Manager, apostolos.lambrianides@boston.co.uk.