Case Study: Architectural Nexus achieves 4x VDI density and 50% lower costs with DataCore Software

How Architectural Nexus Leveraged Software-Defined Storage to Support Its Innovative Approach to Architectural Design

Architectural Nexus, a progressive architectural design firm working with large, complex Autodesk Revit BIM files, faced severe I/O and latency problems as it moved toward Citrix VDI with NVIDIA GRID. Their existing Compellent SAN couldn’t deliver the performance required for 300MB–1.2GB model files and a forklift upgrade was too costly, so they engaged Universal Systems to find an alternative and evaluated DataCore software‑defined storage.

Universal Systems implemented DataCore (SANsymphony) on commodity hardware, delivering 385,000 IOPS and increasing VDI density from 30 to 120, while cutting I/O response and Revit open/save times by roughly 50% and reducing costs by about 50%. DataCore’s low-latency caching made virtual desktops faster than physical ones, improved user productivity, and is now the cornerstone of Architectural Nexus’s storage with plans to expand and replicate 40TB to Sacramento.

Architectural Nexus

Kent Hansen

Manager of Information Systems