Case Study: Oregon State University achieves fast, scalable VDI performance and cost-effective storage with VMware Virtual SAN

Graduate Business School at Oregon State University Solves Critical Storage Challenges with VMware Virtual SAN Solution

The Oregon State University College of Business operated a VMware Horizon VDI serving classrooms and labs but found its servers’ local storage unable to handle rising, power-user workloads (Adobe Creative Suite, Visual Studio, AutoCAD), causing boot storms, 20–30 minute login delays, and time-consuming manual rebalancing. With a three-person IT team and limited budget that ruled out a traditional SAN purchase, the college needed a scalable, affordable storage approach that could support peak IOPS and simplify management.

The college deployed VMware Virtual SAN, a software-defined storage layer integrated with vSphere and Horizon, clustering server disks and flash to create shared, high-performance storage. The rollout supported 190+ desktops across three pools, eliminated boot storms (logins now under a minute), cut recompose time from ~10 hours to under two, reduced management overhead, and delivered SAN-level performance at roughly one-third the cost of a traditional SAN while allowing easy, incremental scaling by adding servers.

Oregon State University

Alan Sprague

System Administrator