desktop virtualisation

Parallels, HP, NVIDIA virtualize GPUs with Workstation Extreme

March 30, 2009 by Lode Vermeiren Leave a Comment

Parallels is launching “Parallels Workstation Extreme”, a desktop workstation virtualization offering developed jointly with HP and NVIDIA.

Workstation Extreme is aimed at graphic workstations such as those used on stock trading floors (think: massive multimonitor support) and in 3D animation studios (where several power hungry applications usually don’t like to share resources).

Parallels Workstation Extreme offers desktop virtualization with near-native performance (backed by impressive SPECviewperf numbers) and support for very large VMs (Up to 12 virtual CPUs and 64 GB of RAM per VM). It is built around the latest technology from Intel and NVIDIA. It uses the Intel Xeon 5500 series of CPUs, better known as the “Nehalem” line, which increases the amount of physical RAM that’s supported per machine, and VT-d to allow direct I/O paths to be passed through a hypervisor.

This technology used by the NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS technology incorporated in the latest NVIDIA Quatro cards, also announced today. Using SLI Multi-OS the multiple GPUs available on the system can be virtualized just like traditional CPUs. This allows high-end graphics programs like CAD, CAE and 3D rendering applications to be virtualized and still use the raw geometric number crunching chips provided by the machine. (In traditional desktop virtualization products, the video adapter is emulated, dramatically reducing 3D graphics power.)

Parallels blends this all together with its FastLane architecture, and offers this as a bundled solution on HP Z800 workstations.

Target audiences for this product are digital content creators, design engineers, software developers and testers, sales and training professionals and those working with data modeling in a range of vertical sectors, including finance, government, science, engineering, manufacturing, and oil and gas.

Parallels Workstation Extreme runs on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3, Windows XP or Vista (all 64-bit). Supported Guest Operating Systems at the time of release are RHEL 4.7 & 5.3 64-bit, Fedora 10 64-bit and the same 64 bit Windows flavors.

More info can be found on the Parallels website.

HP Pushes Major Update For Desktop Virtualization Software

December 8, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

HP today introduced a software portfolio that helps businesses transition from traditional, distributed desktop computing to a virtualized client environment. Building on the company’s expansive client virtualization solutions, HP Virtual Client Essentials is an advanced software portfolio that includes multimedia, brokering and streaming solutions. The software is specifically designed to deliver rich user experiences in client virtualization environments such as server-based computing, HP Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), HP Blade PCs or Workstations, and streaming client environments.

The HP Virtual Client Essentials portfolio includes HP Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Enhancements and HP Remote Graphics Software, two protocol options that deliver richer multimedia experiences when deploying virtual computing solutions. It also features HP Session Allocation Manager (SAM) – a session broker for remote clients that provides connectivity and advanced management capabilities – and HP Image Manager for streaming operating systems and applications.

HP RDP Enhancements provides easy, out-of-the box multimedia and USB device support for customers standardized on HP thin clients using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol who want to improve the end-user computing experience for employees while maximizing the number of users per server.

Available next month for all Microsoft Windows XPe HP thin clients, HP RDP Enhancements will be pre-installed and licensed on most HP thin clients to provide users with a single-logon, full-screen virtual desktop experience for VMware View and Microsoft Terminal Services using a variety of session brokers. Users simply log in to their virtual client session to enjoy real-time, network-based multimedia content with full stereo audio – such as interactive training, demos and live webcasts – across a variety of multimedia formats. Linux-based thin client support is expected in the near future.

HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) is HP’s recommended choice for customers needing secure, high-performance, collaborative remote desktop access to the richest multimedia and workstation-class applications. It can now run on any server or blade-hosted client in VMware data center environments and is available at flexible and affordable new license rates based on the user platform.

Additionally, HP RGS provides expanded, real-time collaboration features to allow multiple professionals working from remote locations to see and share content-rich visualizations including 2-D design, 3-D solid modeling, rendering, simulation, full-motion video, heavy flash animation and intense Web 2.0 pages.

HP RGS also allows users to connect with one or many remote systems for access to high-performance applications and resources when and where they need them. This feature has been enhanced with multi-session cut, copy and paste functionality so information can be moved directly from and to applications running on independent Windows desktop machine sessions.

HP Session Allocation Manager (SAM) is administrative software that brokers network connections to seamlessly connect end users with their virtual client environments. HP SAM is optimized for customers with mixed virtual client environments, and offers support for both virtual machine resources and physical, dedicated blade clients.

With expanded support for PCs and HP thin clients running Linux, Microsoft Windows and thin client operating systems, HP SAM also features session timers that measure the users’ CPU activity and allow IT administrators to disconnect users from virtual resources after a specified period of inactivity to help maximize compute resource usage. Additionally, IT managers can take advantage of HP SAM’s new, enhanced diagnostic tools to check for common configuration or environmental issues, helping ensure installations and deployments run smoothly.

HP RDP Enhancements will be available via download at no additional charge for HP thin clients with Microsoft Windows XP Embedded beginning in January 2009. The software is expected to be preloaded as a standard offering on most Windows and Linux-based HP thin clients in the first half of the year.

Analyst Says Virtualization May Have Impact on Desktops … In 2010

March 5, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Tim Luke, an analyst from investment bank Lehman Brothers, claims the impact of virtualization technology on desktops won’t be significantly felt until at least 2010 although he acknowledges its impact may already be limiting growth in the server market (then again, Gartner says it performed just fine in 2007).

As for the mainstream desktop market, Luke forecast the virtualization trend there may remain “subdued” in the near term. According to the analyst, the economic case for desktop virtualization is not as compelling and also cited user reluctance. Luke estimated about 1 % of desktops will be virtualized by 2010, and 4 % by 2012. However, Luke said that the virtualization of individual desktop applications “may see better traction in the medium term.”

[Source: CNN Money]