“Graphics and Virtualization” Roadshow Recap

“Graphics and Virtualization” Roadshow Recap

We know how difficult it is to get out of the office to attend a seminar event, so we do everything we can to make our events packed with valuable information that you can’t get by simply surfing the internet. Judging by the attendance and event surveys, we hit the nail on the head with “The Power of Graphics & Virtualization.” 

Events were held in Austin, Dallas and Houston, and started with recaps of the latest in VDI technology from Citrix, which included the history of how this collaboration between Citrix and NVIDIA started. In a nutshell, Boeing was designing the 787 Dreamliner with a global talent base, and they needed a way to collaboratively access one engineering database efficiently and cost-effectively from around the world. The answer was a Virtual Desktop (VDI) connection that shared a powerful Graphics Processing Unit (vGPU) to keep costs down. Citrix and NVIDIA worked on this for 3 years, and now it is here.

Next was a recap from Dell on their servers, workstations, thin clients and tablets that can provide a basing point to use this technology. We had an R720 server with the NVIDIA K2 GRID vGPU card running numerous demos on a variety of Dell workstation devices. Dell is very committed to this space with three different servers now being qualified to run the NVIDIA GRID K1 and K2 cards.

NVIDIA also had their field sales and pre-sales technical managers (Eric Puccio and Luke Wignall) on hand to present the NVIDIA GRID product line and its details. They described how the GPUs on their cards could now be virtualized and assigned multiple users at the same time, instead of to just one user. This capability makes the technology very affordable while still maintaining an excellent service level.

They also described how this technology is not just for engineers these days. Did you know that Microsoft OFFICE 2013 is written to look for a GPU processor now, and with the affordable K1 card being able to be shared with up to 32 simultaneous users, the technology is affordable to everyone.

and subject matter expert specializing in remote graphics and helping companies virtualize 2D/3D graphics in the cloud for companies around the world. He specializes in how CAD/CAE/CAM/entertainment/media applications can be virtualized with Citrix/VMware/Microsoft (SBC/VDI technologies) with NVIDIA/AMD, and has worked with Citrix HDX 3D Pro since 2008.

Thomas brings years of experience in this area to the show and demonstrated many different applications running both on the R720 at the event, and on his servers in Denmark, where he hails from. The show was spectacular, and the audience was riveted to their seats. There is no doubt that this technology is the next frontier in the VDI industry and it will dramatically enhance the user eperience and functionality for a whole new group of applications and users.

If you couldn’t make “The Power of Graphics & Virtualization,” you won’t want to miss our fall event, VMXpo 2014!