It used to be that graphics performance was purely the domain of CAD professionals, enthusiasts, creative agencies and the like. For the longest time, a virtual barrier existed between the haves and have-nots. The haves depend on an immersive, high-powered experience to get work done, while the have-nots spend their day peering into mundane apps, like presentations and spreadsheets.
When we think about virtualizing workspaces and delivering apps from the mobile cloud, we traditionally focused our technology “horsepower” on ensuring the graphics experience has been uncompromised for the top of the food chain: engineers, designers, creative types, etc. Rightly so, given the substantial investment traditionally found in physical graphics workstations and the transformation of that asset into a virtualized one sitting in the data center.
[Related: Enhance & Optimize Your Citrix Environment with VMware]
Settling for “Good Enough” User Experience for the Masses?
Where the economics of GPU-enabling a virtual desktop has been fairly well understood for the top user tiers, arguing the benefits of GPU for knowledge workers and mobile workers has often been tenuous. Sure, user experience is paramount when convincing employees to go virtual, but these folks are often relegated to what IT considers “good enough.”
After all, when you get to the ‘masses,’ it’s a numbers game.
This isn’t a distributed team of designers working on an airplane fuselage across two continents. This is Becky in finance gyrating a spreadsheet or Bert in marketing crafting slideware. It’s often a density play: How many “good-enough” user experiences can I host per server to still make the total cost of ownership (TCO) passable?
No More Compromise: The New Economics of the GPU
There’s a new landscape unfolding that’s changing all that. Today, NVIDIA announced the latest in their line-up of GRID solutions: Tesla M10. Here at VMware, we are proud to be NVIDIA’s strategic partner in this space. If you’re familiar with VMware Horizon 7, you already know there are unique performance benefits from the interlock of our technologies, especially where Blast Extreme and NVIDIA GRID intersect: unprecedented latency and bandwidth reduction, along with host density increase associated with using GRID to offload H.264 encoding from host CPU. This is just one example of the 1+1=3 that you get when we combine strengths.
[Related: Delivering a Transformational User Experience with NVIDIA GRID & Horizon 7]
So naturally, we’re excited to once again be part of the story. With the Tesla M10 in combination with GRID Virtual Workstation, Virtual PC and Virtual Apps, we have a platform that supercharges Horizon digital workspaces, delivering a no-compromise, transformational user experience that truly extends to the masses.
Now with Horizon working in tandem with Tesla M10 cards deployed in the host, IT can deliver immersive graphics for every app for up to 128 users per server!
This places GPU horsepower within reach of every class of user at the lowest cost per user possible, improving the virtual delivery of Windows 10, Microsoft Office 2016, HTML browsers and more.
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Why You Should Care About Becky & Bert & Their Boring Apps
Yes, I fully appreciate that spreadsheets and slideware are super boring compared with 3D renderings of football stadiums. But guess what? Now more than ever, these apps depend on the power of embedded GPU technology—just to work like normal on a traditional, physical PC. And that need doesn’t evaporate just because you go virtual. So, let’s chew on this Lakeside SysTrack Community data as we wrap:
- Your client devices—laptops, desktops, mobiles—all use GPUs to bring every app to life through the power of graphics acceleration
- 2X as many apps demand GPU-acceleration today versus 2011
- 56% of enterprise users access at least one graphics accelerated app
- Over 400 million knowledge workers and power users need the power of GPU-accelerated desktops and apps to enable truly productive, workplace mobility
So while they’re not necessarily designing an electric car, manipulating a CT scan or simulating a battlefield, every one of these folks (and their boring apps) will effortlessly tank your desktop virtualization initiative if they think you’re just trying to give them a virtual workspace that’s simply “good enough.” And thanks to NVIDIA GRID with Horizon, that won’t be a problem anymore.
Learn more:
- vmware.com/go/horizon
- Join the NVIDIA VMware Community: vmware.com/community/vmtn/vmware-nvidia-direct-access-program
