NVIDIA Advances Virtualization Software for GPUs

The employees that typically need a workstation are among the most valuable inside any given organization. Because of that basic economic issue, it’s in the best interest of organizations to maximize the amount of time those employees can spend working on a project wherever they happen to be at any given time.

To maximize those opportunities, NVIDIA developed virtualization desktop infrastructure (VDI) software that makes it possible for end users to remotely access graphics applications. Today, NVIDIA announced, among other things, that it is expanding those capabilities by making it possible to access as much as 24GB or memory on virtual graphical processing unit (GPU).

Rechristened NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation Software, this instance of VDI software makes use of the same NVIDIA VDI software the company launched last year for its Tesla Series of graphical processing units (GPUs). John Fanelli, vice president of NVIDIA GRID, says access to more memory will make it possible to now access complex graphics and even edit photorealism applications in real time.

Fanelli says the NVIDIA VDI software can now be employed across the full range of Tesla GPUs. In addition, for the first time NVIDIA VDI software also supports the CUDA graphics standard adopted by Apple, adds Fanelli.

NVIDIA today also upgraded the NVIDIA vGRID software it makes available for PCs that can be employed to provide access to a single application. The PC edition of NVIDIA vGRID can now support 24 end users, up from 12 in the previous edition.

Fanelli says NVIDIA envisions most end users invoking the PC version of the company’s VDI software to provide, for example, engineers access to graphics files from PCs that are increasingly becoming thinner and lighter.

“We see this as a complementary offering to workstations,” says Fanelli.

NVIDIA is also now making available monitoring tools across the entire suite of VDI offerings. Fanelli says those tools can monitor everything from the NVIDIA VDI software to the underlying GPUs. All of NVIDIA’s virtualization offerings, adds Fanelli, are designed to support desktop virtualizations software from both VMware and Citrix. The company also makes available a version of its software that can be used to stream a single application to a desktop.

Not every user needs to access graphics files. But as processes become more digital, it turns out that a much higher percentage of the workforce does. Buying each of those users their own workstation is cost prohibitive. That makes employing VDI software to provide ubiquitous access to those files the only real alternative option for organizations employing NVIDIA GPU processors.