Nvidia Grid Unleashes Graphics for Virtualized Desktops

From X-bit Labs: Nvidia Corp. on Monday announced that it is unleashing the full graphics potential of enterprise desktop virtualization with the availability of Nvidia Grid vGPU integrated into Citrix XenDesktop 7. As a result, low-cost desktops will get access to state-of-the-art Nvidia GeForce graphics remotely.

"For the first time, Nvidia Grid vGPU gives users of virtualized desktops the performance, stability and compatibility of hardware-accelerated graphics. Millions of those involved in everything from product design to manufacturing to supply chain management can now enjoy the benefits of desktop and application virtualization with Nvidia Grid vGPU technology," said Jeff Brown, vice president and general manager of the Grid business unit at Nvidia.

Nvidia Grid vGPU technology addresses a challenge that has grown in recent years with the rise of employees using their own notebooks and portable devices for work. These workers have increasingly relied on desktop virtualization technologies for anytime access to computing resources, but until now this was generally used for the more standard enterprise applications. Performance and compatibility constraints had made it difficult for applications such as building information management (BIM), product-lifecycle management (PLM) and video-photo editing.

Two decades ago hardware-based graphics replaced software emulation. Desktop virtualization solutions stood alone as the only modern computing form without dedicated graphics hardware. As a result, an already busy virtualized CPU limited performance and software emulation hampered application compatibility.

The situation began to improve a year ago with the introduction of the non-virtualized GPU in Citrix XenServer. But efficiency gains were limited because each user still required a dedicated GPU.

With the introduction of new HDX GPU sharing and deep compression techniques in XenDesktop 7, Nvidia and Citrix customers can immediately take advantage of the hosted-shared form of desktop virtualization to deliver rich, graphics-intensive applications. Using the Microsoft Windows Server RDSH and XenDesktop 7 platform can enable the sharing of GPUs across multiple user sessions.

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