Killing the Business Desktop PC Softly
by Johan De Gelas on July 19, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Workstation Blades
The IT experts among our readers are probably protesting: CCI was launched in 2005 and blade PCs have been on the market since 2004-2005. So what's new? Besides the fact that the technology has matured and been upgraded, the technology is now able to meet the needs of more demanding applications like those used by CAD users, data miners, financial traders, and even 3D artists. So basically, the blade PCs are also now offering higher graphics and CPU performance. The "magic" to make this work is to replace the normal "remote protocols" such as ICA (Citrix) or RDP (Microsoft) by a proprietary lossless compression and encryption protocol. IBM has not yet given it a name to our knowledge; HP calls it Remote Graphics Software or RGS.
The blade workstation performs all 2D and 3D calculations and compresses and encrypts each frame before it's sent to the thin client. This kind of network transmission of 3D and 2D graphics at high "refresh" rates requires between 2 and 4 Mbit/s of bandwidth on average. The goal is to make it feel like the manipulation of 3D CAD is actually being done on the thin client. For this you need at least 50-60 frames per second and a response time of less than 20ms. With an excellent broadband internet connection, a leased line, or a LAN connection, it should be possible to get good performance even if your thin client is 2000 miles away from the blade PC or workstation blade. As long as your network connection doesn't add more than 10-15 ms to your frame time, it feels like you are working on a normal workstation. RGS works on both Red Hat Linux and Windows XP. You can also license RGS for blade PCs: HP's blade PCs contain a mobile version of AMD's 690G chipset.
Both the IBM and HP blades are based on the Intel 5000p chipset platform. The fastest supported CPU is a dual core Xeon 5150 at 2.66 GHz. The HP blade supports 16GB, the IBM blade 8GB. However, the IBM has the faster graphics card: it can support up to the modern Quadro FX1600 (256-bit interface), while the HP is limited to the relatively low-end older FX540M 128MB (128-bit memory interface). Notice that both IBM and HP are using lower clocked mobile versions, a result of using the cramped blade chassis. Both IBM and HP make quite a bit of noise claiming that their workstation blades require quite a bit less power than a typical workstation, around 150-200W versus >300W for a typical PC workstation. Although the workstation blades are slightly more efficient thanks to the fact that several blades use one or two big PSUs, the biggest gains are the result of using mobile but slower performing video chips.
The IT experts among our readers are probably protesting: CCI was launched in 2005 and blade PCs have been on the market since 2004-2005. So what's new? Besides the fact that the technology has matured and been upgraded, the technology is now able to meet the needs of more demanding applications like those used by CAD users, data miners, financial traders, and even 3D artists. So basically, the blade PCs are also now offering higher graphics and CPU performance. The "magic" to make this work is to replace the normal "remote protocols" such as ICA (Citrix) or RDP (Microsoft) by a proprietary lossless compression and encryption protocol. IBM has not yet given it a name to our knowledge; HP calls it Remote Graphics Software or RGS.
The blade workstation performs all 2D and 3D calculations and compresses and encrypts each frame before it's sent to the thin client. This kind of network transmission of 3D and 2D graphics at high "refresh" rates requires between 2 and 4 Mbit/s of bandwidth on average. The goal is to make it feel like the manipulation of 3D CAD is actually being done on the thin client. For this you need at least 50-60 frames per second and a response time of less than 20ms. With an excellent broadband internet connection, a leased line, or a LAN connection, it should be possible to get good performance even if your thin client is 2000 miles away from the blade PC or workstation blade. As long as your network connection doesn't add more than 10-15 ms to your frame time, it feels like you are working on a normal workstation. RGS works on both Red Hat Linux and Windows XP. You can also license RGS for blade PCs: HP's blade PCs contain a mobile version of AMD's 690G chipset.
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| IBM's HC10 and HP's XW460c | |
Both the IBM and HP blades are based on the Intel 5000p chipset platform. The fastest supported CPU is a dual core Xeon 5150 at 2.66 GHz. The HP blade supports 16GB, the IBM blade 8GB. However, the IBM has the faster graphics card: it can support up to the modern Quadro FX1600 (256-bit interface), while the HP is limited to the relatively low-end older FX540M 128MB (128-bit memory interface). Notice that both IBM and HP are using lower clocked mobile versions, a result of using the cramped blade chassis. Both IBM and HP make quite a bit of noise claiming that their workstation blades require quite a bit less power than a typical workstation, around 150-200W versus >300W for a typical PC workstation. Although the workstation blades are slightly more efficient thanks to the fact that several blades use one or two big PSUs, the biggest gains are the result of using mobile but slower performing video chips.
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Pale Rider - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
I work for a fortune 500 company as a sys admin. We have 10,000 nodes (PCs and servers).Half of those are desktop business PCs and we use PCs on purpose - they fullfill the business need the best.
The facst are, most applictions do not run correctly in a terminal server or think client enviroment. Until the software developers change this and the cost of this clients come down consideranly we have no plans to move to think clients - this is true for the majority of IT departments as well.
rowcroft - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
It's been out there for years, but I have deployed Sun's SunRay systems and they worked great. Granted, the environment had limited Windows requirements (ran Mozilla for web and e-mail, used custom apps for business use) but those were satisfied with a Citrix deployment.If you're looking for a stable, cost effective environment (both from a productivity and hard cost savings PoV) then you should consider something like that as well.
yacoub - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
I'd feel horrible for anyone working in that type of locked-down environment... no freedom, no ability to use software beyond what is installed by the default image (obviously I'm talking about winamp, AIM, and other useful items, not trojans or malware), all of your programs and processing power are at the mercy of whoever dictates how much your share of the server's horsepower you're allowed to consume and what software you have access to. Ugh. What a death sentence of a work environment.And for the IT department, what a dream come true! ;)
rowcroft - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
Problem is, who gets to determine what's OK and what isn't? Try managing that in an enterprise environment. This isn't meant for a shop with 200 computers and one admin.yacoub - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
Why the preview lure text for articles that is posted on the homepage below the article title always cuts off and yet the exact sentence never seems to be found in the actual article:nobody less than who? Please finish the sentence of the preview text on the homepage, instead of burying parts of it amongst several sentences later in the article.
strikeback03 - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
If you go to the "IT Computing" tab at the top of the page (or whatever section the article is in) you get the whole intro blurb. they just display a portion on the homepage.punko - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
As a heavy guy, I resent the term "fat client".The biggest improvement in cost of ownership lately has been the change to LCD monitors. The effect is real in power savings.
The biggest headache is the licensing model change by Microsoft, AutoDesk and Adobe. This may lead to a massive shift in software to open source alternatives.
In our firm, most have PC's with a large number of laptops. Thin clients can't replace laptops, and most of us with PC's tend to push them hard, so there isn't any advantage over PC's.
Chunga29 - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
Give me a break - take the PC (political correctness) somewhere else, please! If you're so offended, get off your duff and get some exercise, drop the fast food, don't drink sodas or juice or alcohol, and you'll be amazed at what that can do for your obesity.And yes, you probably are clinically obese, as are 65% (and rising) Americans. I was one of them until a year ago, when I kicked my ass into shape doing the above. Dropped from 240 pounds and 31% body fat down to 190 pounds and 16% body fat, where I have been happily resting for the past six months.
Or, you can be like so many others and blame the problem on genetics, your job, etc. because weight issues certainly can't be caused by personal behavior!
NT78stonewobble - Saturday, September 15, 2007 - link
I read it as a joke.Still I WOULD blame my doctor on gaining around 30 % body weight in one year when I was twelve by giving me hormones.
Hormones that in the end wouldn't have had any effect on me. Hormones would help eg. 60 % of cases and in the rest surgery was necessary. However the initial exam of everyone with this particular problem was cut due to costs and thus everyone was given one or even two halfyear treatsments of hormones instead.
So unless you really know the guy dont ditch him.
P.S. Yes I've lost the weight since then. I am however still suffering from depressions going on the 10 th year and have an allmost anorectic relationship to food.
JohanAnandtech - Thursday, July 19, 2007 - link
Thin portables do exist, and could be a reality once Wimax and/or 3G are ubiquitous.But I do agree that the licensing models of the bige Software guys add a lot to TCO. Is it just me or is IDC always trying minimize those by grossly overestimating administration costs? :-)