Blade server specialist Verari Systems is leveraging Teradici’s PC-over-IP chipset to transport high-resolution DVI signals from the data center over a TCP/IP network to workstations and desktop PCs.
With the new VerariIP consolidated desktop solution, Verari BladeRack 2 machines will use the Teradici chipset to pipe 1920-by-1200 resolution DVI signals to workstation or desktop PC users via an Internet connection that sends data to a Teradici portal device, or “puck.”
The puck powers quad-monitor displays, video, audio and multiple USB ports while sitting on the desk; however, the puck is stateless, which means data resides at the blade server so that no critical information sits on the desktop or workstation.
The puck approach yields a much smaller footprint than a workstation drive and is fanless, which means less humming and whirring. The puck also offers much lower power consumption than traditional workstations.
The idea, said Verari CTO David Driggers, is to eliminate the need to install power-hungry workstations without sacrificing the resources or security needed to execute advanced computing tasks.
Workstations, he argued in an interview, are consuming too much power. But corporate America and other countries haven’t come up with solutions to treat the power-consumption issues.
And blades traditionally don’t offer the same horsepower as a graphics-oriented workstation using ATI or Nvidia graphics cards. The VerariIP offering dashes those problems.
“We’re pulling whatever the graphics processor can throw at us,” Driggers said.
The VerariIP product will be ideal for financial services, entertainment and telecommunications firms requiring highly graphical tools to work with without the space and power overhead associated with traditional workstations, Driggers added.
IT administrators will also benefit because they need fewer workstations and servers, which means fewer devices to manage and more free time to handle other critical IT tasks.
VerariIP is also a salve to the practice of “waterfalling,” which Driggers said is when IT admins rotate the best workstations into the hands of their best employees.
Now, instead of physically moving workstations around, admins can just point the machine’s IP address to a new blade server and it’s done, thanks to the Verari Command Center (VCC) systems management software in conjunction with VerariIP.
Driggers said the VerariIP solution to ship in the fourth quarter this year. But its promise has already won over some third-party fans.
“The VerariIP provides flexible, cost-effective application delivery to the end user from the data center,” Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Bowker said in a statement. “It provides the dexterity to help IT meet dynamic business initiatives and quickly respond to business problems on a secure well-managed operating platform.”
The product comes as Verari is striving to differentiate itself in the market from blade server leaders IBM IBM and HP tout power and cooling management technologies but do so largely for rack-mount servers. Verari believes blades are the server of the future and, accordingly, that’s where its power and cooling focus lies. and HP
as a more specialized, power-conscious hardware provider.
