The big issue
Virtualisation is the processing buzzword of the moment, but what does it actually mean? Mark Ramshaw looks at how it could change the industry
How will virtualisation affect CG?
Everything used to be so simple, with a workstation for each artist plus a little networking, remote storage and rendering on the side. Now, however, virtualisation threatens to fundamentally change the entire relationship between man and machine, effectively leaving users with a blank slate PC that simply relays user input to a centralised processing datacentre, which then feeds screen updates back to each user’s display again.
Technically, virtualisation has been around since the days of mainframe computing, but the kind of hardware virtualisation currently being touted is a somewhat different beast. “It’s only now that visualisation has come of age in the workstation space,” says Gary Radburn, head of workstation virtualisation at Dell. “Previously the key challenge for professional users was that it didn’t really deliver on graphics in any shape or form. For one thing Open GL didn’t virtualise very well.”
The turning point came around 18 months ago, when it became practical to pass graphics processing, along with CPU duties into a virtual environment.
Users are able to run graphics-rich apps and count on them performing just as they would if run from a workstation
“In a Citrix environment anything that runs the Citrix receiver is able to decode those pixels and display them, so it’s pretty much end device agnostic,” explains Gary. “You do still need to consider that traffic increases when you’re dealing with images of full rendered models. But that said I’ve done virtualisation demos showing Solidworks.”
While virtualisation allows for consolidation of hardware, Gary cautions that cost savings are not really a good incentive to embrace virtualisation. “Sure you’re optimising the amount of hardware, but then you also have to consider the infrastructure investment required in order to get the best user experience.”
Instead the real benefits of virtualisation lie in better data management and greater security. “Everything is held in a data centre, so you’re pushing pixels, not models,” says Gary. “Of course file sizes are huge nowadays, but with a virtual environment you’re no longer pulling those across the network, or risking synching problems with people making copies locally, so you can also actually increase productivity. It also opens up IP to freelancers across the globe, again with all valuable data remaining securely locked.”
Such a fundamental hardware shift naturally makes software compatibility a key concern. To address this Dell has just launched the Dell Workstation Virtualization Center of Excellence. “Here we can work closely with independent software vendors ( ISVs) to get certification on virtual hardware,” says Gary. “It allows them to get a stamp of approval across cards, drivers and systems, so the end user can be sure that what’s being rendered and displayed is going to be correct.”
Supply and demand
Nvidia’s introduction of Grid virtual GPU (vGPU) technology has undoubtedly given virtualisation a major boost. Vice president of marketing for the professional visualisation and design business at Nvidia, Greg Estes says: “Grid vGPU allows businesses to share access to one GPU with several end-users so that companies can easily scale up, down or reallocate access depending on changing needs. Users are able to run graphics-rich applications and count on them performing just as they would if run from a desktop PC or workstation.”
Greg says that these virtual desktops are more than capable of meeting the demands of most power users and designers, with some caveats. “There are applications in certain markets that require special peripherals or performance levels not currently possible, or at least not practical in a virtualised environment, such as VFX studios working interactively with layers of extremely high-resolution images and deep colour depths,” he explains. “Applications like Flame still require big multi-GPU systems and colour fidelity, only possible from traditional workstations with Nvidia Quadro graphics. But Nvidia Grid GPUs actually offer higher-performance than the GPUs in most high-end workstations, so most users would see an increase of performance.”
Games as a service
Nevertheless, Greg believes that major animation and effects studios won’t be the early adopters of virtualisation: “Most are Linux-based and have very specific, high-end requirements, so instead it’ll be the architectural and design firms, educational institutions and manufacturing companies. That said, we are working closely with all of the major studios to roll out Grid technology in their workflows when and where it makes sense.”
In fact, the area where virtualisation may initially have the greatest impact is in the video game market, where cloud gaming technology is already being brought to market by the likes of OnLive. “Our Nvidia Grid cloud gaming technology enables consumers to render 3D games in cloud servers, encoding each frame instantly and streaming the result to any device with a broadband connection,” says Greg. “Service operators can use our technology as the base for their on-demand Gaming as a Service. This move will lead to a revolution in gaming across any device of any quality.” See the power of Nvidia Grid vGPU: www.bit.ly/183-virtual