Apple, a nice fit for Bladed Worksation

hmurchisonhmurchison
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
HP just announced their Bladed Workstation line.







Apple could do something like this as well with excellent integration with XSAN and Xserve RAID. I like the fact that you can put the workstation display as far away as needed to keep things quiet and cool but still harness the power.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    irelandireland Posts: 17,800member
    Not Apple's style.



    More like a MacPro 3Ghz Quadro with 8Ghz of RAM, 24 or 30" (NEW) Cinema display with iSight, Bluetooth and IR built-in, and Leopard with Spaces



    /add Xserve's, XSAN's, and RAID's at your leisure.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    I dunno that Apple is looking for higher density than a 1U quad core xeon gives in the XServe. Having both blades and more traditional 2U servers in my lab you really only need the density of a blade for very specific applications.



    IBM, HP and Dell want them but for Apple its not a critical market. Even for renderfarms. I would think that 7 Xserves with suitable GPUs and software would be equivalent to my 7U bladeserver with 14 bays in the future. I realize that's still dependant on how far ATI and NVidia pushes the GPGPU but Caramack was talking about this a while ago how high quality renders could be done in multiple passes on the GPU and Gelato has been out, what? A couple years?



    Just a guess since this isn't my field of expertise but I do peek in on the news from time to time. All my 3D is real time and even that aint that much.



    Vinea
  • Reply 3 of 7
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    I went and looked at the Gelato stuff...no mac port in sight.



    Some of those guys are ex-Pixar and ex-ILM folks which is to be expected. If I were nvidia I'd certainly try to hire some folks with world class experience.



    Still, given Steve's influence at Disney there's no reason that the Disney (pixar) coders couldn't figure out how to use the GPU in RM.



    Vinea
  • Reply 4 of 7
    joe_the_dragonjoe_the_dragon Posts: 931member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison


    HP just announced their Bladed Workstation line.







    Apple could do something like this as well with excellent integration with XSAN and Xserve RAID. I like the fact that you can put the workstation display as far away as needed to keep things quiet and cool but still harness the power.



    That uses alot of network bandwith and can have a lot lag with it.
  • Reply 5 of 7
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,441member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Joe_the_dragon


    That uses alot of network bandwith and can have a lot lag with it.



    That depends on the efficacy of the compression/encryption. HP is aiming this at Workstation applications which means CAD/CAM



    I think the idea is wonderful. However Apple won't do this because they have no competition. Bladesystems are a nice way of locking people into your tech. Once a HP Bladesystem is sold HP knows they have the interconnect, server and licensing for up to 16 servers.



    Apple has no fear of this. However the ideology here is sound. It's not only about server/workstation density but it's about increasing the manageability of workstations. You look at a product like Autodesk's Toxik and you see that editing bays are going these massive shared storage, fast networks.



    Apple can cobble together a solution today but Workstation Blades open up new licensing revenue and to a certain extend locks someone into the "Apple Way" of doing things.



    It's funny...basically we're going to to the thin client/Mainframe model employed decades ago under the new name of Bladesystem.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    hmmfehmmfe Posts: 79member
    HP is a bit late to the game. Clear Cube has been doing this for several years now. They are aimed at desktop and workstation applications so it might be a bit different than the HP strategy. Clear Cube has seen good success in financial, gov't and industrial applications.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,953member
    I thought that sort of thing is intended for where you offload your renders. I don't think the actual graphics user is directly handling the remote computer for graphics work. At least, that's where it makes most sense. I don't think computer graphics over IP makes sense, even for 10G networks, the packet has a reduced payload efficiency and the more distance you have, the more latency there is, not to mention the compression & decompression latency. Graphics workstations don't go down so often that they need to switch computers or repair them, which is the point of blades. Blades are good for servers though, because one down server affects numerous people, but one downed graphics workstation takes down one user.
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