NVIDIA GRID

NVIDIA Releases Updates to NVIDIA GRID GPU line!

chrismessier Blog, Citrix, NVIDIA GRID, VMware Horizon

Today, NVIDIA announced some updates to the  line of NVIDIA GRID GPU’s for VDI. I continue to see the use cases increase for GPU’s in VDI so great to see these new releases. The increase in user density is one of the key considerations customers always ask; how many users per server/GPU? Great to see the users density continue to increase!

Here are some details from todays launch webinar and my key takeaways;

  • renamed vWorkstation license version to Quadro Virtual Data Center Workstation Software (Quadro vDWS)
  • newer P40 & P6 GPU’s do NOT have 512MB profile (min is 1Gb)
  • a new license server will be released; 5.0
  • 50% more vGPU per physical GPU (improves density!)
  • updated/newer monitoring and insight integration into VMware vRealize Operations and 3rd party’s, i.e. Liquidware Labs, Lakeside, ControlUp, eGInnovations, etc..

Updated NVIDIA GRID line:

You can see press release here.

NVIDIA GRID 2.0 Licensing Demystified!

chrismessier Blog, NVIDIA GRID

NVIDIA_GRID

In getting ramped up on the NVIDIA GRID 2.0 licensing changes I’ve come across a few good resources including a great video explaining the procurement of the software & licenses. I’ve also summarized a list of other helpful GRID 2.0 resources that I’ve come across that I wanted to share and hope you find helpful!

Great video explaining GRID 2.0 licensing

NVIDIA GRID 2.0 Options

NVIDIA GRID 2.0 Getting Started Quick Start Guide

Index of NVIDIA GRID Resources

 

Dell Wyse Appliance – Quick Start Tool

chrismessier Blog, NVIDIA GRID, Wyse Appliances ,

DellWysePrecisionAppliance

One of the great features of the Dell Wyse Appliance for Citrix, vWorkspace or Precision is the ability to quickly setup these appliances by using our Quick Start Tool. The Quick Start Tool is a wizard that will walk you through the appliance configuration in a series of steps and at the end will configure the appliance with your configuration. This helps to get these appliances up and running quickly especially for POC’s and small environments. Here is a great video walk through of the Quick Start Tool for the Precision Appliance

A review of the appliance was also done 1/2016 at Storage Review which you can check out here.

I’ve included some of the steps you would normally see for one of the appliances below.. The screen shots below are what the Quick Start Tool steps would look like when configuring the Precision Appliance using vGPU & NVIDIA K2 video cards.

  1. Launch Quick Start Tool

QST_start

 

2. Overview of Quick Start Tool and information to get started including configuring the host.

QST_precision1

 

3. This screen shows the 2 NVIDIA K2 cards (2 GPU’s per card for total of 4 GPU’s as shown) in this specific appliances configuration.

QST_precision_k2

 

4. Once your host is configured and in this case, NVIDIA cards selected, the Quick Start Tool will go through and configure the appliance.

QST_precision3

 

5. Once the appliance is configured the last steps will be to install the operating system and applications.

Hopefully this gives you a high level view of what the Quick Start Tool does and provides a bit of an overview of the process.

You can see a video of this same configuration here.

New NVIDIA and VMware Community (NVC)!

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GRID_COMMUNITY

NVIDIA & VMware recently launched an online community for customers looking to deliver a VDI solution based on the combination of NVIDIA & VMware to deliver high end graphics. The community allows customers and partners to exchange best practices and troubleshooting ideas to get up and running.

It looks like a great resource for folks looking to deploy these solutions as there tend to be a lot of nuances with trying to deploy multiple solutions together so a community forum is a great source!

NVIDIA GRID vGPU – VMware Horizon View Resources

chrismessier Blog, NVIDIA GRID, VMware Horizon

NVIDIA_GRID

NVIDIA GRID & VMware have published some great resources on learning more about the recently announced NVIDIA GRID vGPU support with VMware Horizon View 6.1 on VMware vSphere 6.

I’m always on the look out for great resources to share with customer and partners. 2 great resources are noted below. Good luck!

Good luck with your testing and deployments!