I had the opportunity to chat with Dell representatives recently about the release of their Workstation line. Being a Dell Precision desktop and laptop user for some time, I was excited to hear the latest. I have always touted Workstations as the best approach for the high end Users when they have exhausted or maxed out their existing desktop. By moving to an entry level Workstation, the user can achieve better results and move past the roadblocks of some to the desktop architecture.
I spoke with Patrick Kannar, Director, Product Marketing, Dell Precision Workstations and Ron Lebert, Senior Product Manager for Dell Precision Single Socket Workstations. They presented a range of options that might fit the needs of some of my readers.
They discussed two options – the Dell Precision T1700 small form-factor, and the powerful rack workstation, the Dell Precision R7610.
Starting with the T1700, they claimed it was the smallest entry level Workstation and it appeared to be just that. The form factor was very small, without sacrificing the internal powerhouse you would expect from a Dell Workstation. They also unveiled a typical Tower configuration which allows for more options. These were designed to go under the table of a local user. Check out their video [1] to see the products and the internal guts of the machine.
The next topic was the rack mounted Workstations. Rack mounting allows them to be housed in a secure environment (not allowing nosy users to open the box) that IT can manage remotely. The R7610 looks like any other 2U, but houses the powerful workstation components.
[2]
The rack mounted unit also allows multiple users to tap into this poswer. The unit achieves this via GPU pass-through and certifications with Citrix XenServer® 6.1.0 using Citrix XenDesktop® HDXTM 3D Pro, which allows all the resources of a dedicated graphics card to be uniquely shared with multiple users in a hosted-shared environment or made available to a single user or virtual machine in a virtualized environment. This alone makes the units a best buy for some environments. Check out the video [3] on these devices.
I have in the past moved desktop and workstation power out from under the users desk and encourage everyone to investigate this option. With the advance GPU functions and the visualization options that are available, this solution may be a great fit.