For years, something had to give. For businesses making the leap to desktop virtualization, which Gartner called the “hottest trend among its customers” in March 2010, the anticipated benefits – lower PC operating & management costs, better security, and lower power consumption – came at a price. Graphics virtualization hadn’t kept pace, and in most cases running a thin client hosted by a centralized virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) meant an inevitable sacrifice in visual computing and graphics performance.
But thanks to availability of the RemoteFX feature as part of the Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta, compromise is not a word that will have to remain in the vocabulary of today’s IT worker. With RemoteFX, Microsoft has made strides towards delivering a high-performance, vivid digital future. Now remote workers will have the opportunity to access nearly any type of application or screen content, including rich media such as full-motion video and 3D applications, on connected remote devices such as thin clients.
In many ways, the RemoteFX feature leverages several important computing trends.
- Cloud computing. The performance and user experience gains it enables will help further advance client virtualization’s move towards the mainstream and the rapid growth of cloud computing.
- Visual Computing. The future of computing is intensely visual, a trend that AMD is addressing with industry-leading technology designed to enable immersive computing experiences.
As my colleague Jo Albers mentioned when Remote FX was first announced in March 2010, our development teams have worked closely with Microsoft to help ensure AMD platform technology is compatible with the rich media enhancements in the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, including RemoteFX.
In order to accomplish this, AMD has provided Microsoft with AMD Opteron™ processors, ATI FirePro™ professional graphics cards, and technical support. In fact, throughout the development of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, AMD has worked with Microsoft on a solution that is specifically designed to take advantage of GPU acceleration as supported by AMD’s ATI FirePro™ v5800, v7800 and v8800 Series professional graphics cards.
However, we don’t stop at the GPU. As a leader in next-generation graphics acceleration, such as ATI Stream technology, AMD delivers balanced CPU and GPU platforms capable of running enabled, demanding computing tasks faster than on the CPU or the GPU alone. What exactly does this mean for today’s IT worker? In short, it helps enable an enhanced visual experience, delivered by harnessing the power of GPU computing to accelerate the rendering of hosted desktop PCs when paired with servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
Clearly, virtualization no longer means you’ll have to sacrifice visual performance. The virtualized future (literally) just got a whole lot brighter.
Have you tried RemoteFX? What are your thoughts? Join the discussion in the comments section.
Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics, at AMD. Her postings are her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied