Hewlett-Packard and virtualization software company Parallels are expanding
their partnership to offer enhanced virtualization capabilities on HP’s
high-end Z800 workstation.
The companies are putting Parallels’ Workstation 4.0 Extreme edition onto
the HP workstation, which is powered by Intel’s new Xeon
5500 Series “Nehalem EP” processors.
The package, announced June 1, also will include Nvidia’s SLI
Multi-OS-enabled Quadro FX graphics cards. The system, which will be offered as
a configure-to-order solution from HP, is a key step in bringing high-end
virtualization capabilities to the workstation space, according to Parallels CEO
Serguei Beloussov.
“After several years of deep technical engineering collaboration by HP,
Intel, Nvidia and Parallels, the vision of delivering virtual workstations to
the market is now a reality,” Beloussov said in a statement.
Parallels officials said their Workstation 4.0 Extreme product takes
advantage of the virtualization capabilities in the new Intel Xeon chips,
including VT-x for faster virtual CPU performance, VT-d for increased
performance from the Nvidia graphics card, and Extended Page Tablets for better
memory management.
“With the release of Parallels Workstation 4.0 Extreme, virtualization
technologies are beginning to make a real impact on productivity and how users
employ powerful workstations to create and visualize results,” Boyd Davis,
general manager of Intel’s Workstation Product Group, said in a statement.
The HP Z800 workstation is available immediately.