Dell Brings Workstations Into Age of Virtualization

By Jeffrey Burt

Dell brought the workstation into the data center with the launch last year of the Precision R7610 rack system. Workstation virtualization expands on the concept.

Some companies choose to run their compute-intensive workloads on high-end PCs rather than the more expensive workstations. The problem is that those PCs don’t have some of the capabilities of the workstations, such as Intel’s Xeon server chips and higher-end graphics capabilities, Dell’s Rhodes said.

Dell officials cut the ribbon, officially opening the Workstation Virtualization Center of Excellence in Round Rock.

Dell lined up various endpoints—from PCs to tablets—that were running applications housed in the facility’s data center, showing off how workstation virtualization can work.

Journalists and analysts got a look at the data center, where the R7610 rack workstations and PowerEdge R720 servers make up the foundation of the workstation virtualization center.

The demonstration was being run via a rack in the data center that housed physical workstations and servers powered by Intel Xeon chips and Nvidia GPUs, and running virtualization technology from VMware and Nvidia.

Dell customers and software partners who come to the Workstation Virtualization Center of Excellence can also look at the whiteboard to see how the whole system works, from the technologies used on the back end to some of the software that is optimized to run in the environment.

Dell officials said the company was the first to launch mobile workstations and, during the event, showed off the Precision M3800 and M4800 mobile workstations.

Paul Doczy, design director for Dell’s mobile business, talks about the process his team underwent when deciding which materials to use for the M3800.

Dell officials also demonstrated the Precision T7160 tower workstation.

The system demonstrations also showed off how the workstations can work with other vendors’ products. In this case, it was MakerBot’s Replicator 3D printing machine, which already had pumped out a pair of high heels, a toy pink elephant and a miniature replica of the Death Star from “Star Wars.”

At the event, several customers talked about what they were able to accomplish using Dell systems, including Precision workstations. One was carmaker Shelby American, which used Dell workstations to design parts for the Shelby Raptor, a customized truck that features a 575-horsepower engine and was driven from California to Texas for the event.