HP Brings Virtual Workstations to Engineers

The HP DL380z Virtual Workstation. Image courtesy of Hewlett-Packard.

Hewlett-Packard has announced the HP DL380z, a virtual workstation solution that it says provides secure, remote access to workstation-class applications from a variety of devices including thin clients, notebooks and tablets. Describing the HP DL380z Virtual Workstation as an extension of its Z Workstation line to the virtualization environment, HP says that it designed the workstation for use in compute- and graphics-intensive engineering, CAD, oil and gas exploration, digital media and government industries.

The HP DL380z comes with a choice of Intel Xeon E5-2600 v2 series of multicore processors. These processors, which are designed for data center servers and cloud solutions, offer from 6 to 12 cores, 15MB to 30 MB cache memory and clock speeds from 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz. The HP DL380z supports up to 384 GB, 1866 MHz, DDR3 memory. It uses a standard 2U, two-socket rack-mount form factor, which means that the HP DL380z can integrate into an existing data center infrastructure without additional chassis hardware, according to HP. The HP DL380z leverages many technologies field-proven with the HP Proliant DL380p Gen8 server, according to HP.

Graphics capabilities include the ability to deploy dual NVIDIA GRID K2 graphics cards and NVIDIA GRID GPU (graphics processing unit) virtualization, supporting up to eight users on a single workstation. The HP DL380z also supports professional-level NVIDIA Quadro K6000, K5000 and K4000 graphics cards.

“The HP solution will deliver dynamic, high-performance graphics that take full advantage of NVIDIA’s GRID technologies — the first virtualized GPUs designed for data center delivery of graphics applications,” said Justin Boitano, general manager, Cloud & Virtualization Solutions, NVIDIA, in a statement provided by HP. “These data center solutions will provide true workstation-class high-performance computing experiences in a virtual ecosystem made possible by GRID GPUs.”

The HP DL380z is also certified for Citrix virtualization, including HDX 3D Pro technology, which ensures high-performance remote access to graphics-intensive 3D applications, according to HP. The company adds the workstation keeps intellectual property and other data centralized and secure by transmitting encrypted pixel data over a LAN or WAN to remote users. HP reports that an IT staff can configure pass-through or virtual GPU modes, depending on usage needs. The HP DL380z also supports the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) standard for securing hardware through integrated cryptographic keys.

The HP DL380z Virtual Workstation. Image courtesy of Hewlett-Packard.

The HP DL380z supports HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) and HP Velocity software. HP Velocity, a network traffic manager, can significantly improve network performance, according to the company.

HP RGS provides remote access to graphics rich applications as well as the ability to host collaboration sessions from multiple devices and multiple operating systems including Linux. HP RGS 7, the newest release, has been enhanced with the ability “to provide true workstation productivity from a tablet while bringing intuitive touch controls to non-touch applications,” reports the company.

The HP DL380z has six expansion slots: three PCIe Gen3 x16, one PCIe Gen3 x8, one FlexLOM connector and one HDD writeback cache connector. External I/O ports include seven USB 2.0, one serial, two VGA and one SD (internal). Optional network interfaces include HP Ethernet 1 GB 4-port 366FLR adapter and HP VWS Ethernet 10 GB 2-port 560FLR-SFP+ adapter. The HP DL380z has capacity for eight hot-swappable 2.5-in. hard disk drives and one Slimline optical drive. Available SAS, SATA and SDD mass storage capacities range from 146GB to 1TB.

“As IT needs change, customers are looking to HP for a virtualized workstation solution to support centralized/secure data access, high-availability applications and demanding graphics workloads,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP, in a press statement. “The HP DL380z will provide a true workstation experience that offers end-to-end security and industry-leading ILO (Integrated Lights Out) centralized management in an industry-standard 2U form factor.”

The HP ILO Management Engine Zafarana provides refers to embedded management from initial deployment and throughout the HP DL380z’s lifecycle, including ongoing management to service alerting and remote support. Operating systems and virtualization software support for HP DL380z Virtual Workstations includes Citrix XenServer and VMware.

HP says that it plans to have the new HP DL380z Virtual Workstation available in June. Pricing details are available from HP upon request. For more information, visit HP.

Download the two-page HP DL380z Virtual Workstation datasheet.

Download the HP DL380z Virtual Workstation QuickSpecs, a comprehensive 34-page PDF.

Go here for more on HP Remote Graphics Software.

See why DE’s Editors selected the HP DL380z Virtual Workstation as their Pick of the Week.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.